Dubsado Vs HoneyBook Vs Zendo: Exploring Solutions For Small & Medium Businesses

Creative entrepreneurs have to face many challenges.

Not only do they have to worry about being good enough at their craft to triumph over the competition, but they also have to learn everything there is to know about marketing, professional branding, and customer acquisition. And the biggest bane of our existence — taxes. 

The road towards financial freedom and living out of a hobby isn’t as easy as it tends to appear at first glance. The first realization strikes fast: among so many tasks, there’s little free time left for the actual work. And with little actual work, revenue suffers.

And there’s even less time to polish the little details that elevate a good customer experience into an exquisite, memorable one that inspires loyalty. 

Thankfully, Customer Relationship Management systems came just in time to save us all.

Here’s a quick comparison table for those in a hurry:

Is CRM a Must?

You might be wondering — do you really need a Customer Management system?

Oh yes, you do. You most certainly do. 

Under the overwhelming Customer Management system hides a set of features that aims to support service-based businesses on every level. If you want to save time by automating repetitive tasks that are universal for a specific type of client and services, this should capture your interest. Additionally, these systems enable:

• Better organization: CRMs force users to streamline their processes to leave nothing to chance, 
• Data storage: all the files, exchanged messages and photos, as well as internal notes, are easily accessible,
• Efficient communication: clients can expect a faster response rate and more cohesive, on-brand, and friendly communication,
• Quick and easy online payments: CRMs shorten long payment processes for maximum convenience through integration with popular payment processor (like PayPal).
• Elevated customer experience: clients feel better taken care of and perceive you as a true professional, positively affecting your brand.

In conclusion, a Customer Management system should be the next step to scaling up your business and increasing your revenue. 

Which Client Management Software to Choose?

Once you decide to commit to finding a new system, you’ll quickly realize just how many options are out there. Most of them promise similar results, but those claims aren’t always easy to verify on your own. That’s exactly why guides like this Dubsado vs. HoneyBook vs. Zendo comparison exist; to give you a clearer picture and help you make a more informed decision instead of leaving your business management to chance.

What matters most, though, is your own set of needs. There’s no one-size-fits-all solution; every platform has its limits and is designed with a specific type of user in mind. That’s why it’s worth taking the time to explore your options rather than settling for the first tool you come across. In many cases, a bit of trial and error is simply part of the process.

At the same time, it’s important to stay open-minded. Some tools may require you to adjust the way you work in order to unlock their full potential. If that’s not a dealbreaker, it’s worth giving them a chance. You might be surprised by the results.

We’d like to encourage you to try out three different systems in particular: Dubsado, Honeybook, and Zendo. Let’s explore them together.

Background

Each system comes with its own origin story, just like any superhero. 

HoneyBook

Out of all three systems, HoneyBook is the oldest one, created in 2013 by Oz Alon, Naama Alon, and Dror Shimoni. Back then, solopreneurship was a rising trend. While there’s a point of contention over the exact number of Americans who are independent contractors — with Upwork exaggerating the figures (source) and the U.S. Bureau of Labor being more of a skeptic — it’s undeniable that over the years, many people started rethinking their place in the workforce. Additionally, prompted by the volatile economic situation caused by COVID-19, starting your own solo entrepreneurship became more and more of an attractive option. 

For some people, it was the only option to make the ends meet.

The creators of HoneyBook, while they couldn’t have predicted the future, they have definitely noticed the starting trend and armed the independent contractors with a tool that could become their most invaluable yet. How did they know how to do that? Well, they were facing the exact same problems and challenges.

“We were owning our businesses. We loved it, but we didn’t love the mundane tasks that came with it. We liked communicating with our customers. We loved serving them, but we didn’t like bookkeeping. We didn’t like tracing payments, tracking agreements. That was not the thing we liked about owning a business.“ 

— Oz Alon for Alejandro Cremades

Without a doubt, HoneyBook can be considered a giant success. It gained unicorn status in 2020 and two years later, it reached a $35.1M revenue with 55,000 customers and over $498.0M of funding.

