HoneyBook vs Dubsado Pricing: The Real Yearly Cost

Dubsado is cheaper than HoneyBook on subscription and usually on processing too. Dubsado costs $35 or $55 a month, or $335 and $525 a year. HoneyBook costs $36, $59 or $129 a month, or $348 to $1,308 a year. The bigger difference is payments: HoneyBook charges a flat 1.5% on ACH bank transfers, while Dubsado Payments uses Stripe's 0.8% capped at $5. For a studio paid in large bank transfers, that gap is worth more than the plan price.

We read both vendors' pricing pages on September 27, 2026. Several comparison articles that rank for this search still quote Dubsado at $20 and $40 a month and HoneyBook Essentials at under $40. Those are old prices. Dubsado moved to $35 and $55 on December 1, 2025, and HoneyBook's Essentials plan is $49 billed yearly. If you budgeted from one of those pages, you are short. For HoneyBook's full plan and fee schedule, see our HoneyBook pricing page.

HoneyBook vs Dubsado pricing, plan by plan

Dubsado's yearly price is about two months free on either plan. HoneyBook's yearly discount is $84 on Starter, $120 on Essentials and $240 on Premium. Both tools include unlimited clients and projects on every plan, so neither charges you more as you book more work. HoneyBook adds a 60-day money-back guarantee after you subscribe.

What each plan unlocks, and the upgrade you will actually hit

The entry plans look similar and are not. Dubsado Starter has no scheduler, no automated workflows, no bookkeeping integration and one active lead capture form. Those all sit on Premier. HoneyBook Starter includes a scheduler with one session type and two lead forms, but no automations and no QuickBooks Online sync, which start on Essentials.

The team row is where the two part ways. Dubsado sells extra people and extra brands as small add-ons: three additional users are included, 4 to 10 users is $25 a month, and each extra brand is $10 a month. HoneyBook sells them as plan upgrades, so a third person or a second company moves you to Premium at $109 a month billed yearly.

Transaction fees: where the real difference is

HoneyBook is its own payment processor. Dubsado is not; it adds no fee of its own and connects to Dubsado Payments (which is Stripe), Square or PayPal, so you pay that processor's rate. Using Dubsado Payments as the comparison:

On a plain card payment the two are within a nickel. HoneyBook costs more when a client pays with American Express or autopay from a saved card, and a lot more on bank transfers. That matters because bank transfer is exactly how clients prefer to pay a large balance. One more detail worth knowing: HoneyBook's pricing page FAQ quotes card fees from 2.7% + 10 cents, while its fee table and fee article say 2.9% + 25 cents. Budget with the higher figure and check your own account settings.

The real yearly cost for three kinds of business

Plan prices alone mislead, so here are three client loads with the plan each one actually needs and the processing it actually pays. All plans are billed yearly.

The coach is the case where HoneyBook wins, because it needs a booking link and HoneyBook Starter has one while Dubsado puts scheduling on Premier. Everyone paid in bigger bank transfers comes out ahead on Dubsado, and the gap grows with invoice size. For the studio we counted Dubsado's $25 a month user tier; if Dubsado treats the owner plus three as included, its total is $300 lower still.

When HoneyBook is still the better buy

Cost is not the only line. HoneyBook is faster to set up, and its team turns your existing contracts, price lists and questionnaires into templates at no charge. Payments work the day you sign up, with no processor to connect. If your clients mostly pay small amounts by card, the fee difference nearly disappears, and HoneyBook's cleaner client experience may be worth the few dollars a month. Dubsado rewards people who like to configure: its forms, workflows and branding go deeper, and the setup takes longer.

Also look at how you are paid. You can keep large balances off either processor: HoneyBook lets you mark checks and outside bank transfers as paid with no fee, and so does Dubsado. If most of your revenue is five-figure projects, the processor matters less than your payment terms. And if what you actually want to automate is the discovery call itself rather than the paperwork after it, a dedicated tool that runs client intake and qualifies leads may do more for you than either plan upgrade.

Where both tools stop

HoneyBook and Dubsado both see the money that passes through them: client invoices and the payments against them. Many photographers, designers and coaches also earn from places neither tool reads, such as print sales on Etsy, templates on Gumroad, a YouTube channel, a Patreon or affiliate payouts. Each platform pays on its own schedule, net of its own fees.

Earnly puts those sources on one board with gross, fees and take-home for each, a payout calendar, and a next-month forecast labeled as an estimate. Its lite invoice tracker keeps client invoices and overdue balances next to the platform income, so the year's real total is in one place. It does not send contracts or process payments, so it sits beside HoneyBook or Dubsado rather than replacing them. Earnly plans start at $12 a month billed yearly. If you are still assembling a stack, our guide to accounting software for photographers covers the bookkeeping side, and PayPal vs Stripe fees covers the processors behind Dubsado.