You’re here because you’re considering starting with Honeybook or switching away from it. Maybe Honeybook is feeling too cumbersome, or maybe you just want to make sure you’re making a smart buying decision before you commit to setting up any project management tools.

In this post, we’ll go over the best Honeybook alternative for coaches and consultants specifically.

What Should Coaches Look For When Choosing a Business Management Solution?

Let’s start with what to keep in mind when deciding which platform will be the backbone of running your coaching business.

1. Features and Functionality

You want to choose a platform that has comprehensive features that cover your needs.

Make a list of what’s most important for your business and check that the platform you’re looking at offers those key features.

Examples of features you may want your tool to include: 

• Payment processing
• Appointment scheduling reminders
• Calendar management
• Task management
• Built-in invoicing software
• Proposal templates
• Contract management
• File sharing
• Basic client management and communication tools
• Client portal
• Website builder

There could be other advanced features you want to look for, but this depends on what your needs are as a small business owner. 

2. User-Friendly Interface

A project management platform with a terrible user experience could cause friction between you and your client. 

As a small business owner, you want all your interactions to be seamless. Time is precious, and using a platform that’s unintuitive and not user-friendly will waste your time. It’ll also annoy your clients if client communication or document management tools are clunky. 

A platform with an easy-to-use interface is one of the most important elements you should look for when choosing a tool for your business management.

3. Customization Options

Does the platform give you customization options and an easy ability to share content with your clients? 

If you can manage everything in one place, such as:

• Billing
• Contracts
• Your client portal
• Course content

It will make your life much easier.

4. Integrations

You want a tool for your business processes that seamlessly integrates with your other project management tools. 

Check that the tool works with your current calendar system, email marketing, and payment processing. Alternatively, if the tool is an all-in-one solution, this fixes the problem.

5. Security and Privacy

Is the platform serious about protecting your customers’ data? 

Check their privacy policy, how they back up data, and whether or not they store payment details if they process payments. That way, you can ensure a safe customer experience.

6. Pricing and Free Trials

The tool needs to be within your budget. It’s all very well finding a tool that offers the world, but if it’s eating into your monthly spending, it makes no sense for your business operations.

Check the tool for free trial options and ease of cancellation. You don’t want to get locked into an expensive year-long contract you can’t get out of.

If the tool offers a free trial, it’s a great chance to check that it truly serves your business before you pay anything.

7. Reviews From Other Coaches

Checking the reviews from previous users will give you more insight as to whether a tool will work for you. 

The reviews should give you a great overview from other small business owners about the pros and cons of the platform for coaches. If there are little to no reviews, that’s a red flag.

What is Honeybook?

Honeybook was originally launched as a business management solution to help vendors in the wedding industry. The idea was that multiple vendors could collaborate in one place and easily track their various client projects.

It has since evolved and expanded beyond the wedding industry to other creative professionals and independent businesses. Still, Honeybook is designed to serve those who provide a creative service, often in person. 

Honeybook’s key features include: 

• Lead capture forms
• Create professional invoices, proposals, and contracts in a single process
• Scheduling links
• Client portals
• Workflow automations
• Online payment processing
• HoneyBook AI
• Business checking accounts

The Major Downsides of Honeybook for Coaches & Consultants

Honeybook is a well-designed, well-executed tool that works well for those who take each client through a very specific process:

• You receive a business lead (either manually or through a lead capture form)
• Based on the needs of the client, you create a proposal
• The proposal, invoice, and contract are generated all in the same workflow
• Your client reviews the proposal, pays the invoice, and signs the contract

With Honeybook’s new updates, you can also create what they call services instead of creating proposals.

With services, clients can look through a list of — you guessed it — services that you want to offer them. From there, they can pick the ones they want, and that’s when they’ll get guided to the contract and invoice steps.

However, it can feel a little clunky for coaches and consultants who want to create coaching packages instead of client projects.

