Choose Dubsado if…
- You enjoy building your own forms, workflows, and automation logic — and want maximal control over every step
- Your business runs on intake forms and questionnaires (Dubsado's form builder is a real strength)
- You've already invested the setup weeks and it's humming — switching costs are real
Choose North if…
- You'd rather describe the project than configure a workflow — drafting is the product, not a template you fill
- Pricing is the hard part: you want defensible, value-anchored options generated from the actual conversation
- You want zero setup before the first real proposal goes out
- You want the AI watching the deal (viewed, signed, paid, overdue) and drafting next steps you approve
Dubsado pricing, verified
| Plan | Price | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Starter | $335/yr | verified annual figure |
| Premier | $525/yr | verified annual figure |
| Add-ons | extra brand $10/mo · extra users $25–60/mo | — |
Dubsado annual figures verified from its official pricing as of mid-2026; monthly pricing isn't quoted here because we couldn't verify it — check their site. North: Free ($0 — clients, projects, contracts with e-signing, invoices, full export, and 3 AI proposals a month, uncapped during the open beta) and Pro ($20/month for unlimited AI proposals; subscribe during the beta and $20 stays your price). When a client pays an invoice by card, the money moves through the freelancer's own Stripe account — North takes no cut.
Setup cost is the real fork
Dubsado's power is real and so is its famous learning curve — it's a system you build, and detail-oriented creatives who invest the setup get a tailored machine. North starts from the other end: the first useful output (a scoped, priced proposal from your notes) happens in the first session, because the intelligence is in the drafting, not in workflow configuration you author. Neither is wrong; they're for different temperaments.
Templates versus understanding
Dubsado fills your templates with variables. North reads the meeting — the goals, the constraints, the value signals in your notes — and drafts a proposal with pricing options reasoned from that specific deal, math shown. You edit and send; nothing goes to a client without you. If your projects are genuinely identical every time, templates are efficient. If every deal is a little different, understanding beats mail-merge.
Where each is honestly thin
North has no intake forms, no scheduler, no configurable automation canvas, and it's young — Dubsado has years of edge-case maturity. Dubsado has no AI drafting, no value-based pricing help, and its depth is the same thing as its overhead. Weigh what your week actually contains.
Common questions
- Is North easier to set up than Dubsado?
- That's the design bet, yes. Dubsado rewards significant up-front configuration (its customization is the point); North produces its first real output — a scoped, priced proposal from your meeting notes — with no setup beyond signing up.
- Which is cheaper, North or Dubsado?
- As of mid-2026, Dubsado's verified annual pricing is $335/year (Starter) or $525/year (Premier). North is free (3 AI proposals/month, uncapped during the beta) or $240/year at $20/month for unlimited — with no cut taken on invoice payments either way.
- Can North do Dubsado-style workflows?
- No — North has no user-built automation canvas, deliberately. It watches your deals and drafts next steps (follow-ups, invoices, reminders) for you to approve; it never auto-sends anything to a client. If trigger-based client-facing automation is what you want, Dubsado is the better fit.