Client Octopus

Yes. On the Pro and Agency plans, you can accept payments on proposals and standalone invoices via either Stripe or PayPal — choose whichever gateway you prefer in Settings. Clients always see a single “Pay Now” button that routes to whichever gateway you’ve configured. The exception is a proposal set to Recurring billing — it has no direct payment option; billing happens through the recurring invoice created when the client accepts, which can itself be set to auto-charge (see “Can I set up automatic recurring invoices?” below) or paid manually each cycle.

Yes, on the Pro and Agency plans. Clients sign in to a branded portal either with an emailed magic link or with a password they set — no WordPress account is needed either way.

The portal differs by plan. On Pro, clients see their proposals, invoices and payments. On Agency it also covers projects, milestones, approvals, file downloads and messaging.

Yes. The Agency plan supports up to 10 team members, each assigned a role (Admin, Editor, or Viewer).

Yes, on all plans. Embed the lead capture form on any page with the [clientoctopus_lead_form] shortcode. You choose which fields to show and require, add a consent line, and optionally enable Cloudflare Turnstile CAPTCHA and submission rate limits to help prevent automated spam. Every submission lands in a dedicated Leads admin screen where you can track status, mark as contacted, archive, or convert a lead straight into a client record.

Yes, on the Pro and Agency plans. Add the [clientoctopus_booking_form] shortcode to any page and visitors can book a call based on your configured weekly availability, buffer time, minimum notice, and maximum booking window. Both you and the client get a confirmation email with a calendar invite, followed by a 1-hour reminder.

Yes, on the Pro and Agency plans. Connect Google Calendar, Microsoft 365/Outlook, or Apple iCloud in Settings. Once connected, existing events on that calendar automatically block matching slots in your booking availability, shown with their real event title — and every call booked through Client Octopus is pushed out as a real event (including your meeting link) on every calendar you’ve connected, so you never have to add it yourself.

No. Client Octopus licences are single-site only.

No. Client Octopus runs directly inside WordPress and doesn’t require a separate SaaS platform to work. Optional integrations — Stripe or PayPal for payments, Google Calendar, Microsoft 365, or Apple iCloud for calendar sync, AI writing tools, Cloudflare Turnstile for lead form spam protection, and Frankfurter for Analytics currency conversion — only connect when you explicitly enable and use that feature. Freemius handles licensing for the paid plans. Every one of these is described in full under External Services below.

Yes, within a monthly allowance — 100 AI requests per month on Pro, and 500 per month on Agency. There is no separate AI bill and you don’t supply your own API key; the allowance is part of the plan. Your current usage against the allowance is shown on the Plan & Usage screen.

Yes. When a client accepts a proposal, they are prompted to enter their name and confirm a checkbox in a signing modal. A signing certificate is saved to the proposal record and shown in the admin, recording who signed, when, the IP address and device they signed from, and a fingerprint of the proposal exactly as it stood at that moment — so if the proposal is edited afterwards, the certificate says so rather than silently appearing to cover the new version.

Note this is a record of acceptance, not a qualified or notarised electronic signature in the sense of eIDAS or the ESIGN Act. It is the same category of evidence most proposal tools provide.

Client Octopus is a self-hosted WordPress plugin, not a SaaS platform — your proposals, invoices, and client data are stored in your own WordPress database. Pro is $9.99/month or $89/year, and Agency is $24.99/month or $229/year, with no per-user charges and no limits on the number of clients or proposals you manage.

Yes. Standalone invoices are available on all plans. Create an invoice, assign a client, add line items with VAT and discount options, and send it directly. Free plan invoices can include your own payment instructions (e.g. bank transfer details) in the Notes field; Pro and Agency invoices can additionally show a “Pay Now” button (Stripe or PayPal, whichever is configured) on the client’s invoice page.

Twenty: British Pound, US Dollar, Euro, Canadian Dollar, Australian Dollar, Japanese Yen, Swiss Franc, New Zealand Dollar, Swedish Krona, Norwegian Krone, Danish Krone, Singapore Dollar, Hong Kong Dollar, Indian Rupee, Polish Zloty, Czech Koruna, Brazilian Real, Mexican Peso, South African Rand and South Korean Won. Set a Default Currency in Settings and new proposals and invoices open in it; you can still change the currency on any individual record. Analytics converts all of them into one reporting currency using daily exchange rates.

Partly. All emails, the settings and plan screens, and the public booking and lead capture forms use translatable text, and a translation template (.pot) ships with the plugin. The React-based admin screens, the client portal and the client-facing proposal view are not yet translatable — their text is prepared for translation but the catalogues do not load, so they still display in English.

Yes. Reminder emails and testimonial requests carry an unsubscribe link, and a preference page where the client can switch each type on or off. Essential emails are never affected — proposals, invoices, payment receipts, booking confirmations and portal sign-in links always send, because they concern work already agreed.

Use WordPress’s own Tools → Export/Erase Personal Data and search by the person’s email address. Client Octopus covers client records, leads, booked calls, proposal signatures, project messages and approval comments. See the Privacy section below for exactly what an erasure deletes and what it keeps.

Yes, on all plans. Create a recurring invoice profile for a client, choose weekly, monthly, quarterly, or yearly billing, and Client Octopus automatically generates and sends a fresh invoice each cycle. By default the client pays each one manually via the same Pay Now flow as any other invoice. You can also mark a proposal itself as Recurring — accepting it automatically creates the recurring profile for you, with no manual setup.

On the Pro and Agency plans, you can additionally turn on auto-charge for a profile: the client’s first invoice is still paid manually (which securely saves their Stripe or PayPal payment method), and every invoice after that is charged automatically with no action needed from the client. If a charge is declined, both you and the client are notified and it’s retried a few times before the profile pauses itself so you can follow up.