Dubsado

Dubsado grew on similar soil. Their creators, a husband-and-wife team Jake and Becca Berg, also knew a thing or two about small businesses, having been a part of the photography industry. Discovering the lack of simple tools for organizing a business, they’ve started developing their own, one feature after another. At first, to make their own lives a little bit easier. Later on, to deliver a business-changing software that currently has more than 25,000 users. What’s unique about this SaaS product is that it has no funding at all.

“Our main goal with not being funded is just being able to pivot, being agile in our own business, so that we can release the features that we want to our users when they want them. (…) Because we don’t have this environment where we’re reporting to people, or because our designers are dissociated with our engineers, everyone is very fluid and we’re all on the same page in how we communicate. We mimic our early days in Dubsado with what we do today.”

— Becca Berg for Davey & Krista

Zendo

In contrast, Zendo was created in a slightly different environment, but in similar enough circumstances.

Jakub Gaj, CEO & Founder of a software development company Massive Pixel Creation, was also suffering from a lack of software that could solve his most pressing problems — primarily, having one, organized space for internal and external communication. Back in 2016, it was hard to find a ready-made solution that would be a perfect fit. So of course, MPC had to create its own.

That’s how WPKraken came to be, Zendo’s prototype. It served its purpose well enough to impress all the clients, who wanted to implement a similar solution in their own businesses. Due to technical limitations, WPKraken couldn’t be sold as a SaaS product, but MPC quickly adjusted by creating a completely new, improved, and ready to be sold version of WPKraken — Zendo.

Released in 2021, Zendo is the newest kid on the block with a special offer for small teams willing to scale up. Simple and minimalistic, it’s universal enough to be suitable for many industries and the limited amount of features enables quick onboarding processes and intuitive use.

“The market is filled with tools that offer helpful features, but most of the time, they’re too overwhelming for the teams. They have a steep learning curve and are hard to setup. In the end, you use about 5% of the software while you’re paying for the whole package. And you also have to include the cost of the set up, because you can’t do it on your own. It just doesn’t make sense. Tools should be simple and easy to use, like Zendo.”

— Jakub Gaj

Target Audience 

Both Dubsado and HoneyBook are primarily aimed at creative professionals offering productized services, similar to those found on platforms like Fiverr. For freelancers who have outgrown marketplaces like that, these tools are a natural next step, giving them more control over their client relationships and workflows.

Zendo, on the other hand, is better suited for small teams that want to combine strong organization with high-quality customer service, while also ensuring smooth and efficient communication between everyone involved. It’s also a solid choice for agencies managing multiple clients and projects at once.

Looking at it from a broader perspective, Zendo can be seen as a natural progression for freelancers ready to scale — those who want to grow their business, build a team, and offer more personalized, flexible services to long-term clients.

Learning Curve

Introducing new software comes with the need to master all of its features. This might require time, effort, and in some cases — money. 

With Great Customization Comes Great Complexity

While checking out many reviews on Dubsado, you’ll quickly notice a pattern: while everyone praises the crazy amount of customization, many complain about the difficulty of the setup. Taking into consideration TrustRadius, Capterra, and G2, that makes up 47% of reviewers. Most commonly, it’s setting up workflows and automations that’s giving the users some trouble.

What’s so terrifying about the workflows? Unless each client has the same exact journey, there are lots of variations to prepare for in advance, leaving lots of space for mistakes. 

“Some of the features still have some kinks. I attempted to use Workflows a while back and found them confusing and honestly, a bit scary (e.g. automated emails potentially going out at the wrong times) to use. I haven’t tried using them for quite a while, and I imagine some of those kinks have been worked out. However, there’s definitely room for improvement when it comes to things like intuitiveness of setting up things like workflows, payment plans, and automated invoicing.” 

