HoneyBook's Price Increase: What Actually Changed, and What To Do Now
If your HoneyBook renewal came in dramatically higher than last year, you're reading the right page. Here's exactly what happened, what it costs today, and the three realistic paths forward.
In this guide
What changed in the February 2025 price hike
In February 2025, HoneyBook restructured its plans and raised prices across the board. The Starter plan — the entry tier most solo photographers, planners, and stylists were on — saw an increase of up to 89.5%. The Premium plan rose by roughly 63%. HoneyBook softened the blow for existing members with a temporary loyalty discount, which meant a lot of vendors didn't feel the full hit right away.
That's the part that catches people off guard now: the discount was always temporary.
Why your bill jumped again in 2026
The 20% loyalty discount that cushioned the 2025 increase for existing subscribers expired on February 4, 2026. If you renewed any time after that date, you paid full 2025-era pricing for the first time — which is why so many vendors are describing this as a "second" price increase, even though the list price didn't move again. The math just finally caught up with them.
This is also why search interest in alternatives has spiked again this year: a fresh wave of members are hitting the real number for the first time, more than a year after the original announcement.
Current HoneyBook pricing (September 2026)
| Plan | Monthly billing | Annual billing (per mo.) | Best for |
|---|---|---|---|
| Starter | — | $29 | Solo, just starting out |
| Essentials | $59 | $49 | Most solo/small-team vendors |
| Premium | $129 | $109 | Teams, multiple companies |
On top of the subscription, card payments processed through HoneyBook run 2.7% + 10¢ per transaction (ACH is 1.5%) — worth factoring in if you invoice clients directly through the platform, since that's real revenue leaving before it hits your account.
What other vendors are saying
The reaction across wedding-vendor communities has been consistent: shock at the renewal amount, frustration that the increase wasn't communicated more clearly up front, and a lot of people quietly comparing notes on what they switched to. Threads in Facebook groups like Rising Tide Society and local wedding-pro chapters have been full of vendors asking "is it time to leave HoneyBook" — and plenty of photographers on Reddit reacting to their renewal invoice with versions of "that's quite the price hike."
"We all despise it… nothing but negative remarks from our clients." — a wedding planner, on the client-facing side of the fee increase
The client-facing angle matters too: several vendors report their own clients noticing and asking about processing fees and portal charges that show up during the booking flow, which adds a service-quality conversation on top of the cost one.
Your three real options
1. Negotiate down, or optimize your current plan
Before you rebuild your entire client pipeline elsewhere, check whether you're actually using what you're paying for. Vendors on Essentials who only need core proposals/contracts/invoicing are sometimes better served on Starter with a couple of manual workarounds. If you pay monthly, switching to annual billing knocks the Essentials plan from $59 to $49/mo and Premium from $129 to $109/mo — a straightforward ~15–17% saving for committing for a year.
2. Move to a flat, predictably-priced alternative
This is the option most vendors end up taking if they were already unhappy with the trajectory, not just the current number. Dubsado is the most common landing spot for people leaving HoneyBook, because its plans are flat annual fees rather than compounding per-transaction and per-seat charges. See our full Dubsado fee breakdown or the wider alternatives ranking if you want to compare more than one option before deciding.
See Dubsado's current plans
Flat annual pricing, no per-transaction CRM fee. Compare it against your current HoneyBook renewal in five minutes.
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3. Stay, but go in with eyes open
For vendors deep into HoneyBook's automations, templates, and client history, migrating has a real cost too — time, re-training your workflow, and the risk of dropping a lead in the handoff. If you've done the math and staying still makes sense, at minimum switch to annual billing and audit your payment-processing fees against a direct Stripe or Square setup for larger invoices.
Whatever you decide, use our free CRM switching checklist to make sure the decision is based on your actual numbers, not renewal-day panic.