HoneyBook Pricing & Plans: Is HoneyBook Worth It in 2024?

HoneyBook offers an all-in-one client management solution with three flexible pricing tiers:

1. Starter: $16/month (annual billing) or $19/month (monthly billing) 
2. Essentials: $32/month (annual billing) or $39/month (monthly billing)
3. Premium: $66/month (annual billing) or $79/month (monthly billing) 

The Starter plan includes core features like unlimited clients/projects, invoicing, contracts, calendars, templates, client portals, and basic reports.

The Essentials plan adds scheduling, automation, QuickBooks integration, expense management, profit/loss reporting, and the ability to remove HoneyBook branding.

The Premium plan offers unlimited team members, priority support, management of multiple companies, an onboarding specialist, and advanced reporting capabilities.

However, there’s more to these plans. In the following sections, we’ll explore the details of HoneyBook’s comprehensive pricing structure and the features included in each tier offer. It’ll help you choose the plan that perfectly fits your business needs and growth goals.

Key Takeaways

• HoneyBook offers three pricing plans: Starter (Best for freelancers and solopreneurs), Essentials (Best for growing teams), and Premium (Best for larger businesses and agencies).
• HoneyBook is generally worth the price for its comprehensive suite of client management features, such as a scheduler, priority support, automations, and integrations.
• There are other alternatives like Agency Hand which is best for digital and marketing agencies; Dubsado which is best for customization; UseQueue which is best for big agencies. You can explore which software meets your needs the best and choose accordingly. 

What is HoneyBook?

HoneyBook is an all-in-one clientflow platform designed to help small businesses and independent professionals streamline their operations, from lead management and client communication to invoicing, payment processing, and project management.

HoneyBook’s primary purpose is to simplify and centralize the entire client lifecycle, providing a seamless experience for service providers and their clients.

With HoneyBook, you can manage inquiries, send professional invoices and contracts, accept online payments securely, schedule appointments, automate workflows, and track projects from start to finish, all within a single platform. 

The software offers branded client portals, customizable templates, online scheduling tools, automated follow-ups, and integration with popular payment gateways.

Moreover, HoneyBook also offers seamless integration with tools like QuickBooks, Zapier, and so on. As a result, the process becomes efficient and easier to continue. 

How Much Does HoneyBook Cost?

HoneyBook CRM offers 3 tiers of pricing plans, as we’ve already mentioned. Here’s a brief comparison of the 3 pricing plans of HoneyBook so that you can get started quickly:

How is HoneyBook’s Cost Calculated?

HoneyBook’s pricing is based on a straightforward monthly or yearly subscription fee for each plan tier, without any hidden usage-based charges or credit systems.

The key factors that impact the final cost include:

• Contract Length: You’ll get a 30% discount for the first year. After that, you pay the regular monthly price.
• Number of Team Members Needed: The Essentials plan includes up to 2 team members, while the Premium plan offers unlimited team member access.
• Custom Features/Add-ons: While the base pricing doesn’t cover custom features or add-ons that might raise the cost, it’s something to consider based on your needs.
• Integrations: The Starter Plan only works with email and calendars. In contrast, the Essential and Premium Plans can integrate with more tools, like QuickBooks, Zapier, Zoom, Calendly, and Meta Ads.

HoneyBook Pricing Plans in Detail

In this section, we’ll go into detailed breakdown of each pricing plan. This should clear all your doubts about whether HoneyBook is a good call or not.

HoneyBook Starter Plan

The HoneyBook Starter Plan is perfect for freelancers, solopreneurs, or small business owners who need to manage their clients effectively. It’s designed as an entry-level plan for 1 user with comprehensive tools. There’ll be no team members or roles and permissions.

For just $16/month (Billed annually) and $19/month (Billed monthly), this plan gives you all the essential tools to handle everything from your first client inquiry to project management, invoicing, and getting paid.

With the Starter Plan, you can create professional proposals and contracts, making sure everything is clear right from the start of any client relationship. The plan includes a built-in calendar and a client portal, which keeps your client communications smooth and collaborations effective. 

Plus, it allows an unlimited number of clients and projects, so you can grow without worrying about extra costs. That way, you don’t have to worry about storage. It’s a great way to simplify your billing process, too, via Cards and ACH payments, helping you get paid faster and more efficiently.

And don’t forget, you can use HoneyBook free for 7 days before you decide to subscribe, ensuring it’s the right fit for you.

