HoneyBook Pricing Review & More

When you started your creative business, whether that be photography, wedding planning, graphic design, or countless others, you probably thought that most of your time would be spent creating, doing the thing that makes you happy.

Little did you know that a majority of your time would be spent trying to keep on top of your workflow! So much of being a creative business – and even more so in the wedding industry – involves the time taking bookings, contracts, project management, invoices, and collecting payments.

Taking advantage of business management and wedding planning software, such as HoneyBook, really helps you to streamline these parts of your business so you can spend more time doing the fun bit!

Stop scanning through HoneyBook reviews, as this is the ultimate review for HoneyBook so you can decide if it’s right for you and your business.

What is HoneyBook?

HoneyBook is an all-in-one tool that helps any creative business run their business. Instead of using various pieces of stapled together software, with a Google Sheet here, a CRM over there, invoices and proposals in two different places, HoneyBook puts it all in one place so you can streamline your business processes.

Their tools organize all of those tedious, but necessary, tasks to save you the time you could be using to work on expanding your business. (And, let’s be honest, none of us have enough hours in the day, do we?)

Honeybook even provides users with a mobile application for iOS and Android to allow projects and clients to be managed on the go, no matter where you are, from your tablet or smartphone.

What Features Does HoneyBook Offer?

We’ll take a closer look at the features HoneyBook offers in the Deep Dive section below, but here are the features you HoneyBook offers:

Accounting

• Make and send invoices
• Invoice templates
• Design and send proposals
• Request and take online payments (pay via credit card or bank transfer)
• Automatic payment reminders
• Create payment schedules
• Bookkeeping (including Quickbooks integration)

Bookings & Time Management

• Automatic updates when a client views a proposal, signs a contract, or makes a payment
• Use and create templates to save time
• Allow clients to schedule a meeting from your predetermined availability
• Meet in person, via video chat, a phone call, or other
• Set time buffers between booked meetings so you’re never suddenly booked back-to-back
• Custom meeting confirmations
• Custom meeting reminders
• Sync your meetings with Google calendar

Leads & Customer Management

• Build and send contact forms
• A client portal
• Easily create agreements and contracts
• Set up to-do lists for each project

Marketing

• Build and send contact forms
• Incorporate your branding into everything your send to clients
• Template library
• Trigger workflows such as sending files and emails once a client approves
• Automate follow up emails and meeting requests
• Automate thank you messages

As you can hopefully now see, HoneyBook has the potential for being the answer to your client management woes, and is especially suitable for the wedding industry which can get so hectic in the summer months, as you try to juggle the current wedding season and bookings for years to come.

Is HoneyBook a CRM?

Yes! HoneyBook is a cloud-based customer relationship management (CRM) solution geared toward small businesses. If you’ve been stuck using free versions of CRMs geared toward corporations, HoneyBook could be the answer.

Like other CRMs, HoneyBook offers extensive features, but it’s geared toward service-based small creative businesses that are constantly on the go. That means that you don’t have to worry about navigating past numerous features you’ll never use, nor worry about being at your computer when you respond to inquiries.

HoneyBook allows you to plan and track every step of the customer journey to ensure you convert every perfect customer.

How much does HoneyBook cost?

HoneyBook, like most other wedding planning software, is subscription-based, which makes it affordable to try and just as affordable to continue using, whether your business is your full-time gig or just a side hustle.

HoneyBook costs $40 a month, or $400 a year ($80 off).

Does HoneyBook Offer a Free Trial?

They also offer a free trial with no credit card required, so you can try it before you subscribe.

Does HoneyBook Offer a Guarantee?

If you subscribe you are given a 60-day money back guarantee from the day you buy your subscription.

HoneyBook Pricing Options

HoneyBook only offers one subscription plan, with two different pricing options: monthly or yearly.

However you choose to pay for your subscription, your plan will include unlimited numbers of projects, clients, and team members so you will never have to pay extra for adding new ones.

Your plan includes:

• Account setup
• Free training
• Concierge support and Help Center
• Full customization of all resources with your own branding
• Customized workflows
• Weekly product webinars
• Built-in payment processor
• Unlimited HoneyBook templates
• Automated workflow and emails
• Business administration tools
• Mobile App
• Fraud protection

How much is HoneyBook per year?

If you want to subscribe to HoneyBook for the entire year, this will incur a cost of $400. Although this sounds like a lot, it works out to $34 per month, which means a saving of $80 for the year.

How long is the HoneyBook free trial?

As mentioned above, each subscription starts with a free trial so you can determine whether HoneyBook is going to work for you and your business. This free trial lasts for 7 days with all HoneyBook features available to you, including a product specialist who can answer any questions you may have and help you to understand whether this CRM will be the right fit.

HoneyBook Promo Codes

Looking for a HoneyBook promo code? We’ve got you covered. You can get a full 20% off an annual subscription after your 7-day free trail with our link. That’s almost a full $100 saving!

Simply claim your special 20% off HoneyBook offer from Weddings To The Wire here:

What is HoneyBook used for?

