Why Freelancers and Agencies Leave HoneyBook
HoneyBook is a solid, polished tool, and plenty of people are happy on it. But there are a few common reasons people start looking for the exit, and it is worth being honest about which one is yours before you move.
- The price keeps climbing. HoneyBook has raised its prices more than once, and the top tier now runs to about $109 a month. If your plan has quietly crept up, you are not imagining it.
- The cost grows with your team. As you add people and move up tiers, the bill climbs with you. Tools that charge one flat price per account, rather than scaling with headcount, get cheaper by comparison the bigger you get.
- It is not available everywhere. HoneyBook only operates in a handful of countries and bills in a limited set of currencies. If you or your clients are outside that, it is a hard no.
- You want features it does not include. Built-in time tracking is the classic example. If you bill hourly, having tracking, invoicing, and payments in one place matters.
If one of those hit home, the good news is that switching is far less painful than it feels. Here is how to do it without losing anything.
Before You Switch: What to Check
Ten minutes of prep saves a lot of stress. Before you move a single thing:
- List what you actually use. Clients, active projects, templates, contracts, and invoices. You do not need to move dead data from three years ago.
- Note anything mid-flight. Open proposals, unsigned contracts, and unpaid invoices. These are the things you cannot afford to drop during the move.
- Check the new tool covers your workflow. Proposals, contracts and e-signature, invoicing and online payments, and time tracking if you bill hourly. Our AgencyKit vs HoneyBook comparison lays this out side by side.
How to Switch From HoneyBook, Step by Step
The safest way to move is to run both tools side by side for one billing cycle, so nothing falls through a gap. Here is the full process.
- Export your data from HoneyBook. You can export your client and project details. Keep a copy of your key templates and any signed contracts and paid invoices you may need for your records, since not everything transfers cleanly between tools.
- Set up your new workspace. Add your branding, your services and prices, and your standard templates for proposals, contracts, and invoices. This is the part that takes an afternoon, and it is worth doing properly once.
- Import your active clients. Bring over the clients you are actually working with. In AgencyKit you can add them in bulk or import a list, so you are not retyping everything.
- Move new work to the new tool first. From today, every new proposal, contract, and invoice goes out from the new workspace. This is the cleanest way to switch, because you are not migrating live deals, you are just starting fresh with them.
- Let existing projects finish where they started. Anything already signed and invoiced in HoneyBook can simply run its course there. There is no need to force a live project to jump tools mid-stream.
- Wind HoneyBook down. Once your open items are closed and a full cycle has passed, export a final copy of your records and cancel. Do this at the end of a billing period so you are not paying for an empty month.
Run in parallel for one cycle
The single biggest thing that makes a switch feel risky is fear of losing an in-flight deal. Keeping HoneyBook active for one billing cycle while all new work starts in the new tool removes that risk entirely. By the end of the cycle, there is nothing left to lose.
What Transfers, and What You Rebuild
Being realistic here saves disappointment. In almost any tool-to-tool move:
- Transfers easily: client contact details and basic project data, which you can export and import.
- You rebuild once: templates for proposals, contracts, and invoices, plus your branding and services. This feels like a chore, but it is also a chance to tidy up templates you have been meaning to fix for a year.
- You keep as records: signed contracts and paid invoices. Download PDFs of anything you may need later, then start clean.
Landing on AgencyKit
If you are switching to save money and keep everything in one place, AgencyKit is built for exactly that. It covers the same client-to-cash workflow as HoneyBook, proposals, contracts and e-signature, invoicing and online payments, and adds built-in time tracking, all for one flat price per account rather than a bill that grows with your team. Plans start at $9 a month, and there is a 14-day free trial with no card, so you can rebuild your setup and try a real client before you commit. For the numbers, see our breakdown of HoneyBook pricing in 2026 and the full HoneyBook alternative guide.
Wrapping Up
Switching from HoneyBook is mostly a matter of nerve, not difficulty. Export your data, set up the new tool properly, start all new work there, let old projects finish where they are, and cancel at the end of a cycle. Run both side by side for one billing period and you will move without dropping a single deal. Most people wish they had done it sooner.
Before you go, weigh it up with the real numbers in our HoneyBook pricing guide, and see the feature-by-feature comparison.
Key Takeaways
- People leave HoneyBook mostly over rising prices, costs that grow with the team, limited country and currency support, or missing features like built-in time tracking
- The safe way to switch is to run both tools side by side for one billing cycle, so no in-flight deal gets dropped
- Start all new work in the new tool from day one, and let existing projects finish where they began
- Client and project data exports and imports easily. Templates and branding are rebuilt once, which is also a chance to tidy them up
- AgencyKit covers the same workflow plus built-in time tracking, at one flat price per account from $9/month, with a 14-day free trial
Frequently Asked Questions
Yes. HoneyBook lets you export your client and project details, and you can download copies of documents like signed contracts and invoices. As with any tool-to-tool move, some things such as your templates and automations do not transfer cleanly and are rebuilt in the new tool, so plan to recreate those once.
Not if you move carefully. Export your client and project data before you cancel, download PDFs of signed contracts and paid invoices for your records, and run both tools side by side for one billing cycle so nothing in flight gets dropped. The safest approach is to start all new work in the new tool while old projects finish in HoneyBook.
The hands-on setup, adding your branding, services, and templates and importing active clients, usually takes an afternoon. The full switch spans one billing cycle, because you keep HoneyBook running until your open proposals, contracts, and invoices are closed. After that you export a final copy and cancel.
For most teams, yes. AgencyKit starts at $9 a month and bills one flat price per account rather than scaling with the number of users, while HoneyBook’s tiers run up to around $109 a month. The gap widens as your team grows, because a per-account price does not climb with headcount. See our HoneyBook pricing guide for the full comparison.
No, and you usually should not. Let anything already signed and invoiced in HoneyBook finish there, and start all new work in the new tool. Forcing a live project to jump tools mid-stream creates more risk than it removes. Once the old projects wrap up, you can cancel.
Make sure it covers your whole client-to-cash workflow: proposals, contracts with e-signature, invoicing with online payments, and time tracking if you bill hourly. Check that it is available in your country and currency, and look at how it prices as your team grows. A flat per-account price is usually cheaper than per-seat once you are more than one person.
Sources & References
- HoneyBook, official pricing and product pages (2026). honeybook.com
- G2 and Capterra, HoneyBook reviews and alternatives (2026). g2.com
- AgencyKit features & pricing (2026). agencykit.tech/pricing