Features of the Starter Plan

• Unlimited Clients and Projects: You can keep your workflow organized by creating dedicated workspaces for different clients, projects, services, order management, and other crucial aspects of your operations. 
• Invoices and Payments: Set up invoices that automatically repeat on your chosen schedule. These recurring invoices can be paid using credit/debit cards or directly from your bank account (ACH).
• Proposals and Contracts: Send files that allow your clients to sign documents electronically and pay online, all within the same interactive file. 
• Calendar: Connect your calendar to HoneyBook to automatically add scheduled appointments, meetings, and project deadlines. 
• All Professional Templates: Use pre-made, professional design templates that you can customize for any step in your client interactions, from initial inquiries to final deliverables.
• Client Portal: Your clients can access their project portal to send files, make payments, send messages, and complete other tasks related to their projects with you. 
• Basic Reports: View reports that display your business data, such as new leads, bookings/appointments, and sales numbers, in a visually easy-to-understand format.
• Up to 1 Scheduler session: Set your availability and let clients book free or paid sessions according to when you’re available.

Pros of the Starter Plan

• The Starter Plan is affordable for you especially if you are a solopreneur or running a small business.
• You can manage an unlimited number of clients and projects without additional costs.
• Get access to professional templates to help maintain a polished brand image and save time. 
• Track and analyze essential business metrics with Basic reporting capabilities. 

Drawbacks of the Starter Plan

• Lacks features like a Scheduler and Automation. 
• No QuickBooks, Zapier, or Zoom integration.
• Limited to a single user only. No team members are allowed.

HoneyBook Essential Plan

The Essential Plan is ideal for growing businesses, small teams, or agencies that need more advanced team collaboration, automation, and reporting features than what the entry-level Starter Plan offers.

With pricing set at $32 when billed annually and $39 monthly, this plan gives you all the tools you need to scale your operations and improve productivity through automation.

Unlike the Starter Plan, which is limited to just one user, the Essential Plan supports up to 2 team members. This is great if you work with multiple employees or contractors involved in managing clients or executing projects.

Expanding on the Starter Plan, the Essential Plan includes scheduling, automation, and integrations to help you streamline your workflows and processes more effectively.

It also integrates with QuickBooks Online, the popular accounting software, allowing for seamless synchronization of your financial data. This makes it much easier to manage invoices, expenses, and overall financial reporting.

Overall, if you’ve outgrown the basic features of the Starter Plan, the HoneyBook Essential Plan is a fantastic choice to support your business’s continued growth.

Features of the Essential Plan

Everything in the Starter plan, plus:

• Scheduler: Set your available times so clients can book free or paid appointments. 
• Automation: Send files, messages, and more to streamline your work processes.
• QuickBooks Online integration: Automatically sync payments made through HoneyBook to your QuickBooks account. 
• Up to 2 Team Members: You can add 1 other team member and set what access permissions they have.  
• Expense Management: See expenses broken down by individual project or overall.
• Profit and Loss: Calculate your profits by seeing total income versus total costs. 
• Remove ‘Powered By HoneyBook’: Remove the ‘Powered by HoneyBook’ label from your emails, contact forms, and client portals for a custom branded look.
• Standard Reports: Get detailed reports on your projects and which clients booked projects. 

Pros of the Essential Plan

• This makes project management easier with tools like scheduler and QuickBooks Integrations.
• You can establish your own brand by removing HoneyBooks branding.
• The profit/loss calculator helps you to keep track of your income. 

Drawback of the Essential Plan 

• Limited to only 2 team members
• No priority support or onboarding assistance

HoneyBook Premium Plan 

The HoneyBook Premium Plan is designed for larger businesses, agencies, or teams that need advanced features, dedicated support, and the ability to handle multiple companies or brands from one platform.

HoneyBook costs $46.40 per month when billed annually and $79 per month when billed monthly. This plan supports an unlimited number of team members. It’s an ideal choice for larger organizations or agencies with a growing workforce

Plus, you can add as many users as you need without extra costs per user.

What’s more interesting is the onboarding specialist. Within the first 90 days, an expert will guide you from A to Z of onboarding to set up and optimize your account for success. 

If you need emergency help, you’ll get priority access to HoneyBook’s support team. There are dedicated channels to them directly through email or chat, so they can fix any problems or answer your questions quickly. It’s especially helpful if your business deals with tight deadlines or has complicated needs.