— Nadia P. on Capterra

The setup is so confusing and the learning curve so steep, that there are people offering services to help you out, like Kathleen Rass, Cait Potter, Hannah Bowyer, and many more specialists promoted by Dubsado itself.

The good news is that Dubsado’s customer support is excellent. The team is friendly, knowledgeable, and ready to help through email, chat, or phone. They also offer demos, 1:1 screen share sessions, free white-glove migration services, and a wealth of resources at no cost. So if you ever get stuck, you can count on Dubsado’s support team to guide you through it.

With Great Simplicity Come Great Restrictions

For those who don’t need more customization beyond the basics, their businesses could thrive in HoneyBook. Unfortunately, there’s a catch:

HoneyBook is available only for small business owners located in the U.S. and Canada.

That means that the rest of the world has to move their business elsewhere.

For those who meet the location requirements: you can expect the learning curve to be way easier than in Dubsado, although you can still find setup specialists willing to help (The Organized CEO, Jessica Vickers, Yeri Bridgett). On G2, ease of use is mentioned as HoneyBook’s most common advantage. But in the case of Dubsado, the learning curve is often mentioned as a disadvantage; although supposedly, worth the time investment.

Most interestingly, though, users say they chose Dubsado over HoneyBook due to the latter being too simple for their growing businesses.

So in this case, simplicity is a double-edged sword that forces users to fit their business into tight constraints. It can help you take control over your processes and leave nothing to chance, but the limited amount of customization will dictate the rules — for example, you will have to compromise when it comes to creating your workflows, templates, and finding a workaround for editing existing information.

With Great Simplicity Comes Great Flexibility

Simplicity can come from different places. Sometimes, it’s the result of limitation — everything feels easy because your options are restricted. You just follow a predefined path: configure this, customize that, and you’re set. But that kind of simplicity leaves very little room to adapt things to your own way of working.

On the other hand, there’s simplicity that comes from freedom.

Dubsado and HoneyBook both fall somewhere in between. They offer a wide range of features — billing, reporting, analytics, contract templates, lead capture forms, proposals, workflows, a scheduler, custom domains, and more. In many ways, they anticipate what your business might need, which is why they’re especially popular among photographers and event organizers. Both platforms also provide ready-made, industry-specific templates and forms to help you get started faster while still maintaining a professional look.

Moreover, both these platforms require well-thought-out processes up to the little details to take advantage of the workflow automation and scheduling features. You can effortlessly lead your clients through the whole customer journey, from the initial contact to the post-purchase stage, without having to rewrite emails, contracts, questionnaires, or any other files. But to do that, you need to consider every step and action of your client and your own response to it.

Here’s a process map shown as an example on HoneyBook’s website, which can be turned into a simple workflow: 

They’re the entire reason why people love both of the platforms — but they can also beoverwhelming. In such processes, making a change to one part might require changing all the others, resembling a butterfly effect. 

It might still be worth implementing, but if your services are more personalized and unique to each client, such workflows will be useless.

That’s why Zendo has a different approach to creating workflows.

Instead of coming up with linear stages that the client has to go through one-by-one, you can opt for a more flexible approach by creating Request Types.

Request Type dictates the flow of a client request. It allows you to:

• Set up different Statuses, such as “pending”, “active”, “completed”, and more (with the option to create your own custom ones!). While in the thick of things, you can jump between them freely, going back-and-forth if you need to. In Zendo, you won’t ever be restricted by rigid processes!
• Choose which team member (if any) should be automatically assigned to this type of request; for example, one team member is assigned to complex projects requiring custom estimations, while another one handles simple inquiries or productized services.
• Set up triggers that prompt specific actions. For example, when the request goes from “pending” to “active”, its status can automatically change to “in progress”; or, when its status changes to “done”, an intake form (which in this case, could be a feedback survey) can be sent on its own.
• Add a checklist to make sure that all the steps are covered and that you never forget about a single thing; we all know how easy it is to skip details, especially when deadlines are hot on our heels!
• Include custom fields, such as “Resources needed”, “Task type”, “Complexity of the project”, “Competencies needed”, or entirely new one, with the option to restrict their visibility to private. That’s a great way of hoarding extra yet vital information to speed things up!

