HoneyBook vs Dubsado (2026): pricing, fees, and which fits a solo freelancer

TL;DR: HoneyBook costs $36 per month on its Starter plan ($29 per month billed annually) and charges 1.5% on every bank transfer your clients send you. Dubsado costs $335 per year on Starter and $525 per year on Premier, passes Stripe's fees through with no markup, and caps ACH fees at $5 per transaction. HoneyBook is faster to set up and more polished; Dubsado is deeper, cheaper on payment fees, and famously takes one to two weeks (or a $1,500 to $2,500 specialist) to configure. Both raised prices sharply within the last 18 months. If you are a solo freelancer who mostly needs proposals, contracts, invoices, and a portal, it is worth asking whether you need either. Disclosure: Raoura, our $17 per month flat-price tool, appears at the end of this comparison.

If you searched "HoneyBook vs Dubsado" this year, most of what you found is stale. We checked the five top-ranking comparison pages in July 2026, and four of the five cited at least one price, fee, or trial policy that no longer exists. One "2026 edition" article still quotes HoneyBook plans that ended in February 2025 and advertises a Dubsado free plan that was retired for new signups in November 2025.

That matters because the last 18 months changed this comparison more than the previous five years did. HoneyBook raised its entry price by 89% in February 2025. Dubsado raised its Starter price by 68% in December 2025 and shipped a ground-up rebuild called Dubsado 3.0 that same fall. The fee structures, trial terms, and country availability all moved.

So this article does the boring thing: every number below was checked against the vendors' own pricing and help pages in July 2026, with links. Where we could not verify something first-hand, we say so.

HoneyBook vs Dubsado at a glance#

As of July 2026, HoneyBook runs $36 to $129 per month (monthly billing) across three plans, while Dubsado runs $335 to $525 per year across two plans, and the biggest hidden difference is payment processing: HoneyBook charges 1.5% on ACH while Dubsado caps ACH fees at $5.

Sources: HoneyBook pricing, HoneyBook plan change announcement, Dubsado pricing, Dubsado Payments processing fees, all fetched July 2026.

Pricing: two price hikes, ten months apart#

HoneyBook raised prices up to 89% in February 2025 and Dubsado raised prices up to 68% in December 2025, so any comparison quoting pre-2025 numbers is describing products you can no longer buy.

Here is the recent price history, from the vendors' own announcements and current pages:

HoneyBook's increase took effect February 4, 2025, and its own help center called it "the first time we've increased the pricing of our plans for our existing members." Existing members got 20% off the new rates for one year, which has now lapsed for most of them. The full before-and-after table is in HoneyBook's plan change article. We track the history and your options in our HoneyBook price increase guide.

Dubsado's increase took effect December 1, 2025. Its public pricing page now lists Starter at $335 per year and Premier at $525 per year. Existing paid subscribers were grandfathered at their old rates, per multiple specialist and tracker reports; Dubsado has not published a standalone announcement page we could verify first-hand. Month-to-month billing is reported at $35 and $55 by current third-party trackers, including a Dubsado Certified Specialist's comparison updated in May 2026, but Dubsado's public pricing page only displays annual prices, so treat the monthly figures as well-sourced rather than first-party.

One more trial-terms change that most articles missed: Dubsado's famous free plan (three clients, no time limit) was retired for new accounts on November 17, 2025. New signups now get a 21-day trial of full Premier access, no credit card required. The unlimited-time trial survives only for accounts created before that date, per Dubsado's legacy trial FAQ. HoneyBook's trial, meanwhile, is now 30 days with no credit card, per its pricing page FAQ, though several ranking comparisons still say 7 days.

HoneyBook also offers a 60-day money-back guarantee on paid plans, stated on its pricing page. Dubsado offers no equivalent guarantee.

Payment processing fees: where the real money moves#

On a $3,000 invoice paid by bank transfer, HoneyBook's fee is $45 and Dubsado's is $5, because HoneyBook charges an uncapped 1.5% on ACH while Dubsado caps ACH at $5 per transaction.

This is the section every ranking comparison skips, and for a freelancer invoicing real money it can outweigh the subscription price entirely.

HoneyBook processes payments itself. Its pricing page says card fees "start at 2.7% + 10 cents" with no premium card brand fees, while the plan comparison table on the same page lists card fees "starting at 2.9% + 25 cents"; both figures are HoneyBook's own, published side by side, so expect the effective rate to land in that range. Bank transfers cost 1.5% of the payment, uncapped. You cannot connect your own Stripe or Square account.

