FastSpring vs. HoneyBook

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
FastSpring
Score 6.4 out of 10
N/A
FastSpring is an ecommerce solution with features such as subscription billing and customer relationship management.N/A
HoneyBook
Score 7.9 out of 10
Small Businesses (1-50 employees)
HoneyBook aims to help creative entrepreneurs and freelancers book more clients, manage projects and get paid all in one place. With HoneyBook, users can automate busy work and stay on top of to-dos, saving time and money, while growing a business. HoneyBook is designed to emulate a personal assistant. The vendor states that small business owners and freelancer customers have tripled their bookings and saved multiple hours a day using HoneyBook. They further state that a variety of small…
$36
per month
Pricing
FastSpringHoneyBook
Editions & Modules
No answers on this topic
Starter
$36
per month
Unlimited Plan - Monthly
$39
Month
Essentials
$59
per month
Premium
$129
per month
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
FastSpringHoneyBook
Free Trial
NoYes
Free/Freemium Version
NoNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoNo
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
Additional Details2 months free with annual billing.
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
FastSpringHoneyBook
Considered Both Products
FastSpring
Chose FastSpring
We are getting the best possible support from the FastSpring team, even within a few hours. But with Stripe, and others, we had to wait for days to resolve the simple issue.
Chose FastSpring
FastSpring provides an easier solution, and definitely a much better fit for our configuration, which doesn't require a lot of power, just an easy workflow with a single product to purchase, to provide the most straightforward experience to the user.
With FastSpring we have been …
Chose FastSpring
Compared to Paddle – FastSpring has much more experience in the e-commerce solution market. They already patched many things that Paddle might still go through.

And Avangate is just very user-unfriendly (In my personal opinion). Their dashboard and checkout are just outdated. …
Chose FastSpring
I have previously used PayPal - but customers complained because they thought they had to set up a PayPal account. Other customers didn't think that PayPal was as professional looking overall as FastSpring. PayPal is fine for accepting ebay auction payments, but businesses who …
Chose FastSpring
I have been using FastSpring consistently for the past nine years, and I cannot now recall what other products I considered when I selected FastSpring. I am not currently aware of any other company that would handle my type of business any better than FastSpring.
Chose FastSpring
With this new "Risk Assessment Fee," FastSpring is just the same as your average e-Commerce platform.
HoneyBook
Chose HoneyBook
Honeybook and Dubsado have a lot of similarities. I'd say the only big difference is that Dubsado still has more advanced workflow capabilities. Dubsado also is much harder to set up. Honeybook is simpler and easier to use right from the start.
Chose HoneyBook
Was way easier to use Dubsado than it was setting up the new Honeybook system.
Chose HoneyBook
17hats is way better in every way compared to Honeybook. It still has some places where it can improve, but I had such a negative experience with Honeybook that a piece of paper and a pencil would be more reliable for helping my business. I do not want anything to do with …
Chose HoneyBook
Dubsado isn't as user-friendly, but it is more powerful in the workflow aspect. I don't think it's as easy to customize proposals and invoices.