Many small businesses and freelancers find that HoneyBook helps them to effectively book clients, keep on top of their tasks, and increase the efficiency of their business. The team at HoneyBook has specifically designed their software to be used by creative professional individuals, all the way up to small businesses of 50 team members.

Popular users include, but are not limited to:

• Bakers
• Business coaches
• Calligraphers
• Caterers
• Consultants
• Copywriters
• Event planners
• Florists
• Graphic designers
• Health & Wellness professionals
• Interior designers
• Photographers
• Travel professionals
• Videographers
• Web designers
• Wedding planners
• Wedding attire designers and fitters
• Wedding jewelry designers
• Custom wedding gifts

Who is HoneyBook NOT for?

If you sell off-the-shelf products (such as silicone wedding bands) in physical or digital form, HoneyBook isn’t going to be necessary to manage your business.

How do you use HoneyBook?

The best way to use HoneyBook is to either start using it as you found your business or side hustle, or use it to replace your current systems.

Most of us make do with self-made systems or various pieces of software to help us run our businesses, and it’s only once it becomes overwhelming that we start searching for HoneyBook reviews and other possible solutions.

While it can be daunting to transfer your systems to a new all-in-one, the work at the beginning will be well worth all the time you gain back later.

HoneyBook boasts that their customers gain 80% more creative time because HoneyBook has streamlined all their processes.

HoneyBook offers a wide range of features included in their membership, a full list of which we mentioned at the beginning of this article, but here are our picks for the top 5 HoneyBook features you need to know about.

Top 5 Features of HoneyBook

Pros

• User friendly and visually appealing
• Task reminders
• Automated emails
• Pipeline
• Customizable workflows
• Manages payments
• Personal concierge to help you use HoneyBook to its full potential (and customers report that the customer service team are great)
  Stores client and vendor information
• Integration options, e.g. QuickBooks, Zapier, GSuite, and Calendly
• Referral program – you are rewarded for bringing in new members
• HoneyBook is updated with new features regularly
• The app allows you to respond to new inquiries quickly
• Affordable – simple pricing with free trial
• Helps you be more consistent with invoicing and chasing payments, which improves cashflow
• Templates make invoicing, agreements, and contracts fast and easy to create and send
• Many HoneyBook users have reported a 20-25% increase in bookings soon after they made the switch because it makes it easy for clients to hire them
• Saves your sanity during busy seasons when you simply don’t have time after long weekends out at weddings to respond to mountains of emails or get meetings booked in

Cons

• So many features that it can be overwhelming to move over workflows or set them up for the first time
• Only one plan is offered, although with two pricing options
• Unless integrated with QuickBooks, it does not track expenses automatically
• Client data cannot be exported from HoneyBook
• Questionnaires cannot be integrated with other platforms
• Team collaboration is relatively weak
• The software is still occasionally glitchy, though these are fixed quickly
• Some found the payment methods for clients limited
• There are additional fees to withdraw and deposit from some forms of payment on HoneyBook, which can make the service expensive overall (this credit card processing fee is the number one complaint in customer HoneyBook reviews)
• If you’re already incredibly organized or have an admin assistant, you may find HoneyBook surplus to your needs
• Updating some basic information has been more complicated than necessary in the past, but these bugs have largely been worked out

Does HoneyBook have a client portal?

Yes, HoneyBook does have a client portal, which is a major benefit to the software.

This is a dedicated area where all communications and files received by the client from the vendor can be accessed at all times by the client via their own login. A file is emailed from the vendor to the client in the form of a link that will take them to the client portal.

This is a great way to showcase your professionalism and it’s a difficult feature to integrate with your systems or website elsewhere, as you need specialist plugins and often a developer to set it up for you, so it’s a feature worth noting.

Does HoneyBook have fees?

Yes – besides the monthly or annual subscription fee, they apply credit card transaction fees to their payment gateway, and bank transfer fees. While these fees are minimal, it’s the number one complaint in HoneyBook reviews.

Does HoneyBook take a percentage?

Currently, any payments made through HoneyBook are subject to a processing fee of 3% for credit card payments and 1.5% for ACH bank transfer payments. This is, however, similar to the percentage taken by platforms such as PayPal, Stripe, and Square, so it’s industry standard.

Does HoneyBook use PayPal?

HoneyBook does not use PayPal, and you can’t currently integrate it, either. HoneyBook works to keep all of your business information together, including acting as the payment processor for absolutely any payment received. This may or may not be an issue for you depending on how you currently work with your clients.

Does HoneyBook use Stripe?

HoneyBook does not use Stripe, they use their own integrated payment gateway and you cannot integrate other payment gateways such as Stripe, Square, and PayPal.

Does HoneyBook integrate with QuickBooks?

Yes! HoneyBook does indeed integrate with QuickBooks, and it’s one of its best selling points if you’re a QuickBooks user.

This allows for all HoneyBook payments to be automatically synced to your QuickBooks account so that your business finances can all be easily managed there.

(Note that HoneyBook can only be integrated with QuickBooks Simple Start, Essentials, and Plus accounts.)