Top 11 HoneyBook Alternatives in 2024

Lucija Bakić

October 20, 2024

A screenshot of a project management alternative depicting task management features, where users can collaborate on tasks related to motion graphics. The interface shows options for adding comments, attachments, dependencies, and subtasks. On the right, it displays task details such as status, assignee, due date, priority, and relevant links, making it a potential HoneyBook alternative for organizing design and animation tasks efficiently.

HoneyBook is a great option for freelancers and small businesses.

However, if you want more advanced collaboration and business insights, you’ll need to consider these HoneyBook alternatives.

List of the Best HoneyBook Alternatives

  • Productive — best for financial management in growing businesses
  • Bonsai — good option for users that want a tool similar to HoneyBook
  • ClickUp — versatile work management tool for various industries
  • Copilot — client portal software for messaging and file-sharing
  • Tave — workflow automation for photographers
  • Zoho CRM — more advanced customer relationship management
  • Dubsado — another integrated solution for freelancers
  • Trello — affordable solution for visual workflow management
  • Plutio — solid comprehensive option for centralized operations
  • Monday.com – good customizable project management tool
  • Hive – another affordable option for projects and resources

1. Productive – Best for Growing Businesses

Productive is a software solution designed specifically for the needs of professional services companies.

It offers comprehensive features for managing end-to-end business operations, including project management tools, budgeting, and resourcing.

While it might be too complex for freelancers, Productive is one of the best HoneyBook alternatives for businesses that want more control over their profitability and finances.

With growth comes a bigger need for one source of truth, and that’s what it gives us, and that’s really important.

Maike Vilé,
Partner at Makerstreet

So, if your business is growing and you’re noticing gaps in your processes, it might be the right time to switch to an all-in-one solution.

Let’s explore Productive’s features in more detail:

Project Management

While HoneyBook has some essential features for project and task management, Productive offers more advanced features for team collaboration and workflows.

For project management, project managers and their teams can choose between multiple customizable workspaces. This includes: Gantt, Kanban, List, Calendar, Workload view, and others.

A screenshot of a project management alternative depicting task planning and estimation features, with a visual timeline for tasks like "Visual direction," "Explore concepts," and "Branding assets." The color-coded bars represent different stages of the design process, with dependencies between tasks clearly outlined. This visual layout helps teams organize work efficiently, making it a strong HoneyBook alternative for managing creative projects and timelines.


Simplify your workflow management with Productive’s Gantt interface

Within each view, teams can manage their tasks, assign team members, and add various details through custom fields.

You can also use Productive’s Automation feature to get more efficient workflows.

For example, if you want to notify a team member of a task update in Slack, you can set up an automation to streamline this action and other repetitive tasks.

With the Client Portal, you can invite clients to your project workspaces.

You can collaborate on tasks to streamline client communication, and provide them with access to budgeting and time tracking information.

Time Tracking

Productive’s Time Tracking offers several time tracking methods: an integrated timer, manual entry, automatic time tracking.

You can also track time directly from tasks to associate it with a specific project, or use a widget to run your timer from the desktop.

A screenshot of a project management alternative depicting time tracking features, where tasks like "Social media posts" and "Customer success - interview questions" are monitored. Each task shows recorded time with options to start, pause, or stop tracking. This functionality helps teams manage workload and track billable hours, positioning it as an efficient HoneyBook alternative for businesses focused on content creation and marketing.


streamline your billable vs non-billable hours management

Project managers can get more control over their timesheets by setting them to be locked after a certain period of time. They can also view each entry, approve or reject them individually or in bulk.

Productive also offers a Google Calendar integration for associating events with specific projects.

Budgeting

With Productive’s Budgeting, you can get in-depth insights into your agency’s financial performance.

You’ll set up your employee cost rates, billable rates, and set up your rate cards.

Rate card data is used to build budgets of various types: fixed-price, hourly, retainer, and hybrid.

You can visualize and monitor your budget burn according to billable rates and hours billed.

A screenshot of a project management alternative depicting budget insights features, where data is grouped by company. The interface shows revenue and margin visualized in a bar chart, allowing users to track financial performance across different projects like "ABC Company" and "Website Redesign." This functionality provides a clear overview of project budgets, making it a viable HoneyBook alternative for financial tracking and project profitability analysis.


Make data-driven decisions and create professional invoices

Productive also includes integrated Billing. Your budgeting data is used to create client invoices, which you can send from the platform.

You can also create an automatic email sequence for late payments.

Productive also offers built-in QuickBooks and Xero integrations to finalize your invoicing process.

Resource Planning

With Resource Planning, agencies can get more control over their business resources, including employees and financials.

