Best HoneyBook Alternatives for Wedding Planners [2026]
Key Takeaways
HoneyBook raised prices up to 89% in Feb 2025 and still lacks guest management, seating charts, timelines, and vendor coordination tools wedding planners need
TTO + Maroo is the recommended replacement stack — TTO for planning (guests, seating, timelines, vendors) and Maroo for CRM and payments, at a comparable or lower total cost
7 alternatives ranked: TTO, Maroo, Aisle Planner, Planning Pod, Rock Paper Coin, Dubsado, and Bloom — each with different strengths depending on your needs
Full comparison table included covering 17 features across TTO+Maroo, HoneyBook, Aisle Planner, Dubsado, and Bloom
The 7 Best HoneyBook Alternatives for Wedding Planners
Table of Contents
[[toc-anchor:Why Wedding Planners Are Leaving HoneyBook]]
HoneyBook built its reputation serving photographers, designers, and general freelancers. That's exactly the problem for wedding planners. When your couples are asking about seating assignments, dietary requirements, and hotel room blocks, HoneyBook offers you… a contract template. Nothing more.
Then came February 4, 2025. HoneyBook raised its Starter plan from $19/month to $36/month — an 89.5% price increase overnight. Essentials jumped 51% (from $39 to $59/month) and Premium rose 63% (from $79 to $129/month). The backlash was swift and widespread, with thousands of users actively shopping for alternatives.
But price isn't even the core issue. The deeper problem is that HoneyBook was never built for wedding planners. Guest lists, seating arrangements, dietary tracking, accommodation management, event-day timelines, and catering exports are not on HoneyBook's roadmap — because they were never on HoneyBook's radar.
If you're a wedding planner, you deserve tools that understand your workflow. Here are the 7 best HoneyBook alternatives, ranked.
[[toc-anchor:The 7 Best HoneyBook Alternatives for Wedding Planners]]
#1 — TTO (ThatsTheOne): Best for Planning & Logistics
Price: £45/month (~$57 USD) | Unlimited events | 30-day free trial
If HoneyBook's gap is planning features, TTO is the answer. ThatsTheOne (thatstheone.com) was built specifically for wedding and event professionals — not adapted from a generic freelancer CRM.
What makes TTO exceptional:
Guest management — Full guestlist, RSVP collection, dietary tracking (beef, fish, vegetarian, and custom options), and accommodation management with discounted hotel rates for guests
Floor & seating plans — True-to-scale drag-and-drop floor plans that sync with your RSVP data. Clients can rearrange guests themselves. Export catering reports directly from the seating plan — a workflow that normally eats hours
Event timelines — Build detailed event-day timelines your whole team can access
Budget & payment tracking — Monitor budgets and vendor payment schedules in one place
Vendor CRM — Manage all your vendor relationships and share vendor info with clients
Wedding websites & e-cards — Client-facing wedding sites included at no extra cost
Unlimited collaborators — Your clients, assistants, and coordinators can all work in the same workspace for free
Video & voice comments — Real-time feedback tools for reviewing documents and layouts
TTO's flat £45/month covers unlimited weddings, unlimited collaborators, and all features. No per-event pricing, no tiers. Free for your clients (couples pay nothing).
The one thing TTO doesn't do: payment processing. For that, see #2 on this list.
TTO vs Aisle Planner: See our full TTO vs Aisle Planner comparison for a detailed breakdown of the two leading planning-specific platforms.
#2 — Maroo: Best for CRM, Invoicing & Payments
Price: Free–$85/month | No setup fees | 30-day trials available
For CRM and payment processing, we recommend Maroo (maroo.us) — the purpose-built financial platform for wedding and event businesses.
