A long-time contractor reported a monthly price hike from $13.32 to $133.98 for the time-tracking and invoicing service Harvest following its 2025 acquisition by Bending Spoons. This shift marks a move away from the platform's identity as a simple, affordable tool for small-business owners toward a more aggressive 'enterprise' billing structure.
Shift to Enterprise Billing
Harvest originally gained popularity by solving a well-defined problem: tracking project hours and generating invoices with a simple interface. It was designed to avoid 'scope creep' by remaining a focused tool rather than expanding into a full accounting platform.
Since the 2025 acquisition by Bending Spoons, the company has moved users toward an 'enterprise' plan. This new model utilizes an 'unlimited' usage billing structure that significantly increases the monthly cost for individual contractors.
“They managed to avoid scope creep and never tried to become an accounting platform, or a blockchain for washing machines.”
— RIP, Harvest
Transaction Fees and Support Automation
The updated pricing also introduces a 'flex' plan. While it offers a lower monthly base, it skims an additional 2% on top of the standard ~3% credit card transaction fees, which typically cover network costs and fraud protection.
In addition to the price changes, the company has automated its customer communication. Users reported that instead of human-reviewed emails, the system now provides repetitive, high-volume responses generated by a Large Language Model.
User Impact and Trade-offs
The transition has prompted many freelancers to seek alternative invoicing services. For these users, the trade-off of a specialized tool now comes with a 'flat tax' on earnings through higher fees and reduced human support.
The shift reflects a broader trend where acquired products are restructured to prioritize higher margins over the original user experience, potentially alienating the core user base that valued the service's simplicity.
What Hacker News readers are saying
- Experience: One commenter who has used Harvest for over a decade shared that the service shifted to a pricing model based on gross earnings, which they described as a flat tax on their income. comment ↗
- Skeptical: A commenter pointed out a discrepancy between the article's reported price hike and the pricing listed on the official website, suggesting the figures might be inaccurate. comment ↗
- Alternative: Several commenters suggested alternatives, including using Mercury bank for invoicing or using AI tools to build custom, self-hosted software to replace paid services. comment ↗
- Experience: One user noted that the parent company has a history of similar pricing shifts with other products like Evernote. comment ↗
Summarized opinions from the Hacker News thread, not verified facts. Read the full discussion ↗