HoneyBook vs 17hats Pricing, The Real Yearly Cost

17hats is cheaper than HoneyBook in the first year and roughly level after that, but the answer turns on how your clients pay. 17hats is one plan at $60 a month or $600 a year, half off the first year when you buy outright. HoneyBook is $36, $59 or $129 a month, or $348, $588 and $1,308 a year. The gap that matters is payments: HoneyBook charges a flat 1.5% on bank transfers with no cap, while 17hats runs payments through your own Stripe account, where a bank transfer costs at most $5.

We read both vendors' US pricing pages in late September 2026 and priced them for three real kinds of service business. Plan prices alone make the two look far apart. Once you add the plan you would actually need, extra users and a year of payment fees, the ranking changes more than once.

HoneyBook vs 17hats pricing, plan by plan

All prices are USD before sales tax. HoneyBook's pricing page shows the yearly prices by default and toggles the monthly ones with a script; $36 is the Starter month-to-month figure in current listings, while $59 and $129 are on the page itself. The 17hats half-price offer applies only when you buy without starting the 7-day trial, and 17hats backs it with a 30-day money-back guarantee. HoneyBook offers a 30-day trial without a card and a 60-day money-back guarantee after you subscribe.

On list price alone, 17hats at $600 sits between HoneyBook Essentials ($588) and Premium ($1,308). In its first year, at $300, it is the cheapest paid option from either vendor.

What each price actually includes

The honest comparison is not Starter against 17hats. It is the HoneyBook plan that has the features you would use against 17hats plus the add-ons you would buy. These are the lines that move people between tiers:

Two things stand out. First, a solo owner who wants automations and the QuickBooks sync is on HoneyBook Essentials at $588 a year, which is almost exactly the 17hats list price. Second, HoneyBook's team limits are steep steps while 17hats charges $5 a person, so a growing team pays far less on 17hats.

One caution about 17hats. The top of its pricing page describes a single plan with everything included, but the feature grid lower down still shows three columns left over from its old level structure, with the client portal, workflows and the profit and loss report marked as missing in some of them. Check during the trial that the features you need are live on your account. Our 17hats pricing breakdown covers every add-on.

HoneyBook fees vs 17hats fees

This is the part most comparisons skip, and for many businesses it is bigger than the subscription.

HoneyBook card fees come from its own fee schedule. 17hats does not list a fee of its own, so the right column uses Stripe's standard US rates; if you connect Square instead, use Square's rates. HoneyBook's pricing FAQ also mentions card fees "starting at 2.7% + 10 cents", which does not match its own fee table, so we used the table.

On standard cards the two are effectively the same. On bank transfers they are not close. HoneyBook takes $42 to collect a $2,800 balance by ACH and $75 on $5,000, while Stripe stops at $5 no matter the amount. HoneyBook also deposits ACH payments in about 7 to 8 business days against 2 to 3 for cards. Our HoneyBook pricing page has the full fee schedule with more examples.

Is 17hats cheaper than HoneyBook?

For most businesses, yes in the first year and it depends after that. Here is a full year of subscription plus payment fees for three businesses. Card fees use each tool's published US rate; 17hats uses Stripe at 2.9% + $0.30 on cards and 0.8% capped at $5 on ACH.

The solo designer is the case where HoneyBook catches up: card fees are almost identical, so after the discounted first year 17hats costs $14 more. The photographer is where 17hats wins clearly, by about $900 a year, almost all of it ACH fees. The studio of four is where HoneyBook's team limits bite, and 17hats saves about $525 a year even at list price.

Which is better, HoneyBook or 17hats?

HoneyBook is the better product to set up and use. Its smart files put the proposal, contract and invoice into one document the client can sign and pay from, payments work the day you sign up, and it offers template migration for switchers. If your clients pay by card and you work alone, you will not save meaningful money on 17hats after the first year, so choose on how the software feels.

17hats is the better value when clients pay by bank transfer, when you have people to add, or when you want time tracking and bank-fed expenses inside the same tool for $5 each. It asks more of you in return: you set up your own Stripe or Square account, and you should verify the feature grid issue before paying for a year.

If neither fits, there are more options. Dubsado sits in between at $335 or $525 a year with three extra users included, and we priced it against HoneyBook in HoneyBook vs Dubsado pricing. Our HoneyBook alternatives and Dubsado alternatives pages cover Plutio, Bonsai and FreshBooks as well. A CRM organizes the clients you already have; if what you really need is more of them, a marketplace for selling your services solves a different problem.

The income neither tool tracks

HoneyBook and 17hats both see money that arrives through a client invoice. Plenty of photographers, designers and coaches also earn from platforms: print sales on Etsy, presets on Gumroad, a YouTube channel, Patreon members, affiliate payouts. Those deposits land in your bank already net of fees, and neither CRM ever sees them.

Earnly tracks that side. Every platform goes on one board with gross, fees and take-home, the payout calendar shows when each one should pay, and the invoice tracker keeps client invoices and overdue balances next to it. It does not send contracts or take payments, so it works beside HoneyBook or 17hats rather than replacing either, from $12 a month billed yearly.