Ledgerly
Goal: more free-trial sign-ups
Bookkeeping software that admits your books are messy. The page’s job: get a freelancer to start a trial before they talk themselves out of it.
- Brief
- Self-initiated concept
- Sector
- SaaS for freelancers
- Scope
- Landing page, pricing, sign-up
- Role
- Design and build, solo
- Year
- 2026
Photography
Product shots
Product imagery shows the app where freelancers actually use it: on a laptop, between a coffee and a to-do list. Clean light, real screens, no floating devices.
The brief
The brief
Ledgerly is a made-up bookkeeping app for freelancers: invoices, receipts and tax set-aside in one place. The brief I set myself: a landing page that gets a freelancer to start a free trial today — not “when things calm down”.
The problem
The problem
Finance software sells calm. A freelancer’s books are anything but.
Most bookkeeping sites show a spotless dashboard and the word “effortless”. Freelancers don’t recognise themselves in that screenshot, so they leave to sort things out “later” — which usually means the week tax is due.
My approach
Three moves
Show the mess, then the fix.
The hero dashboard has a late invoice and a missing receipt, with “Start free” right beside it. Recognition first, promise second.
Price on the first screen.
Three plans sit under the headline, including a free one. Nobody starts a trial while wondering what it costs afterwards.
Sign up with one field.
Email first, everything else later. The trial starts before the form has a chance to get long.
Design decisions
Style tile
One typeface, one blue, lots of white. Amber is reserved for things that need attention — late invoices and missing receipts — so it always means “look here”.
Type1 family
Plex is engineered and plain — it reads like a tool, not a lifestyle brand. That’s the point.
Colour4 tokens
Layout12 col · landing
Components4 of 16
Start free — no card neededDesktop and mobile
Pricing and sign-up
The pricing page answers “what happens after the trial?” in one glance. On a phone, sign-up is a single field — the account fills in the rest later.
On a phone
Start first. Set up later.
- Email only — the account starts on the free plan.
- First screen asks for one invoice, not a profile.
- The tax pot fills itself from that first invoice.
What it’s meant to do
The goals
- Get a freelancer from landing page to trial in under a minute. A target, not a measurement.
- Answer “what does it cost after the trial?” before anyone has to ask.
- Make the free plan genuinely useful, so the trial never feels like a trap.
- Stay fast and readable on a phone, between client calls.
No results numbers here, because nobody has signed up for Ledgerly. It’s a concept. When a real client’s site goes live, this section gets real results — or an honest note about why not.
Designer’s note
The hero dashboard shows a messy month, with “Start free” right beside it. Freelancers recognise their own books — and sign up to fix them.
— Fredrick Dishant