A screenshot of a project management alternative depicting task scheduling and time allocation features, showing tasks for team members like "Cherry Oaks" and "Jake Peters." The interface presents a clear timeline with hourly breakdowns for tasks like "Website Design" and "Product Design," with color-coded time blocks and progress tracking. This detailed time management view positions the tool as a strong HoneyBook alternative for agencies managing multiple projects and client deliverables.


Use Productive’s intuitive interface for resourcing to balance workloads

You can schedule employees according to their working hours, holidays, and scheduled time off.

When you’re allocating their time, you’ll also be able to see their current capacity, or how many of their hours have already been allocated.

You can also visualize and forecast your utilization.

A screenshot of a project management alternative depicting budget tracking and invoicing features for a "Rebranding Campaign." The chart displays financial progress over weeks, highlighting time worked, budget invoiced, and remaining amounts. The graph shows a comparison of hours worked versus total budget, with invoicing details broken down for easy tracking. This functionality makes it a useful HoneyBook alternative for managing project budgets, time allocation, and invoicing in a streamlined way.


you can turn on overhead and expense calculations for an accurate overview of profitability

Resource Planning also enables advanced financial perfomance insights with Forecasting. Productive uses your resource scheduling data to predict your budget burn, revenue, and profit margins up until the end of the project.

You also also create schedules for uncomfirmed projects (tentative bookings) and to-be-hired team members (placeholders).

Reporting

Finally, Productive’s Reporting uses all your project activities and data to help you make informed decisions.

You can get advanced insights on time tracking, resourcing, budgeting, and much more by using Productive’s customizable templates or creating reports from scratch.

Productive’s reports include various customization option, such as different visualizations, custom fields and formulas, grouping and filtering options.

For sharing your reports, you can create custom dashboards or schedule your reporting to Slack or email with Productive’s Pulse.

A screenshot of a project management alternative depicting a project progress report with scheduled versus worked time, visualized in a bar chart. The interface allows grouping by time intervals, such as weeks, with detailed metrics on recognized revenue, profit, and costs displayed below. This feature helps track time management and financial performance, making it a strong HoneyBook alternative for teams seeking in-depth reporting on project timelines and profitability.


source: Streamline your project tracking

Integrations

Productive offers various integrations with HR, accounting, and collaboration tools.

Integrations include Slack, Google Calendar, and Outlook for scheduling and updates; Xero and QuickBooks for accounting; BambooHR, Breathe, Humaans.io for HRM; Memtime for time tracking; and more.

Pricing

  • Plans start with the Essential plan at $9 per user per month, which includes essential features such as budgeting, project & task management, docs, time tracking, expense management, reporting, and time off management.
  • The Professional plan includes custom fields, recurring budgets, advanced reports, billable time approvals, and many more for $24 per user per month.
  • The Ultimate plan has everything that the Essential plan and Professional plan offer, along with the HubSpot integration, advanced forecasting, advanced custom fields, overhead calculations, and more for $32 per user per month.

You can also check out Productive’s 14-day free trial before committing to a paid plan.

Productive Is the Best HoneyBook Alternative for Growing Businesses

Switch from multiple tools and spreadsheets to an all-in-one platform for managing all key business operations.

Book a demo

2. Bonsai – Best for Freelancers

Bonsai can be a great option for businesses looking for a client management tool, but it lacks advanced collaboration and financial management features.

Key features:

  • Client surveys
  • Time tracking
  • Client portal
  • Invoice templates and online payments
A screenshot of a project management alternative depicting income and expense tracking features, with a line graph visualizing monthly trends. Key financial metrics such as "Paid Before Fees," "Paid After Fees," "Expenses," and "Profit" are displayed at the top. This feature provides a clear overview of financial health, making it a suitable HoneyBook alternative for freelancers or small businesses looking to manage their income and expenses effectively throughout the year.


SOurce: bonsai

Pros: Bonsai provides some some additional features in comparison to HoneyBook, which can make it more suitable for businesses that want to moderately scale up their software’s complexity.

Cons: On the other hand, Bonsai is still not the best option for agency management, as project management and reporting are not its focus. Additionally, users often comment that the Client Portal should offer more client interactions:

They really need to improve the tasks and workflow of project such that the client portal becomes a dashboard for clients to see progress and the over timeline like in Notion. I really am at the end of my rope with asking for this essential update.

Source: Capterra

3. ClickUp – Best for Custom Workflows

ClickUp is a work management software with customizable workflows for client projects, but it doesn’t offer budgeting and advanced analytics features.

Key features:

  • Customizable templates for projects
  • Document management
  • Automated workflows
  • Goal managemet
A screenshot of a project management alternative depicting task management in a list view, where tasks are categorized by stages such as "Issues Found" and "Review." Each task displays information like the assignee, due date, stage, and priority. This interface allows for easy organization and tracking of project progress, making it a solid HoneyBook alternative for managing projects that require detailed task assignments and workflow tracking.


