Item: HoneyBook
Rating: 7
Author: Alyssa Parr

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

I use HoneyBook to sen[d] contracts and questionnaires to my clients. I also partially use it as a CRM system, to keep track of my clients' contact details. HoneyBook makes it extremely fast and easy for me to send all of my onboarding documents to clients immediately after our first call. With HoneyBook, I can easily update my contracts if any of my business information ever changes over time.

Pros and Cons

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.

The online scheduling tool does not work with different time zones very well. It doesn't automatically adjust to my clients' timezones and it doesn't even have many international time zones as an option! I had 3 clients in a row schedule meetings at the wrong time when I first started using HoneyBook's scheduler. I had to switch to Calendly because HoneyBook's scheduling tool was causing me to lose business.
The transaction fees for instant deposits are expensive.
[I believe} many of the features on HoneyBook are half-baked. It's marketed as an all-in-one business management platform, but I'm still using Calendly, Google Drive, Typeform, Clockify, and ClickUp because HoneyBook's equivalent features aren't as sophisticated or as easy to use.
The notes section for client projects does not have much space or allow for any custom formatting such as hyperlinks, bold text, highlighted text, etc. Tools such as Teamwork, Pipedrive, Asana, and ClickUp do a much better job at displaying this type of information.

Return on Investment

HoneyBook is the only way I could run my business. Although all of it's features aren't great or perfect, the custom contracts, invoices, and payment schedules make it extremely valuable and worth the price for my business.
My clients have been impressed by my smooth onboarding process, thanks to HoneyBook; and new clients typically book projects within the first 24 hours of me sending the contract/proposal.
When I first started my business, I tried to set EVERYTHING up with HoneyBook. Unfortunately, HoneyBook's custom contact forms, the online scheduling tool, the time tracker, and the tasks/to-dos were not sophisticated enough for me. I had to re-create my workflows for those processes with other online tools, which costed me time and in some cases money because I had to add additional monthly subscriptions.

Alternatives Considered

Dubsado, Pipedrive, HubSpot CRM and Keap (formerly Infusionsoft)

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 groups for small business owners. It makes me feel special.

I've heard Dubsado is pretty good for small business owners as well.

I really like Pipedrive's interface for keeping track of sales leads, conversations, and setting follow-up reminders (especially while working with teams). However, I don't think Pipedrive allows you to send sales proposals or invoices, which HoneyBook is excellent at.

Key Insights

Do you think HoneyBook delivers good value for the price?

Yes

Are you happy with HoneyBook's feature set?

Did HoneyBook live up to sales and marketing promises?

Did implementation of HoneyBook go as expected?

Would you buy HoneyBook again?

Yes

Usability

There are fairly good features within HoneyBook, but the UI & layout of everything in the dashboard makes it difficult to navigate or see certain types of information. For example, when I was setting tasks and to-dos within HoneyBook, I missed them every single day! I like the way Asana and ClickUp display to-dos-- their settings are way more sophisticated and customizable to my needs.

I am happy that with HoneyBook, my proposals, contracts, invoices, and client follow-up questionnaires are seamless and organized in one place.

I have not had great success with HoneyBook's pipeline, so I don't even use it. I would like to be able to customize it more.

Support Rating

[I feel like] HoneyBook's support has helped me sometimes, but other times they claim that their software is capable of things that it actually isn't from my end. For example, when I was having issues with the scheduler not working across different time zones, HoneyBook's support claimed that my scheduler would automatically update to the time zone that my clients were viewing it from (which it didn't).

Likelihood to Recommend

HoneyBook is great for businesses that rely on sending contracts and proposals to their clients to book projects. It's great for photographers, wedding planners, graphic designers, and web designers. It can help save a significant amount of time if you set up all of your templates and workflows ahead of time.

It's probably less appropriate for businesses that sell online products through their website. Or larger companies with multiple team members.

HoneyBook is Great for Contracts, Sales Proposals, and Questionnaires

Overall Satisfaction with HoneyBook