One major vendor (googled for cross stitching software) offers a trialware which won’t print or save. But it would be possible to view the quality of the result, and for a hard core stitcher they could stitch off of the screen. If it’s OK then it sells for about $50. Support some geek-ettes and consider their product.
We’ve used PCStitch 7 for many portraits and had good results, It’s now up to version 10, Getting the color palette right can take some trial and error.