Then, you can assign your custom Request Type to a service. There are four different types you can create:

• Productized: built from individual items that can be set as required or offered as optional add-ons. You can also make them quantifiable, allowing clients to decide how many they want to include. Items can be free or custom-priced as well, giving you plenty of flexibility and strong upsell potential within your productized offering.
• Custom: pricing is left open and agreed on later. This works best for tailored solutions where you need more input from the client before properly scoping and valuing the service.
• Subscription: enables recurring payments over a chosen period (weekly, monthly, quarterly, or yearly). If you’re delivering ongoing services with automated billing, this is the ideal setup, especially when combined with a subscription pause.
• Free: offered at no cost, typically used for general inquiries, consultations, or support requests.

Moreover, to make things even easier, you can automate issuing quotes; they get triggered once a payment has been made.

Next, you can create an Order Form for your service that clients fill out directly on your Storefront when submitting a request. It’s fully customizable, allowing you to add as many fields as needed, from simple text inputs and URL links to multiple-choice questions. This way, you can gather all the essential information upfront and handle requests quickly and efficiently, which is especially important for custom orders.

And if that’s not enough, you can take advantage of the Zapier integration to make truly powerful automation, linking not just Zendo features, but also different tools in your arsenal. So if you’d like your requests to be noted down in your Excel sheet, to send automatic Slack messages whenever a status changes, or to backup your files without any of your input, you can do so freely!

While that may sound like a lot, it’s actually the opposite — Zendo is easy-to-use and its learning curve is way smaller than its competitors. Creating and customizing your workspace can take anywhere from a couple of minutes to a few hours, max.

“Zendo attracted us for its simplicity, attention to detail, the level of customization, and the ability to adapt to every need (…). Its flexibility allows you to save several hours of work and increase your Brand Awareness.”

— Massimo Bologna, meltin’Concept

Team Collaboration

Being a one-man army can feel empowering at first, but might turn out exhausting fast. Introducing team members to lift the weight off your shoulders can be a real game-changer if you want to reach a healthy work-life balance.

Dubsado’s Multi-User

Dubsado released the multi-user feature back in 2018. In short, this option allows other people to access different parts of the Dubsado account, depending on their role. There are three:

• Basic — this role has access to projects and tasks they’re assigned to and is able to interact with them enough to complete them on their own. They have no access to features that concern money and invoices.
• Accountant — this role has access to the Reporting section only.
• Admin — this role has access to almost all of the features, excluding the Billing section. 

Additionally, none of the roles can connect their own email accounts nor see each other’s schedules connected to Google Calendar. Scheduling meetings is impossible for them. 

This means that Dubsado doesn’t have the means to support whole teams.Instead, it supports having additional help that can jump in from time to time, someone to handle single tasks or help with your finances. There are no features geared towards teamwork, so if you’re planning to use Dubsado as a team, you’re going to need external tools for collaboration and communication. 

The only workaround for this is creating multiple brands for your teammates. That will require an additional fee, though. 

HoneyBooks’ Team Member Roles

HoneyBook isn’t that much different from Dubsado in terms of teamwork. You can add people who regularly help you out or collaborate with you, but this one platform is lacking the necessary features to serve as a proper environment for teams. 

Nonetheless, there are four roles that can be assigned to users:

• Basic team member — they can only access and manage their own projects and contacts, without visibility into others’ work or the ability to modify company settings, financial data, or team structure.
• Moderator — they can view all workspaces, pipelines, contacts, and project details across the team, but still can’t manage company settings, finances, team structure, or act within projects they’re not part of (like sending files or editing notes).
• Admin — they have the widest operational control; they can manage team members, roles, sessions, forms, and edit or resend project content across the workspace, but still can’t access financial data, customize core company settings, or fully act within projects they’re not part of.
• Super admin — they have near full access (including company settings, reports, finances, and all projects) but unlike account owners, they still can’t manage account-level details like bank information, membership settings, custom domains, or multi-company setup.
• Owner — they have complete control over the account; everything super admins can do, plus full access to financial settings, membership details, and advanced account features like managing multiple companies and file services.

