Dubsado V’s Honeybook
It’s no secret that I love Dubsado, but every so often, I hear whispers of another CRM platform being hailed as a new brilliant player. Lately, it’s been Honeybooks, so I thought I would give it a run to see how it stacks up.
💥💥 Spoiler Alert: I’m still in love with the Dubs after a two-month test run on Honeybooks! 💥💥
The low down on Honeybooks:
Honeybooks states they are a CRM with advanced features that are great for startups and creatives. At $390 a year, which is more than Dubsado, I was happy to purchase the two months for this test run – the monthly cost for anyone earning over 10k is $39 a month (still more expensive than the Dubs).
I probably need to note that this article will be more beneficial to my USA followers and clients as Honeybooks currently isn’t available in Australia (I used a VPN to sign up and give it a whirl).
Points to take away:
Honeybooks is a great idea for someone with absolutely no knowledge or background with CRMs or automation, BUT… you will outgrow it eventually, which is when Dubsado comes in. So you may as well start with Dubsado and save yourself some $$ along the way.
Honeybook seriously lacks flexibility. I don’t like that they select the triggers and workflows you need based on your business type chosen. As a website designer that loves to brand and make everything unique to my business, I really didn’t like that I wasn’t able to make my own choices here.
Workflows
Workflows couldn’t complete with Dusbsado at all! I can have multiple workflows on a single Dubsado account, which means I can really target my email nurturing sequences, but I could only attach one with HB. This really frustrated me to no end because to get all the information I would usually share with a client, I had to put random items within a workflow, and even then, it wasn’t perfectly streamlined like Dubs. Honeybook also select workflows for you, and I hate not having the ability to make decisions on almost THE most crucial feature of a CRM (they only offer a few triggers; thus, it is very limiting)
The workflow system itself compared to Dubsado is very basic and needs some serious improvement to be able to compete. The indicators of what is/has been sent to who is really unclear at times, and I didn’t like that I had to delve a little deeper to keep track of what was happening in a workflow. Some automatic emails are sent only via the overall account settings menu, and it isn’t clear within the client area that these are/have been sent.
Proposals
The brochure area (also know as proposals in Dubsado) is also elementary. It is perfect for a beginner, a simple drag and drop but limited again in the level of customisation. I cringed that they provide a template that says “babe” eugh.
Customisation
A significant one for me is the ability to customise your branding and portal. It’s not enough to be able to just drop in a logo and a header. I want the ability to make my work stand out from a sea of business’ out there. Honey book is VERY generic looking. I also found that I use lots of imagery in my proposal documents. This wasn’t possible with Honeybooks. Again, going back to customisation, there are a tonne of smart fields that you can add to Dubsado docs. This isn’t anywhere near as developed on Honeybooks.
Usability
Usability is just not refined enough for my liking. I found that some essential automated client email workflows were not visible at the client level where you would expect them to be but at the account level in an obscure setting called sub-menu. This means you do not have true visibility on everything being sent automatically and requires you to search for it – ain’t no one got time for that!
Integrations
Now we all know how much I love good automation and integration! Honeybook was a sad sight on this topic. I firmly believe that these CRM’s need to be at the top of their game when it comes to integration because there is a whole heap of business’ out there that, simply put, have their Sh*t all over the place and need to be able to connect the dots. You will only add to that nightmare if this is you and you choose Honeybooks.
Payments
The payment features are limited with Honeybook. I like to use my own PayPal, which you cannot do in HB. It is also not possible to use your own square and stripe accounts, and I found I was restricted to Honeybooks own platform payment service – We all want to avoid as many bank fees as possible, right? They say this is to keep everything in one area. Both platforms require you to add the fee as a line item if you want to pass the charge on to your clients.
Dashboard
I’ve also become quite fond of the dashboard on Dubsado, where I can see everything at a glance. Although Honeybooks dashboard isn’t bad, it doesn’t have what I’m used to, and I didn’t enjoy having to click to another page to see the same financial details I can see on Dubs.
The only downside comparison that I could see was that Dubsado could be a bit overwhelming for a new person, but Dubs’ support team is beyond impressive and always really responsive when you need help. It took me a little while to set everything up perfectly, but now that I have, the amount of admin has reduced in our team by well over half. To the point that I had to find one of my VA’s another job because she no longer had to keep an eye on everything!
I’ve taken my experience with Dubsado and packaged it up nicely into a course with lots of templates and lists and even some little CSS tricks to customise your Dubs even further. I also offer a Done for You Dusbsado service that you can check out.
Safe to say, I won’t be leaving the Dubsado fam just yet! I love my tech, so I will still keep my ear to the ground and give you feedback on comparisons as they enter the market.
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