Extremely Complex To Learn And Set Up

Honeybook assumes that each client must go through a pipeline with a custom project associated. So you need to create a proposal and then a project for each new client. This framework doesn’t really make sense for coaching clients where your “deliverables” are just the sessions with the client, and no custom project is needed.

Yes, you can templatize services instead of going through the proposal process. But you can’t easily share your services page without an associated contract.

This means that you can’t share a link to your services page with just anyone. Before you do that, you have to assign a client to the signature details.

That being said, you can create Lead Capture Forms that include service bookings. But I found the process quite time-consuming and complicated. It’s almost as complicated to set up on Honeybook than on Dubsado nowadays.

For example, let’s say you want to create a coaching package that includes a one-time paid consultation. Honeybook has a Lead Capture template for that.

But once you click on that option, you also have to create a session type.

None of the lead form templates have multiple sessions as an option. This means you cannot create a coaching package with more than a single coaching session.

The only way to create a package with multiple sessions is to do it through a custom client project, every single time.

With Paperbell, if I want to create a coaching package from scratch, the process literally takes five minutes. 

And the templates available for packages make sense for a coach or consultant, because they were designed specifically for these users!

No Payment Plans or Subscriptions

Want to create a coaching membership or subscription package?

What about offering specific payment plans to your coaching clients?

No such luck with Honeybook. Because this business management software is designed around invoices, you can’t run these types of coaching business models on this platform. 

No Options for Group Coaching, Masterminds, Etc.

Honeybook simply doesn’t account for group appointments. 

So, if you want to create an online class, mastermind, or group coaching option, you’ll have to go through your full invoice/project process with each client. 

And you’ll need to use an outside tool to manage group calls and attendance.

Only the US & Canada

Currently, Honeybook only supports businesses based in the US or Canada.

Paperbell has a global customer base and offers a wide range of currencies (currently USD, AUD, CAD, EUR, GBP, JPY, NZD, SGD). 

However, Paperbell’s interface is only offered in English, so even if your pages are written in another language, the buttons will still be in English. 

No Coupon or Discount Codes

Honeybook does not offer a way to create coupon or discount codes that can be used by your clients. 

Instead, you would need to custom-discount their specific invoices or services. (Paperbell does offer custom coupon codes.)

The Honeybook Mobile App

As a busy coach, you will often be on the go and not have access to a desktop or laptop. For that reason, you want your project management software to be easy to access on your mobile. 

Most of the best project management and client management software has easy-to-use mobile apps.

Unfortunately, the Honeybook mobile app is clunky and difficult to use, which means you can’t seamlessly do lead management or client communication from your phone.

Honeybook Alternative Platforms

There are dozens of different tools for coaches out there, and you want to choose one that can help you manage everything in one place. Trying multiple tools to find the right one that fits your workflow is time-consuming and can waste your money.

To make it simpler for you, we’ve broken down the pros and cons of some of the other Honeybook alternatives on the market.

1. Simply.coach

This alternative to Honeybook is very advanced and has a lot more features than the Honeybook platform; it’s also reasonably priced, considering the number of features. There are even some marketing automation integrations.

Pros

• Reasonable pricing (from $19 per month for solopreneurs)
• Multiple features available (appointment scheduling, an online journal for session notes, goal setting, forms, invoicing, and easy online payment integration)
• Listing on the site’s coaching directory (may help you get new clients)
• Lead capture
• Text message reminders sent to your clients
• Onboarding support
• Coach support team access and an exhaustive help center

Cons

• Overwhelming interface
• Doesn’t have a slick design that’s seamless for both the coach and the client
• There are too many features (like bloated client tools), many of which you won’t even use
• While there are a lot of useful features on your client profile, there isn’t that much storage available which means you’ll have to upgrade your plan when you reach a certain limit (the starter plan only has 1GB of storage)

If you’re only starting out as a coach, this may not be the right platform for you, as the wide range of features is way more than you’ll need. 

The pricing also rapidly increases if you upgrade your plan.