Zendo’s Effective and Transparent Teamwork

Zendo was made with collaboration and teamwork in mind. Therefore, it has everything a team leader might need to ensure a seamless collaboration among all the team members.

• Chat — Zendo’s center of operations can be found in chat, where clients communicate with your team members. Besides that, you can also send quotes, invoices, payment reminders, receive payments, and send notes that are only visible to your team as well as attachments. 

• Internal notes — team members can write and share internal notes with each other in chat. The notes are not visible to clients.
• Insight — everyone has quick access to the workspace and can see and interact with the requests they’re assigned to, where most of the vital information is stored. Moreover, everyone can change their type of view by switching between a List, Table, or a Kanban view. As a cherry on top, you can filter the information in each view and save it — for example, you can only see requests noted as High Priority or that are assigned to a specific agent. You can make the views private or global.    
• Access to files — Zendo ensures an easy access to all the data, as long as you have the right permissions. For example, the Client Profile contains every piece of information pertaining to the customer, from all their Requests to exchanged files, documents, invoice details, and basic personal information. too. And if there’s any extra information that you and your team want to save, you can use the Notes section to make sure it’s not lost. 
• Quotes & Invoices — it’s important to store all your documents in one place, so that’s what Zendo offers; the Documents tab lists all your Quotes & Invoices, so you can quickly check up on their statuses, value, issue date, and other relevant information. You can look up Quotes and Invoices directly in the Requests they belong to as well, just like in Client Profiles. 
• Impersonation — users with the right access can impersonate clients and other team members. This way, you can either help with troubleshooting or send messages in their name. 

When it comes to roles, Zendo has five of them:

• Watcher — this role is passive and meant for people outside of the team, allowing the user to view all the information concerning the request they are added to. 
• Agent — this role can interact with requests they are assigned to, but they cannot delete them. They can impersonate clients.
• Manager — this role has access to all requests and can also assign them and manage clients. They can also impersonate clients and other managers.
• Admin — this role can do everything but manage the subscription plan.
• Owner — this role can do everything but pay on behalf of the client. 

The number of team members varies from plan to plan.

Customer Experience

We all know now how these platforms work for team members — but what about the client-facing features? Is client experience any better for it? What do they have access to?

First Contact

All three platforms allow you to integrate or at least link to the page with your offer. This means that all your clients who have visited your website and decided to try out your services, can quickly find their way to the form and fill it out — which is very convenient for clients. The form will land straight into your platform, according to the chosen system. 

You can also share the contact form directly with your client by sending them a link. 

Communication

For all three platforms, email remains the main channel of communication. Business owners can send messages directly from the platform, while clients can reply without needing to log in anywhere, which keeps the process simple and convenient.

When it comes to Dubsado and HoneyBook, both offer canned emails that can be automatically triggered by specific actions or events. Thanks to this, clients often receive quick responses along with polished, visually appealing messages. These can include additional materials like forms, questionnaires, or even contracts that can be signed with legally binding signatures. This gives off a very professional impression and instills trust.

Moreover, you can send and receive email messages directly on these two platforms. It will centralize the communication, but you’ll still be stuck exchanging back-and-forth emails. 

In comparison, Zendo’s approach to communication is more personal, encouraging clients to exchange messages in real-time chat, which gives more of a friendly feel. All the messages land in the email inbox, so if a client prefers exchanging emails, they can do so as well. 

The chat comes with more features than a typical one: you can send quotes, payment requests, send invoices, and most importantly — finalize payments without leaving the chat window.