Plus, while the Premium plan already offers comprehensive features, HoneyBook has also promised to add an advanced reporting feature to get more actionable insights.

Overall, the Premium Plan is perfect for bigger companies, agencies, or teams that need all the bells and whistles, like priority support and managing multiple brands.

Features of the Premium Plan

Includes everything in the Essentials feature and:

• Unlimited Team Members: Need a bigger team? No problem! Add as many people as you need and control what they can access in HoneyBook.
• Priority Support: Whenever you need help, get priority assistance via email or chat support. You’ll get quicker responses and specialized attention, helping you resolve issues faster.
• Multiple Companies: Use one login to manage all your different businesses/companies in one place.
• Onboarding Specialist: Work one-on-one with a specialist for your first 90 days to ensure you are set up properly.  
• Advanced Reports (coming soon): Look forward to gaining valuable insights with detailed reports about your team members and clients.

Pros of the Premium Plan

• With an unlimited number of team members, you can easily scale your business.
• Prompt assistance for critical issues because of the priority support.
• The dedicated onboarding specialist helps to streamline setup and training.

Drawbacks of the Premium Plan

• Significantly higher costs would not be ideal for solopreneurs or smaller teams.
• Premium doesn’t offer the option to pick and choose specific features you need. It’s an all-or-nothing package.

Does HoneyBook Offer a Free Trial?

Yes, HoneyBook offers a free trial of 7 days.

The 7-day free HoneyBook trial offers full, unrestricted access to all the features and capabilities in their entry-level Starter plan. It allows you create a HoneyBook account and thoroughly test-drive the platform before purchasing a paid subscription.

During the free-trial period, you can:

• Create unlimited client profiles and projects
• Send invoices and accept online payments
• Draft and send proposals and contracts
• Utilize the calendar and scheduling tools
• Access all of HoneyBook’s professional template library 
• Set up and test the client portal
• Generate basic reports on your business data 

Basically, the free trial lets you try HoneyBook if it can handle everything you need to run your independent business smoothly. It’s a great way to test it before committing to a paid plan.

Is HoneyBook Worth The Price?

Yes, HoneyBook is worth it for the features it offers to its clients. HoneyBook has established itself as a comprehensive client management solution, and its pricing structure aligns with its offerings. 

As of right now, you know that HoneyBook offers three different pricing and plans.

HoneyBook’s Starter Plan is specifically designed for small businesses and freelancers, offering features like unlimited clients and projects, convincing payments, proposals, contracts and a client portal. 

As the business grows, the Essentials and Premium plans provide additional features for team collaboration like scheduler, automation, and integrations. This ensures that HoneyBook can scale with the business’s needs. 

However, HoneyBook also comes with some difficulties and drawbacks. For instance, the setup and navigation of the whole portal isn’t smooth. Like when you send a contract over they allow the client to proceed to payment before all signatures are on the contract. 

However, HoneyBook charges a small fee to process your credit card payments including Visa, Mastercard, Discover, and Amex. It starts at just 2.9% plus 25 cents per transaction. No hidden fees, no international charges, and no extra cost for those fancy cards.

If you process a $200 payment and the processing fee is 2.9% plus 25 cents, you’ll be charged a total of $6.05.

Here’s the breakdown:

• 2.9% of $200 is $5.80.
• Adding the 25 cent flat fee, the total fee is $5.80 + $0.25 = $6.05.

And you can go for ACH bank transfers and pay a lower fee of 1.5%. Nice!

But how long does it take to get paid?

It depends on how your client pays and where you sent the invoice.

• Quickest payments come from credit cards (Visa, Mastercard, etc.) paid directly through your invoice. You’ll usually see that money in 2-3 business days.
• Bank transfers take a bit longer, around 7-8 business days to hit your account.
• Lead forms are a different story. No matter how your client pays, it can take 5-7 business days to process.

Top 3 HoneyBook Alternatives You Should Know

HoneyBook is an all-in-one client management platform. However, it can be a bit expensive for small businesses and solopreneurs. So, you can go for other alternatives like Agency Handy, Dubsado, and UseQueue. 

Here’s a quick comparison table that contrasts the key differentiations of the software.

This was a brief comparison of all HoneyBook alternatives. However, a more detailed comparison will help you decide which is better suited for your needs.