2. Coaching.com

This comprehensive project management tool, specifically for coaches, claims to be an all-in-one coaching platform that can help you sell and deliver your programs. The tool claims it’s great for coaching business owners, whatever their size.

Let’s take a look at the pros and cons of coaching.com:

Pros

• Has a wide variety of features, including client management and project management
• You’ll find client communication tools in the client-facing area that makes client relationships easier
• Access a coaching marketplace to find clients
• Simple to use
• Provides resource and file uploading
• Offers coaching and invoice templates, and invoice reminders
• Mobile app and in-platform messaging
• Google Calendar syncing

Cons

• No video integration and a limit to the size of resources you can share with your client
• The platform can be glitchy and take a while to load different tabs
• It’s significantly more expensive than other options (starts at $97/month)
• It can be overwhelming for beginners to get a grip on all the features

If you want to be visible as a new coach and be part of a community of coaches, this could be an option for you. But the platform lacks personality and tries to be for too many people rather than niching down on who it serves.

3. Satori

This platform offers a fairly robust combination of features and can save you a lot of time on processes you’d otherwise need to do manually. It was originally designed for yoga teachers and has now branched out into providing services for coaches.

Pros

• The platform is specifically for 1:1 coaches
• You can use it to automate the customer management process
• Clients can auto-schedule sessions
• Automated onboarding

Cons

• There’s no mobile app
• You can’t create courses on the platform
• There’s no community function
• No group coaching function
• You’re capped on the number of coaching packages and clients you have on each pricing plan

This tool is mainly for administration purposes and isn’t as robust as the other tools out there. If you’re looking for a tool that’s purely for administrative tasks or to manage projects, this could be the one for you.

Paperbell: The Best Alternative to Honeybook

Like Honeybook, Paperbell is an all-in-one platform to help coaches run their business online. But on top of having core features like billing, appointment scheduling, contract signing, client management, and digital product delivery, every Paperbell account also comes with a free coaching website.

The goal of the tool is to make it as simple as possible to sell and fulfill your coaching online, regardless of your business model.

Paperbell is exclusively for coaches and consultants, making it one of the best Honeybook alternatives on the market specifically for this business type.  While many of the other platforms for project management and business processes can help with the customer management process, they aren’t necessarily specific to coaches.

Honeybook and Paperbell can be tricky to compare side-by-side because they operate on fundamentally different workflows. It becomes obvious pretty quickly that Paperbell was created for consultants and coaches, whereas Honeybook was created for creative professionals who are delivering a custom project for each client.

Let’s break down the different features that Paperbell offers to show why it’s such a great Honeybook alternative:

A Complete Coaching Website With Automated Workflows Instead of Proposals and Lead Forms

Coaches tend to have set offerings rather than creating custom projects for each client. Successful coaches will also sell packages of sessions instead of just offering sessions one by one.

For example, a coach may offer a 6-session package, a group coaching offering, or allow clients to purchase a “top-up” one-on-one session whenever it’s needed. 

With Paperbell, you can create as many unique coaching packages as you want. Not only will Paperbell automatically create a totally customized landing page that allows your client to purchase and schedule your offerings in one smooth checkout flow, but it will also display each package on a beautiful coaching website!

Let’s go through an example by looking at Loreto Wellness by Coach Brigid.

At the top of each coaching website, you can have:

• The name and description of your coaching business
• Your logo
• An image of your choice
• Your “about” section
• A client login link
• A call-to-action button, like an option to book a free sample coaching session

Below that, Paperbell will automatically list all your active coaching packages. 

You can create as many as you want, whether they’re one-on-one, group coaching, digital resources, or more.

Optionally, you can add:

• Client testimonials
• An FAQ section
• Links to your social media accounts
• An opt-in widget to add people to your email newsletter

But let’s walk through what happens when a potential client clicks on one of your packages.