Client Portal

All three platforms offer spaces for their clients where they can check on the project status, view exchanged messages, files, forms, invoices, and any other important information pertaining to the case. Both HoneyBook and Dubsado offer rich customization options, while Zendo comes with a uniformed look that’s fully in line with the best UX/UI practices.

Payments

The creators of these platforms clearly understand one of the biggest pain points in any business: getting paid easily and on time. This is especially relevant for freelancers, who often don’t have the same level of protection as agencies or larger companies.

That’s why payment features are built to be as smooth and convenient as possible for both sides, while still ensuring a high level of security. With Dubsado and HoneyBook, clients can complete payments directly within the contracts or proposals sent to their inbox. In Zendo, payments are handled within the chat, making the process feel more immediate and conversational. In all cases, money gets processed right away, with no extra platform fees beyond the standard charges from the selected payment method.

Subscription Plans

Dubsado’s Subscription Plans: Unlimited Trial and Moderate Prices

First of all, if you’re interested in taking Dubsado for a test drive, you can do that for an indefinite amount of time — as long as you run out of clients because the limit is 3.

Once you decide to commit, Dubsado comes with two plans: Starter ($335 per year) and Premier ($525 per year), which can be both paid in annual and monthly installments. 

If you’d like to get really deep into Dubsado’s subscription plans, analyze it properly and get a broader picture of what value you get for these prices, read our article on Dubsado pricing. 

HoneyBook’s Subscription Plans: Short Trial, Moderate Prices

Similarly to Dubsado, there’s no time limit in the trial mode. You can keep using it for as long as you need, just without the access to advanced financial features and other Premium services; they only become available upon subscription to the paid plan.

HoneyBook offers three plans: 

• Starter, for $36 per month or $349 per year,
• Essentials, for $59 per month or $588 per year,
• Premium, for $129 per month or $1308 per year.

If that caught your interest and you’d like to discover all the nuances of HoneyBook’s subscription plans, read our article on HoneyBook pricing.

Zendo’s Subscription Plans: Affordable Options & Free Forever Plan

If you’re eager to try out Zendo for yourself, you can do that for free. For how many days, you may ask? For as many as you like! Zendo comes with a free forever plan, called Essential, that doesn’t cost a single penny. It comes with access to most features (excluding automation & white-label) with the only limitation being that you can only invite one extra agent to your workspace. This gives you ample time to test Zendo from every angle and decide for yourself whether it’s worth it.

When it comes to paid plans, there are three: Core, Pro, and Agency. Core comes with the basic features, such as Storefront, one-off and custom services, 5 request types, and more. Pro includes advanced white-label features, unlimited request types, and productized services, among others. Agency additionally has forms with conditional logic, full white-label experience, custom CSS, as well as 5TB of storage space, just to name a few.

Their prices are as follows:

• Core: $25 a month or $300 a year,
• Pro: $59 a month or $588 a year,
• Agency: $99 a month or $948 a year.

Conclusions

HoneyBook, Dubsado, and Zendo each offer powerful tools for freelancers, entrepreneurs, and business owners — whether you’re just getting started or looking to scale. By automating repetitive tasks and simplifying workflows, these platforms let you focus on what really matters: growing your business and building stronger client relationships.

For freelancers just outgrowing marketplaces like Fiverr or Upwork, HoneyBook is a solid choice. Its gentle learning curve and straightforward features make it easy to get started without feeling overwhelmed, while still giving you peace of mind.

Dubsado is a more ambitious option. It takes time and patience to master — you may even need a specialist to help at first — but it pays off, particularly if you work in industries that align with Dubsado’s strengths.

For businesses with unique workflows that don’t fit standard pipelines, Zendo stands out. It offers maximum flexibility, supports simple and real-time client interactions, and works seamlessly for teams.

If you’d like to compare Zendo with other tools, read our ManyRequests Alternative blog post.

Productized Service Marketing 101

A free online training. Delivered daily to your inbox to grow your productized agency.

Subscribe for free

Subscribe for free

Frequently Asked Questions