Source: clickup

Pros: With ClickUp, you’ll get a good software solution for creating custom workflows for your client projects.

Cons: ClickUp is not the best option for freelancers, but it’s also slightly underfeatured for businesses that want to invest in a software that provides a 360-degree view of operations.

Additionally, there are some issues with ClickUp’s performance.

To find out more, check out our list of the best ClickUp alternatives or our in-depth comparison of ClickUp and Teamwork.

4. Copilot – Best for Client Relationships Management

Copilot is a good HoneyBook alternative for managing your customer management process, but it’s not suitable as an all-in-one business management platform.

Key features:

  • Contract management tools
  • Messaging app
  • File-sharing
  • Payment processing
A screenshot of a project management alternative depicting a client management interface, where client details such as name, email, company, and address are organized in a list. The left-side navigation offers access to messages, files, forms, and billing, making it an efficient tool for managing client relationships. This feature makes it a suitable HoneyBook alternative for businesses that need to track and manage client information in a streamlined and organized manner.


source: copilot

Pros: Users enjoy Copilot’s white labeling and integrations options, as well as its easy-to-set up design and user interface.

Cons: While you can manage your client communications with Copilot, there’s no way to handle client collaboration on project tasks. To get the benefits of a comprehensive solution, you’ll need to implement a professional services project management software system.

5. Tave – Best CRM for Creative Professionals

Táve is a software designed specifically for supporting client management for photographers and studios, but it might not be the best for workflows in other industries.

Key features:

  • Custom contracts and questionnaires
  • Lead assessment
  • Automated workflows
  • Lead reporting tools
A screenshot of a project management alternative depicting a lead management interface, showing detailed information on leads such as status, inquiry date, lead rating, job name, job type, and job date. Each lead is rated and categorized, with options to generate new quotes. This functionality makes it a strong HoneyBook alternative for businesses that require efficient lead tracking and management, especially in industries like event planning and photography.


source: TAVE

Pros: Táve can be a great option for photographers that want to get basic contact management. Users often enjoy it for its user-friendly interface and automation options for administrative tasks.

Cons: Like HoneyBook, Táve is best for smaller businesses and creative freelancers that want to get basic client management, but you’ll need to switch to a different business management solution at a certain point.

Overall, Táve served my studio well. As we streamline, grow and have a very niche market now, it’s just not the right fit for us.

Source: Capterra

Learn all about the most popular creative agency management software.

6. Zoho CRM – Best for More Robust CRM

Zoho CRM is a more advanced CRM for agencies that caters to various industries, but you’ll need to integrate it with Zoho’s project management module to cover all client project activities.

Key features:

  • Sales performance management
  • Sales reporting
  • AI-driven insights
  • Omnichannel communications


source: zoho crm

Pros: Zoho CRM can help you align sales and marketing teams with more advanced sales automation and workflow features.

Cons: On the other hand, Zoho CRM can be more complex, and certain parts of the platform have a steeper learning curve or require technical knowledge to configure.

For some streamlined solutions with CRM features, go to our list of the best CRM project management software.

7. Dubsado – Best for Small Business Owners

Like Copilot or Táve, Dubsado is another solution for managing contracts, invoices, and client forms, but doesn’t provide a comprehensive workspace for advanced business needs.

Key features:

  • Payment options
  • Built-in scheduler
  • Workflow automation
  • Invoice management
A screenshot of a project management alternative depicting workflow automation, where users can select actions like "Create invoice" and set triggers based on relative dates. This functionality streamlines task automation, making it an effective HoneyBook alternative for managing invoicing and other automated processes to improve efficiency in business operations.


source: dubsado

Pros: Users find Dubsado easy to use overall: “I really liked that the interface was beautiful and nicely laid out. I could set up invoices, descriptions payments and contracts easily” (Source: G2).

Cons: Users have some issues with specific features in Dubsado, one that has been specifically underlined is the functionality of linking emails to Dubsado:

Sometimes there is a lag between my actual email inbox versus the Dubsado inbox. The client information could be cleaned up, for example, I would love if it could recognize that I have already entered the same clients and maybe update information as needed.

Source: Capterra

8. Trello – Best for Visual Work Management

Trello is known for its user-friendly, Kanban-inspired interface, but isn’t suitable for more complex workflow management or collaboration.

Key features:

  • Official and community based templates
  • Visual dashboards
  • Various integrations and power-ups
A screenshot of a project management alternative depicting a calendar view with tasks assigned on specific dates. The interface highlights task ownership with team member avatars and color-coded tasks for better organization. This visual scheduling tool offers an intuitive way to track project timelines, making it a strong HoneyBook alternative for teams that need a clear and collaborative calendar for managing project deadlines and assignments.


source: trello

Pros: Trello can be suitable for various business needs due to its template library which is supported both by the community and official vendor.