Every package comes with its own landing page. When you’re creating your package inside Paperbell, you’ll be able to customize for:

• Number of coaching sessions
• Pricing model and price (you can also make it free)
• Coaching package description
• FAQs for this specific package
• Availability for this specific package
• Any intake forms your client needs to fill out
• Associated digital resources
• Whether a client needs to pay before or after booking their first session
• What else your coaching package includes

You can even display your coaching certifications if you have them:

If a potential client clicks “Book Now”, they’ll be prompted to choose one of your payment plans, then book their first session. Or, the opposite order will happen if you want clients to pay after they’ve booked.

Have a contract in place? They’ll be prompted to sign that, too.

Because coaching programs can look so different from one another, you have full control over the number and types of appointments you include. This means you can blend solo coaching with group coaching, and even offer multiple session types of varying length in a single program:

Now, for the best part. You can add automated emails to your packages, too. This means you can:

• Remind clients of an upcoming appointment
• Thank clients for their purchase
• Prompt clients to fill out an intake form or survey
• Make sure your clients remember to book their next appointment
• Let a client know their upcoming appointment is their last one (and potentially ask for a testimonial)
• Follow up after appointments to help with accountability or remind them to buy (especially if this was a discovery session)
• And so much more!

And because it’s designed specifically for coaches and consultants, Paperbell isn’t bloated with features you won’t need. This makes the tool ridiculously easy to set up and launch in minutes.

Advanced Scheduling Functionality

Although you can create packages that don’t include appointments (like when selling digital downloads), Paperbell assumes that most users will be primarily selling appointments. 

That’s why they have all the advanced scheduling features that you would normally only find in standalone scheduling tools like Calendly or Acuity.

Here are just a few of Paperbell’s scheduling options:

• Ability to choose if appointments start only on the hour or half-hour mark
• The exact time buffer automatically granted before and after appointments
• Choose your minimum notice for booking an appointment (don’t allow clients to book last-minute)
• Choose how far out in the future clients are able to book
• Set different availability for different packages

Paperbell also allows you to integrate with Zoom or Google Meet and includes the meeting link in the calendar invite.

[ Read: Client Scheduling Software]

Deliver Full Client Experiences, Including Digital Downloads

Coaches and consultants often want to deliver information alongside their coaching. This could be:

• Worksheets
• Audio recordings
• Replays of previous group coaching sessions
• eBooks
• Digital planners 

Paperbell includes this digital product delivery right inside your packages, so that you can automatically deliver a full experience for your clients. 

[ Read: Sell Your Digital Coaching Products Online ]

Track Performance by Package and Client

Paperbell allows you to easily see the total revenue by package or by client. 

The Biggest Difference of Paperbell vs. Honeybook: It’s All About Your Coaching Website

Paperbell understands that having a professional coaching website will go a long way to help new coaches land their first clients, especially online.

But most all-in-one tools that include website builders are not only extremely expensive, they also take forever to set up!

With Honeybook, you can share your lead capture forms, but they don’t operate as a standalone website. This means you can’t share:

• Testimonials
• FAQs
• Your lead magnet opt-in form
• Options to book other packages

As mentioned higher up, you also can’t customize the type and number of appointments someone will get in a “lead form” style package. If you want higher customizability, you need to create Services inside a Project.

And those are pages you can’t share publicly because they need to be attached to a specific client.

After extensive research into both platforms, the best choice for you really depends on how your business is structured and how tech-savvy you are.

If you mostly do custom client work, with custom projects and time-tracking, choose Honeybook. Just make sure you’re willing to invest time upfront to learn the platform and set up your services and lead forms.

If you mostly offer set packages, where the same package is purchased by multiple clients, the best Honeybook alternative is Paperbell. This is especially true if you’re tech-phobic and prefer simple, intuitive tools.

If you run a coaching or consulting business, Paperbell is the clear winner. Click here to try it for free and see how quickly you can get your coaching website up and running.

Editor’s Note: This post was originally published in June 2023 and has since been updated for accuracy.