17-Hats is incredibly "clunky" it's not easy to navigate but does a lot for clients.
Chose HoneyBook
QuickBooks was only good for billing and analytics, but it was the entire HoneyBook package that sold me. In the end, I decided to keep QuickBooks to help with my accounting system. QuickBooks integrates seamlessly with HoneyBook, which will help me at tax time. HoneyBook …
Chose HoneyBook
I selected HoneyBook because they had a sale for my first 6 months, it was $1 per month (as opposed to $40). It let me try out the software risk-free to see if I liked it. I'm glad I made the decision. I also like how HoneyBook has educational resources and facebook discussion …
Chose HoneyBook
We switched to HubSpot after a few years of the company using HoneyBook. We switched to HubSpot because we needed more features that would allow us to automate our processes and pull better data on our clients, their vendors, and our overall client process. I appreciated that …
Chose HoneyBook
We researched many other CRM programs before choosing HoneyBook (including Dubsado, DJ Event Planner, Zoho, Salesforce, and Intellivent). HoneyBook had the best offerings for the best price and has been a successful solution to our needs. The task management, pipeline, and task …
Features
FastSpringHoneyBook
Sales Force Automation
Comparison of Sales Force Automation features of Product A and Product B
FastSpring
-
Ratings
HoneyBook
6.4
Ratings
20% below category average
Customer data management / contact management00 Ratings6.40 Ratings
Workflow management00 Ratings5.60 Ratings
Opportunity management00 Ratings5.10 Ratings
Integration with email client (e.g., Outlook or Gmail)00 Ratings8.70 Ratings
Contract management00 Ratings7.10 Ratings
Quote & order management00 Ratings5.40 Ratings
Interaction tracking00 Ratings6.50 Ratings
Customer Service & Support
Comparison of Customer Service & Support features of Product A and Product B
FastSpring
-
Ratings
HoneyBook
7.7
Ratings
0% below category average
Case management00 Ratings8.70 Ratings
Help desk management00 Ratings6.70 Ratings
Marketing Automation
Comparison of Marketing Automation features of Product A and Product B
FastSpring
-
Ratings
HoneyBook
4.7
Ratings
49% below category average
Lead management00 Ratings4.70 Ratings
CRM Project Management
Comparison of CRM Project Management features of Product A and Product B
FastSpring
-
Ratings
HoneyBook
7.0
Ratings
10% below category average
Task management00 Ratings5.70 Ratings
Billing and invoicing management00 Ratings7.10 Ratings
Reporting00 Ratings8.40 Ratings
CRM Reporting & Analytics
Comparison of CRM Reporting & Analytics features of Product A and Product B
FastSpring
-
Ratings
HoneyBook
5.5
Ratings
33% below category average
Customizable reports00 Ratings5.50 Ratings
Customization
Comparison of Customization features of Product A and Product B
FastSpring
-
Ratings
HoneyBook
9.0
Ratings
16% above category average
Custom fields00 Ratings9.00 Ratings
Custom objects00 Ratings9.00 Ratings
Security
Comparison of Security features of Product A and Product B
FastSpring
-
Ratings
HoneyBook
6.6
Ratings
24% below category average
Single sign-on capability00 Ratings6.40 Ratings
Role-based user permissions00 Ratings6.70 Ratings
Platform
Comparison of Platform features of Product A and Product B
FastSpring
-
Ratings
HoneyBook
6.6
Ratings
15% below category average
Mobile access00 Ratings6.60 Ratings
Best Alternatives
FastSpringHoneyBook
Small Businesses
WooCommerce Subscriptions
WooCommerce Subscriptions
Score 8.7 out of 10
Salesmate
Salesmate
Score 10.0 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
Sage Intacct
Sage Intacct
Score 8.6 out of 10
Creatio
Creatio
Score 9.3 out of 10
Enterprises
Agentforce Revenue Management
Agentforce Revenue Management
Score 8.5 out of 10
Creatio
Creatio
Score 9.3 out of 10
All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
FastSpringHoneyBook
Likelihood to Recommend
9.0
(0 ratings)
6.4
(0 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
-
(0 ratings)
9.0
(0 ratings)
Usability
-
(0 ratings)
5.7
(0 ratings)
Support Rating
-
(0 ratings)
2.6
(0 ratings)
User Testimonials
FastSpringHoneyBook
Likelihood to Recommend
FastSpring is better option for small business and enterprises as well. But if you're a single person managing a person, or don't have a developer on your team, you may need to hire one to integrate the platform on your site, otherwise, it works great on all the parts. Have integrations with Apple, Google and Amazon Pay and accept most of the cards. And handles and tax automatically, which is a plus.
Read full review
I would recommend Honeybook to other coaches, consultants, and small business owners. It may not be appropriate for a large team's use, but works for the size of organization I currently own and manage. It also integrates with QuickBooks and makes financial data management fairly seamless.
Read full review
Pros
  • FastSpring makes the process of selling ebooks from my website quite painless and virtually invisible for me. I let FastSpring handle all details of the transactions, and I rarely have to get involved directly with the customers who purchase the books.
