By Lee, founder of leodesign
Short answer: Leostu fits independent designers and small studios who send a contract and an invoice for each project, take a deposit, and then have to collect the balance, especially if clients pay by bank transfer or a local QR wallet such as WeChat Pay, Alipay, DuitNow or PayNow. It does not fit you if you need a team workspace, card payments processed for you, a proposal and CRM pipeline, time tracking or tax filing. The free plan allows 3 active orders at a time; Pro removes that limit.
I built Leostu for my own brand and packaging work, so it is deliberately narrow. This page lists what it does, what it doesn't, and where the paywall sits, so you can rule it out quickly if it isn't for you. Everything here was checked against the live site on 3 Nov 2026.
Leostu is a good fit if you
- Work alone or in a very small studio and quote per project rather than per hour.
- Take a deposit and chase a balance. You pick 30, 40, 50 or 60% (or pay in full) on each order, and Leostu tracks the deposit and the balance separately. Delivered-but-unpaid work goes on a "who owes you" list, sorted by the biggest balance.
- Send work over chat apps. You send the client one link and an access code by WhatsApp, WeChat or email. The client reads the contract and signs by hand on their phone. They don't create an account or install anything.
- Get paid locally. The invoice shows your own payment details and QR codes: bank, WeChat Pay, Alipay, DuitNow, PayNow, PayPal and a few more. The client pays you directly.
- Need English and Chinese. The same order can be issued as an English or a Chinese contract, and RMB documents show the amount in Chinese words.
- Bill in more than one currency. Each order can use one of 14 currencies. Stats never convert and add different currencies together; they list them separately.
- Hate writing reminder messages. Leostu gives you a pre-written reminder for the deposit, the balance or a thank-you, polite or direct, with the link, access code and the number of days since delivery. You copy it and send it yourself.
Leostu is not the right tool if you
- Need a team workspace. There are no multi-user accounts, roles or shared pipelines. Bonsai, HoneyBook and Moxie all offer team plans.
- Want card payments processed for you. Leostu never touches project money, so it can't take a card payment, run autopay or add late fees automatically. If your clients expect to pay by card online, use a tool with built-in payments or a processor such as Stripe or HitPay alongside.
- Sell with proposals and a lead pipeline. There are no proposals, lead forms, scheduler or CRM stages.
- Bill by the hour. There is no time tracker; orders are line items and totals.
- Need tax or e-invoicing compliance. Leostu does not file taxes or submit e-invoices to a tax authority (for example Malaysia's MyInvois). Use your accounting software for that.
- Need a certified e-signature. Leostu records the signer's name, hand-drawn signature, time, IP address and a fingerprint of the contract, and flags if the contract changes after signing. That is a signing record, not a CA-certified e-signature. Its legal weight depends on your jurisdiction. For high-value contracts, consider a dedicated e-signature service too. This is not legal advice.
- Want reminders sent automatically. Reminders are written for you, but you send them. Some designers prefer that because automatic chasers can annoy clients; if you want fully automatic dunning, Leostu won't do it.
What the free plan includes and limits
As listed on leostu.com on 3 Nov 2026:
- Free, no time limit: contracts, invoices, online signing, the 5 document styles, and English and Chinese documents.
- The limit: up to 3 active orders at a time. An order is active while it is in progress or delivered but unpaid. Orders that are fully paid stop counting, so a steady flow of small jobs can stay free as long as clients pay.
- Also on Free: a small "Made with Leostu" line on documents, and no agent (MCP) or API access.
What costs money
- Pro: $3.75/month, billed yearly at $45 ($5 month to month). Unlimited active orders, no Leostu line on documents, and an MCP / REST API token for AI agents. There is a 14-day Pro trial with no card; when it ends you move back to Free.
- AI plan: $9/month, billed yearly at $108. Everything in Pro plus Leo, the AI assistant, which turns a client chat screenshot into a draft order and answers "who still owes me?". It includes 600 messages a month, reset on the 1st; the trial includes 30. Nothing is saved until you confirm, and AI can misread amounts or dates, so check them.
- How to pay: card on auto-renew, or a one-off month or year with Alipay or WeChat Pay, which never renews. Prices can also be shown in HKD, CNY, MYR and SGD.
Data and privacy, briefly
Client links need an access code and lock after repeated wrong tries. You can export every order to CSV at any time, and deleting your account deletes your data. If you use Leo, the text and images you send to it, plus the order details that request needs, go to a third-party AI provider, possibly outside your country; signatures, access codes and passwords are never sent. If you don't use Leo, nothing is sent.
Still not sure?
Try the free tools first; they run in your browser with no sign-up: the design contract generator, the designer invoice generator and the payment reminder generator. If you are comparing tools, see Leostu vs Bonsai and HoneyBook alternatives for designers. Pricing is on the home page.