Dubsado does not process payments itself and does not add a markup. You connect Dubsado Payments (built on Stripe, "featuring the same competitive fees that Stripe offers" per Dubsado's fee documentation), or Square, or PayPal. Through Dubsado Payments in the US: 2.9% + 30c on US cards, 4.4% + 30c on international cards, and ACH at 0.8% capped at $5. Ancillary fees are published too: $4 failed ACH, $15 disputes, 1% instant payouts.

Here is what that means at freelancer invoice sizes, paid by ACH:

If your clients pay by card, the two are close to a wash (2.7 to 2.9% either way). If your clients pay by bank transfer, which is common for retainers and four-figure project payments, the gap compounds: a freelancer collecting $60,000 per year over 20 ACH payments gives HoneyBook about $900 per year in transfer fees and gives Stripe, via Dubsado, about $100.

Dubsado also supports card surcharging (passing the card fee to your client) in the US, except in Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New York, and Puerto Rico, and in Canada capped at 2.4% by law. HoneyBook does not advertise an equivalent. Why this fee structure difference exists, and why we think a client tool should never sit between you and your money, is a longer argument we make in Why your client tool should never touch your money.

Setup: HoneyBook in a day, Dubsado in weeks (or thousands of dollars)#

HoneyBook takes hours to a couple of days to set up, while a full DIY Dubsado configuration is a one-to-two-week project, and published Certified Specialist rates for done-for-you setups run roughly $1,500 to $2,500+ USD.

This is the most consistent finding across every comparison, every Reddit thread, and Dubsado's own ecosystem. HoneyBook ships opinionated defaults, templates, and an onboarding flow designed to get a first invoice out quickly. Dubsado ships a box of extremely capable parts: forms, canned emails, packages, payment schedules, schedulers, and automation Flows that you assemble into your own system.

The clearest evidence for the gap is that Dubsado has an official Certified Specialist economy: professionals whose entire business is configuring Dubsado for other people. One Certified Specialist's published 2026 rates: a single-service setup starting at $2,500 CAD (about $2,000 USD), an onboarding-only VIP day at $1,750 CAD (about $1,500 USD), and a workflow revamp from $3,000 CAD (about $2,500 USD), with complete setups priced higher, per Streamlined by Martine's published pricing. That is not a criticism of the specialists. It is a data point about how much configuration the tool assumes.

Neither vendor will tell you this plainly. HoneyBook does not advertise that its depth is shallower, and Dubsado cannot write "our product takes two weeks to set up" on its own blog. Budget for it honestly: if you choose Dubsado, the real cost of year one is the subscription plus either 20 to 40 hours of your evenings or a specialist invoice.

Dubsado 3.0: what actually changed in the rebuild#

Dubsado 3.0, rolled out from November 2025, rebuilt the entire interface, replaced workflows with a visual Flows builder, and put all new trials on the new platform starting November 17, 2025.

If you compare these tools using screenshots or reviews from before late 2025, you are looking at a product that new users will never see. The 3.0 rebuild brought a redesigned home dashboard, a real messages inbox, a drag-and-drop Flows automation builder, time tracking available throughout the app, and a board-style projects view. Existing users could fall back to the 2.0 interface during the transition at a separate legacy URL.

The honest caveats, documented in detail by Certified Specialist Colie James in her Dubsado 3.0 review: the Flows builder is a new interface over largely the same triggers and actions, and several long-requested capabilities were still missing at launch, including true conditional logic, booking a scheduler and contract in one step, and emailing two clients on one project. Dubsado has said conditional logic, SMS, and multi-client projects are in progress. If one of those gaps is the reason you would pick Dubsado, verify it shipped before you subscribe.

There is a strategic read here too. A ground-up rebuild plus a price increase in the same quarter signals a company investing in the product, which is genuinely good news for Dubsado users. It also means 2026 is a transition year: some of the configuration knowledge, tutorials, and templates the Dubsado community built over years describes the old interface. If you migrate mid-transition, our guide to migrating from Dubsado without breaking in-flight projects covers what exports cleanly and what does not.

Features head to head#

HoneyBook wins scheduling, polish, and AI across all plans; Dubsado wins customization depth, form design control, processor choice, and included team seats (3 free users on any plan).