Cons: Trello is a popular tool for user-friendly workflow management, but it won’t be suitable for agencies with more advanced management needs.

When we started out, we decided to go with Trello, and it was a solid tool. Back then it didn’t have many advanced features, but it worked for us for a while. Once we got things rolling at the company, we realized that not having the ability to track time or build budgets was an issue for us.

Alex Streltsov,
General Manager at Prolex Media

Check out our Trello vs Jira vs Asana comparison to learn more.

9. Plutio – Best for Centralized Management

Plutio offers a wide range of features in a single platform, but according to user reviews, its reporting and accounting features lack some depth.

Key features:

  • Proposal and contract creation
  • Client portal
  • Invoicing
  • Project budget management
A screenshot of a project management alternative depicting a project dashboard with status tracking for tasks such as "Website Animations" and "Social Media Marketing." The interface organizes projects by status—new, in progress, pending, delayed, and completed—along with progress bars, assigned members, and client details. This layout is ideal for tracking project stages, making it a practical HoneyBook alternative for businesses that need to manage multiple projects and team members simultaneously.


source: plutio

Pros: Users usually praise Plutio’s customer support team and range of useful functionalities for agencies.

Cons: One persistent downside mentioned throughout multiple customer reviews includes bugs, especially those that appear when new features are released.

Learn more about Plutio in our list of the best alternatives to Plutio.

10. Monday.com – Best for Flexible Workflows

Monday.com, also known as Monday Work OS, is a flexible work management software for various industries, but it can require a lot of initial customization and setting up.

Key features:

  • Multiple workspaces
  • No-code workflow automations
  • Time tracking and time estimates
  • Workload view for resourcing
A screenshot of a project management alternative depicting a task management table with task names, assigned owners, and status updates. Tasks such as "Finalize kickoff materials" and "Refine objectives" are categorized with statuses like "Done," "Working on it," and "Stuck." This visual organization tool helps teams track progress efficiently, making it a viable HoneyBook alternative for project and task management with a clear status update system.


source: monday.com

Pros: Monday.com is a versatile tool that allows teams to build customized workflows and processes from scratch.

Cons: Monday can be time-consuming to set up, especially for teams looking for an out-of-the-box solution. Additionally, it lacks built-in financial management or advanced project accounting features.

We also have a detailed comparison of some of the most popular project management tools: Monday vs Asana vs Trello vs ClickUp.

11. Hive – Best for Teams on a Budget

Hive is a project management tool that offers an array of features designed for team collaboration and project tracking, but doesn’t offer some essential business management features.

Key features:

  • Project management with Gantt charts
  • Time tracking
  • Workflow automation
  • Messaging and file-sharing
A screenshot of a project management alternative depicting a kanban board view with tasks organized into stages such as "Unstarted," "In progress," and "In development." Tasks like "Gather brand assets" and "Feedback on imagery R2" are displayed with due dates and assignees, alongside visual elements for certain tasks. This layout makes it a versatile HoneyBook alternative for teams managing creative projects and workflows in a visually organized manner.


source: hive

Pros: Hive is generally well-reviewed by users, and is often praised for its simple collaboration features and reasonable pricing.

Cons: Hive’s project and task management features aren’t fully developed for more complex needs, or in comparison to some of Hive’s alternatives.

The features I needed to simplify task and project management weren’t as fully developed as I needed.

Source: Capterra

What Is HoneyBook?

HoneyBook is a clientflow management software with end-to-end features for small businesses and freelancers: including contract templates, event scheduling, forms, online payments, and invoices.

HoneyBook has a 4.5 star rating on G2 and a 4.8 star rating on Capterra. When it comes to its downsides, user report the following:

  • Limited integrations with 3rd-party apps
  • Slow customer support response times
  • Reporting is not as robust as other CRMs
  • Customization is limited for some features (ex. invoices)

Overall, HoneyBook can be a great integration solution for end-to-end workflows, but growing businesses might want to consider more advanced software options.

Choosing the Best HoneyBook Alternative

To summarize our comparison, here are some of the options you have:

  • If you’re looking to switch to a similar tool, consider Copilot or Dubsado
  • For simple task management, Trello is a great option
  • For customizable workflows, consider ClickUp or Monday.com
  • For specialized needs, there are Tave and Zoho CRM
  • Productive is the best pick if you’re interested in advanced financial insights and project management

With Productive, you’ll have an all-in-one platform to manage everything from project management to financial insights, resource planning, and client collaboration.

This makes it one of the best HoneyBook alternatives for growing businesses. Book a demo with Productive today.

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Lucija Bakić

Content Specialist

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