HoneyBook vs Agency Handy

When it comes to client management and agency operation solutions HoneyBook and Agency Handy both offer a range of features. Choosing the right one depends on the size and structure of your organization. 

Freelancers and small businesses will likely find HoneyBook to be a perfect fit. HoneyBook shines with its comprehensive client management features. 

From creating profiles and managing projects to sending proposals and contracts, HoneyBook helps you keep everything organized. It also provides automation features that streamline workflows, saving you valuable time. HoneyBook’s pricing plans are also scalable, so you can choose a plan that fits your budget. 

Most importantly, HoneyBook’s user-friendly design makes it perfect for solopreneurs and smaller teams who may not have the resources for complex software.

On the other hand, Agency Handy is customized for digital agencies with small to larger teams and any type of project. Agency Handy offers features that are specifically designed to improve team and client collaboration, and, eventually, communication.

For instance, Agency Handy provides customized workspaces for different projects and teams. This keeps everything organized and ensures everyone is on the same page. 

It also offers service catalogs to simplify client onboarding and advanced collaboration tools, including built-in task management, file sharing, and Kanban boards. These features allow your team to work together seamlessly on projects, regardless of location and time.

Additionally, Agency Handy provides granular access controls, allowing you to manage team roles and client permissions with precision. This ensures that sensitive information is always protected.

HoneyBook vs Dubsado

When comparing HoneyBook and Dubsado, each platform offers distinct advantages depending on your business needs. 

HoneyBook features a scalable three-tier pricing model, which is ideal if you need flexibility as your business grows. This model allows you to choose a plan that matches your current needs and scale up as necessary.

On the other hand, Dubsado offers more robust project management tools, including automation and scheduling, which are essential for streamlining operations. 

Dubsado is also more affordable than HoneyBook, making it an attractive choice for smaller businesses or solopreneurs. Its Starter plan costs $20 per month when billed annually and offers essential client management tools. This is perfect if you don’t need advanced features or team collaboration.

However, Dubsado’s pricing structure is less flexible. It has only two options—Starter and Premier. This can be a limitation if your business needs to scale up to manage larger teams or multiple companies.

In contrast, HoneyBook’s broader range of plans offers more options to support various business sizes and needs.

Note: If you’re looking for a detailed discussion on this, check out our article on HoneyBook vs Dubsado.

HoneyBook vs UseQueue

To begin with, HoneyBook is a great fit if you’re focused on client management, project execution, and delivering a professional client experience. It’s especially tailored to businesses and freelancers who need a flexible and comprehensive system.

On the other hand, UseQueue is designed with productized services and agencies in mind. Its features are excellent for managing client projects, feedback, and collaboration. 

However, UseQueue’s pricing structure may not be as suitable for small businesses or freelancers due to its focus on larger agencies. UseQueue excels in streamlining operations and enhancing client interactions for agencies that offer productized services.

So, if you run a larger agency with productized services, UseQueue could be the perfect choice for you. But if you’re a small business or freelancer, HoneyBook’s features and pricing might better suit your needs and budget, making it the best choice for you.

Final Thoughts

To sum up, HoneyBook is a great choice if you’re looking to improve how you manage clients, build your professional image, and optimize how your business runs. 

With its range of pricing options and features, it’s flexible enough to fit businesses of all sizes and types. So, whether you’re just starting out or expanding, HoneyBook can adapt to your needs and help you work more efficiently.

Lastly, don’t forget to check out the alternatives!

FAQs

Is HoneyBook right for you?

HoneyBook is a great choice for various types of businesses, especially those in the service industry or creative fields. It provides a comprehensive set of tools for managing client relationships, projects, invoicing, and payments.

Does HoneyBook offer discounts?

Yes, HoneyBook is currently offering a 30% discount on all plans for the first year when billed annually. This discount is automatically applied at checkout with the annual payment option.

Is HoneyBook free?

No, and HoneyBook doesn’t have a free plan, but it does offer a 7-day free trial of the Starter plan, with no credit card required. This lets you test all its features before committing.

Is HoneyBook good for small business?

HoneyBook isn’t suitable for small businesses due to the number of users. The Starter plan ($16/month) is affordable for solo users since it’s limited to 1 user, while the Essentials ($32/month) and Premium ($66/month) plans are geared more towards small to larger teams. Smaller operations might find these options less cost-effective and should consider more budget-friendly alternatives like Agency Handy.