  • FastSpring is very responsive with respect to technical and customer support. I have had a few occasions when a customer was having difficulty completing a purchase transaction, and FastSpring has always been responsive and helpful in resolving such problems quickly and efficiently.
  • FastSpring offers a flexible set of options for customizing ordering pages that can be included in my website. There are many options, such as promotional coupons, discounts, multiple file downloads, and others.
Read full review
  • Sending sales proposals + contracts with custom payment schedules.
  • Automatic email reminders when clients have opened proposals, signed, and payed. HoneyBook even sends automated email reminders when clients haven't opened the email, reminding me to follow up.
  • A very easy-to-use dashboard with templates for invoices, contracts, questionnaires, emails, and more.
  • A place to see my sales pipeline with all of my clients, projects, and progress statuses in one place.
  • All of my branding automatically integrated into everything that I send.
Read full review
Cons
  • FastSpring uses 2 separate GUIs for store owners. Some features work with one GUI implementation and not the other one.
  • Some other providers do provide lower credit card processing fees, compared with FastSpring. But I have been very happy dealing with FastSpring overall in terms of support and overall usability - so I am happy to continue using FastSpring. If I was selling 10x or 100x my current sales volume, I might consider a change, but I have no plans to change at the present time.
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  • The inability to export client data is ultimately what led us to switch to another CRM. It was great to be able to see all client project information within the specific project, but we needed everything from contracts, to general client data to form submissions and questionnaires to ALL be exportable data and that was not an option. All information only lived in HoneyBook.
  • HoneyBook's forms were beautiful but I wish they would have been able to link to SurveyMonkey or Zapier to allow for more integrations. We might not have switched to another platform had that been the case.
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Likelihood to Renew
No answers on this topic
Since I do not use ALL the functionality in HoneyBook, I have wondered if the plan I am on is too much. That is why I rated a 9 rather than 10. I have definitely considered downgrading but not leaving HoneyBook.
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Usability
No answers on this topic
This is now a copy-paste response since this platform is asking me to answer every single question. It is such a negative experience with Honeybook that they even upset me while I'm trying to warn others of all the horrible pitfalls in working with the platform.
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Support Rating
No answers on this topic
They have ALWAYS been amazing when I needed any type of service or help. Their concierge service is also amazing vs other services I have used in the past. I have confidence when I ask for help - both through Chat or even on their Facebook group that I will get an answer quickly.
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Alternatives Considered
Compared to Paddle – FastSpring has much more experience in the e-commerce solution market. They already patched many things that Paddle might still go through. And Avangate is just very user-unfriendly (In my personal opinion). Their dashboard and checkout are just outdated. As a software company that builds and sells software via online in 2018 – we need to implement a fresh and simple experience for our potential customers. FastSpring offered this and Avangate didn't.
Read full review
Honeybook and Dubsado have a lot of similarities. I'd say the only big difference is that Dubsado still has more advanced workflow capabilities. Dubsado also is much harder to set up. Honeybook is simpler and easier to use right from the start.
Read full review
Return on Investment
  • Great impact on the cost efficiency of the payments.
  • Good impact on the "abandoned cart" users: we could reach out to such users and in several cases re-add them as paying users.
  • Good impact on customer support: FastSpring support is extremely helpful and available, in very rapid times.
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  • HoneyBook has increased my efficiency, particularly when it comes to billing. I wanted to make it easier for myself to bill and HoneyBook has made it a breeze to automate my system.
  • I love the forms HoneyBook provides, which fit seamlessly with my website. It makes lead generation easy, and automation has been a dream come true for my efficiency.
  • HoneyBook has given me the ability to quickly follow up with professional materials that I wouldn't have had printed to hand out to potential customers. I love the digital capabilities and simplicity of the system, which has been worth the investment.
Read full review
ScreenShots

HoneyBook Screenshots

Screenshot of BrochureScreenshot of GratuityScreenshot of Homepage PipelineScreenshot of HomepageScreenshot of ProjectScreenshot of Workflows