Where HoneyBook is ahead:

Scheduling is built into HoneyBook on every tier, while Dubsado gates its scheduler to the Premier plan. HoneyBook's templates and defaults are more polished out of the box, and it now brands itself as an AI-powered platform, with "HoneyBook AI" listed on all plans including Starter (project summaries, drafted replies, lead prioritization; the fuller AI assistant appears to be gated to Essentials and up, and HoneyBook's own pages are ambiguous about exactly where the line sits). Its mobile app is consistently rated the stronger of the two.

Where Dubsado is ahead:

Customization depth is not close. Dubsado's form designer allows full brand control including code-level styling, its packages and payment schedules bend to almost any billing structure, and the Flows engine automates more of the client lifecycle than HoneyBook's automations do. Dubsado includes 3 additional users free on any plan, where HoneyBook reserves multi-user for higher tiers. Dubsado lets you run additional brands at $10 per month each, and both of its plans include unlimited clients and projects. And per the fee section above, Dubsado's processor flexibility (Stripe, Square, or PayPal, no markup) is a structural advantage HoneyBook cannot match, because payment processing is part of HoneyBook's revenue model.

One more practical difference: availability. HoneyBook only accepts businesses in the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, and Australia, confirmed by the signup gate on HoneyBook's own AI information page. Dubsado's software is available worldwide, with Dubsado Payments supporting merchants in 39 countries and PayPal or Square covering others. If you freelance from outside those four countries, the comparison ends here: Dubsado is the one you can actually use.

The three-year math#

Over three years on annual billing, HoneyBook Essentials costs $1,764 in subscriptions versus $1,575 for Dubsado Premier, but processing fees and setup costs move the real totals far more than the sticker prices do.

Sticker-price comparisons hide the two numbers that actually separate these tools: ACH fees and setup. Here is a worked example for a solo freelancer collecting $60,000 per year across 20 bank-transfer payments (about $3,000 each), on current annual pricing:

Subscription math: HoneyBook Essentials $588 per year and Dubsado Premier $525 per year, times three. Fee math: 1.5% of $60,000 is $900 per year for HoneyBook; 20 payments at Dubsado's $5 ACH cap is $100 per year. Card-heavy businesses will see much smaller gaps, since card rates are within 0.2 points of each other.

The pattern: Dubsado is meaningfully cheaper to run at freelance revenue levels, if you can absorb the setup, and HoneyBook's convenience carries a four-figure fee cost over time for ACH-heavy businesses.

For context, and with the plain disclosure that Raoura is our product: the same three years on Raoura's single $17 per month plan is $612 in subscriptions plus the same $300 in at-cost Stripe ACH fees (Stripe charges 0.8% capped at $5, passed through with no markup), about $912 all-in. We publish that math the same way we did for the incumbents.

So which one should you pick?#

Choose HoneyBook if you want to be running today and will pay for polish; choose Dubsado if you want deep customization and low payment fees and can invest the setup weeks; choose something simpler if you would use less than half of either.

Choose HoneyBook if:

You bill mostly by card (its rates are competitive there), you want built-in scheduling on the cheapest plan, you value a strong mobile app, and you want a working system this week without touching an automation builder. You must be in the US, Canada, UK, or Australia. Test it against the 30-day trial and the 60-day refund window.

Choose Dubsado if:

You collect large payments by bank transfer (the $5 ACH cap alone can pay for the subscription), you want full control over how forms and proposals look, you need multiple brands or up to three collaborators cheaply, you are outside HoneyBook's four countries, or you simply refuse to let your client platform take a percentage of your revenue. Go in with open eyes about setup: block out the weeks or budget the specialist.

Consider neither if:

You are a solo freelancer whose actual needs are proposals, contracts, invoices, milestones, and a client portal, and the honest answer is that you would configure 20% of either platform. Both of these tools are built to scale into teams, schedulers, lead pipelines, and automation engines, and both now price accordingly after their 2025 increases. That gap is why we built Raoura: one $17 per month flat plan, the five things above, your own Stripe account with fees passed through at cost, and setup measured in an afternoon rather than weeks. Disclosure: Raoura is our product, so weigh this paragraph accordingly. Our detailed comparisons against each tool are here: Raoura vs HoneyBook and Raoura vs Dubsado. If you are surveying the whole field first, start with HoneyBook alternatives for solo freelancers or Dubsado alternatives.