Analyzing The Best Dubsado Alternative: 7 Reasons To Try Zendo

Whether you’ve found yourself feeling frustrated trying to figure out Dubsado in all its nooks and crannies or you’re simply looking for different functionality in your ideal software, we have one, ultimate Dubsado alternative for you to dive into — Zendo.

But first, let’s focus a bit on why exactly would you need an alternative to Dubsado in the first place.

What Is Dubsado And Why Would You Need An Alternative?

Dubsado is a project management software that eases the lives of many businesses with features like contract signing, invoices, scheduler, forms, tasks, or reports.

Now, we’ve tested, analyzed, and compared Dubsado with a few similar solutions so far, including HoneyBook, 17Hats, or Studio Ninja.

Hence, we can conclude that while this software gives us some great flexibility with no time limits on its free trial, some nicely-done workflows, and an array of client, project, and task management features, it definitely takes the toll in other areas.

And that’s how its steep learning curve, not-so-modern UI, or lack of proper team and client communication, may become your deal breakers with Dubsado that will get you looking for an alternative to this software.

What Is Zendo?

Zendo is the one and only solution you need to sell your services, communicate with your clients, collaborate on projects with your team, and collect payments.

A solution created by service providers for service providers, Zendo officially launched in 2021 as a product of Massive Pixel Creation, based on an internal solution originally used for handling client’s requests.

But what makes it truly stand out from similar solutions on the market is its take on service selling. And that’s because it’s not just based on creating invoices, rather comes with a whole service creator, a Service Catalog, and workflows for automation that really pull the whole process together.

And if lack of proper communication-focused features is what forced you to look for a Dubsado alternative, Zendo gives you a powerful chat for client & team communication that combines messages, statuses, payments, sharing files, invoices, quotes, and even more.

7 Reasons To Choose Zendo Over Dubsado

But, let’s not just run our mouths on how good Zendo is, but actually discuss the reasons why it’s one of the best Dubsado alternatives, showcasing its functionality, and zooming in on its free plan’s potential.

Here are the 7 reasons to choose Zendo over Dubsado!

Reason #1: The Free Forever Plan

If Dubsado costs seem to be a little too much, Zendo will be the perfect substitute.

And that’s because it comes with a free forever plan that’s not limited to a number of clients, projects, or paid invoices, but only limited to the number of users — 2 per free forever plan workspace.

So, with just your email, you can get access to all the essential Zendo features, unlimited requests, clients, services, payments, invoices, quotes, and more, for free, with no time limits.

You can even bring one more agent with you on board, at no cost! 

Reason #2: Better Service Selling

Even though Dubsado does offer the possibility to create your own service packages, they’re a bit too simple when compared with Zendo’s services.

And that’s because Dubsado bases its packages on a simple invoice creator that combines adding line items, taxes, and discounts. So the service packages basically act as your invoice templates.

When you save your new service package, you can share it with clients through the already-mentioned invoices, but you still need to go out of your way to send it. Either via email or by digging up the client portal settings, and setting up such a space for your clients so that they can view their invoices there.

Zendo on the other hand gives you the possibility to actually set up different types of services that you can combine with an order form, a customizable Service Catalog that lets your clients browse through your services and order them, and so much more, in a convenient space.

Let’s get into a bit more detail, to really see Zendo’s services in action.

Different Types Of Services

Zendo lets you define your services and set each one in the app, choosing from productized, custom, free, and subscription-based services.

You get to name your service, upload your own images that fit with your offer, add the components of your service, set the prices, create add-ons for easy upselling, choose the currency, set the default payment method, adjust your invoice and payment request preferences, and work on a customizable order form.

And of course, each service type gives you exactly what you need.

That’s how with subscriptions, you can set up different billing cycles, add a free trial, highlight your favorite packages, or set request limits.

Custom services on the other hand focus more on the order form you create to gather as much information about each project as possible.

Productized services are all about items, add-ons, and prices, while free services are used for gathering general or support-based inquiries.

Service Catalog

Once you add your services, you can work on your Service Catalog, which is the place where your clients can browse and order your services.

You can decide which services should be visible in the Service Catalog, customize the background image, header, title, and description messages, and choose between light and dark font colors.

You can also preview your Service Catalog while working on customizing it to fit your brand. Then, copy the direct, publicly accessible link to it once you’ve finished polishing it.

Service Delivery

And the best part is that Zendo’s services don’t end on just setting them up and displaying them for clients. Once your clients order any of your services in Zendo, you get to deliver them in the best fashion.

It all starts with the fact that each client order pops into Zendo as a new conversation thread, which you can use to communicate with your clients and send private messages to your team to discuss each order.

💡 The only exception is in case of subscriptions that show up in a separate Subscriptions tab, and later, once clients submit requests within it, you see new conversation threads in the chat.

But going back to the chat’s possibilities, they don’t end solely on chatting. You can also update the status of each order, share any files, create quotes, send out invoices and payment requests, mention your team members, use emojis, and communicate with your team through private notes!

All happening in one place to ensure the utmost efficiency in service delivery.

Your clients will also be able to easily complete payments, either directly from within the chat when using Stripe, or receive the necessary details for bank transfers.

You can complete the whole experience with workflows that are there for you to automate some of the actions with triggers, help you gather essential details on each order with custom fields, create and add your own statuses specific to the service you’re delivering, and more.

Reason #3: Actual Communication

We’ve mentioned that new orders or requests pop into Zendo as a new chat thread. And that chat is precisely what you’ll be using to communicate with your clients and your team.

Having an actual chat for communication is something that’s rarely offered within CRMs. What you usually see instead is communication based on emails, email templates, or email scheduling at best.

In Zendo, you’ll be using something as simple as messages for client communication and private team notes for team communication.

You can top it all off with mentions, emojis, sharing files, statuses, invoices, quotes, and payments for an even better experience.

Reason #4: Modern And Customizable Look

We’ve gone through quite a lot of tools and software for our comparison articles and can confidently say that Zendo stands out among all of them with its very modern look that just adds to the professionalism.

Plus, it gives you quite some opportunities to customize the way your workspace looks, with custom sign up and log in pages, customizable logo, favicon, email logo, or accent color.

Paid plans users get even more white-label options, such as the possibility to connect a custom domain, customize their Zenbot for automatic messages, or remove the ‘Powered by Zendo’ badge completely.

Reason #5: Not Like The Others: Unique Features

On top of Zendo’s modern look combined with great functionality and ease of use, this tool also offers some unique features, not just going after one fashion as most software tends to do.

We already talked about some of Zendo’s unique features, such as its powerful chat or its neat services, but there’s actually even more to unfold with this software.

Here are our favorite unique to Zendo features.

Views manager + robust filtering options: Zendo gives you more than just one view of your workload. You can filter your requests in many different ways, for example using the list, table, or kanban views, or filtering by specific characteristics, for example by open, closed, or archived requests.

But the filtering is one thing. In Zendo, you can also save your favorite filtering settings for future use by creating either a private or a global view using the Views Manager feature.

Zenbot + automatic initial messages: We all know how absolutely crucial it is to reply to clients fast. And Zendo is here to save you from frantically trying to message each client immediately after they’ve reached out. You can now relax and let Zenbot take over.

Zenbot is your personal assistant that sends automatic messages to clients. This could be an automatic initial message specific to each service you create or an automatic message with a quote, invoice, or a payment request included.

What’s even sweeter is that users on the paid plans can go ahead and customize Zenbot to fit their branding and change its name and avatar.

Triggers for in-chat status change: Some actions always receive the same status, so why bother and change the status manually each and every time? In Zendo, you can use triggers to automate status change for some of the actions, for example whenever a quote has been paid or sent to clients.

You can specify the triggers for each workflow you create to make sure they fit with what you need.

Premium tokens: Despite its exhaustive free forever plan, Zendo also offers features exclusive for paid plans users. But you won’t be left in the lurch even then.

Users on the free plan can enjoy something called premium tokens. These are basically tokens to use to test out premium features for free.

You get 5 renewable premium tokens each month to test out automatic payment requests and Zendo’s subscriptions. And the best part is that a premium token is only used when you actually collect a payment using any of these two features.  

Reason #6: Easy To Learn

Zendo has been built simple.

And even as it grows and adds new features and functionalities, this software remains easy to use.

But even though the learning curve is pretty shallow, you will still find lots of tooltips to guide you in the right direction and a thorough collection of help center articles. And if you feel like chatting with the team directly, you can do so through Zendo’s Discord community or chat directly through the app!

Reason #7: Professional Client Portal

What’s even better than having great software?

Being able to share it with your clients, of course!

You can use Zendo to create that professional client portal you’re longing for. Share your Service Catalog, allow your clients to make orders, chat with you, access shared files, see their quotes and invoices, and pay for your services, all in one place.

And if you want to keep Zendo in fit with your branding, don’t forget about the many white label and branding options we’ve already mentioned, such as the accent color change, custom domain, customizable Zenbot, changeable sign up and log in pages, and more.

The Ultimate Dubsado Alternative For Selling Services: Zendo

Out of all the tools we’ve tested when making different software comparisons and analysis, Zendo came out to be the best Dubsado alternative out there.

It’s easy to use, modern looking, comes with great features for selling services, doesn’t neglect client & team communication, offers unique solutions to enhance service delivery, comes with a great client portal, makes payments super easy, and offers its most essential functionality in the free forever plan!

You can check out Zendo’s power for free, with just an email address on hand.

Frequently Asked Questions: Dubsado Alternative