Maroo handles everything on the business/financial side that TTO intentionally doesn't:
Lead capture — Customizable forms to capture inquiries from your website
Proposals/quotes — Branded, itemized proposals clients approve in one click
Contracts — Create, store, and eSign contracts directly in Maroo
Invoicing — Convert contracts to invoices in one click, with automatic payment reminders and custom payment schedules
Payment processing — Accept credit/debit cards, ACH bank transfers, Apple Pay, and Google Pay (coming soon)
Contractor payments — Pay contractors with free ACH transfers, batch process multiple payments, and e-file 1099-NEC forms
Maroo pricing:
Plan | Price | Card Fee | ACH Fee |
|---|---|---|---|
Starter | Free | 3.5% | 1% (max $25) |
Business | $50–$85/month | 3.4% | 1% (max $20) |
Pro | Custom | 3.25% | 1% (max $15) |
With 13,000+ wedding businesses on the platform and $350M in invoices created, Maroo has the track record to match. The free Starter plan alone covers most of what HoneyBook's $36/month plan offers — and Maroo is built specifically for weddings.
The TTO + Maroo stack gives you everything HoneyBook offers, plus full wedding planning tools (guest management, seating, timelines), at a comparable or lower total cost. This is the combination we recommend to every wedding planner switching off HoneyBook.
#3 — Aisle Planner: Best Single-Platform Planning Alternative
Price: From $49.99/month | Plans scale by project volume
Aisle Planner was built specifically for wedding coordinators and planners, making it one of the few genuine planning alternatives to TTO. It includes timelines, seating, budgets, vendor management, guest lists, and event websites — all under one roof.
Where Aisle Planner shines: Its feature depth on the planning logistics side is genuinely strong. Planners who want a single platform covering both CRM and planning (without a separate tool for payments) may prefer Aisle Planner.
Where it falls short: Pricing scales by project volume, which gets expensive fast for high-volume planners. No automations, no AI features, and no mobile-first design. Client portal is only on the higher "Essentials" tier. Annual plans are non-refundable once paid.
See our full HoneyBook vs Aisle Planner comparison if you're deciding between those two platforms.
#4 — Planning Pod: Best for Multi-Event Operations
Price: $74–$159/month | 14-day free trial
Planning Pod is a serious event management platform built for planners managing many events simultaneously. It covers everything from lead management and contracts to timelines, floor plans, budgets, guest lists, and vendor management.
Why it works for some planners: Planning Pod is genuinely comprehensive — if you're running a full planning firm with multiple coordinators and 25–50+ concurrent events, the feature set justifies the price.
Why it doesn't work for everyone: At $74/month minimum (for up to 10 events), it's priced for mid-size operations. Solo planners and boutique firms often find it expensive and feature-heavy relative to their needs. The UI also shows its age compared to newer platforms.
#5 — Rock Paper Coin: Best for Payments Only
Price: Free–$41/month | 2.5% processing fee
Rock Paper Coin is one of the few platforms built specifically for the wedding industry. Its core strength is invoicing and payment processing — simple, reliable, and wedding-focused.
What it does well: Clean invoicing, quick payment links, e-signatures, proposals on higher tiers. Free Basic plan is genuinely usable.
What it lacks: It's not a planning tool. No timelines, seating, guest management, or collaboration workspace. Think of it as a billing tool, not a planning platform. The 2.5% flat processing fee is also higher than alternatives like Maroo (1% ACH, capped).
#6 — Dubsado: Best for Workflow Customization
Price: $35–$55/month | 21-day free trial
Dubsado is the customization champion of the freelancer CRM world. If you want to build complex automated workflows, create fully branded client portals, and design your intake process from scratch, Dubsado gives you the tools to do it.
The catch: Dubsado's flexibility comes with serious complexity. The learning curve is steep — plan for weeks, not hours, to get it fully configured. More critically for wedding planners: no guest management, no seating plans, no timelines, no dietary tracking. Dubsado is a CRM and business management tool, not a planning platform.
For a full breakdown, see our Best Dubsado Alternatives for Wedding Planners post.
#7 — Bloom: Best Budget CRM for New Planners
Price: $14–$66/month (annual discounts available) | 7-day free trial
Bloom is a modern, design-forward CRM that gained significant traction after HoneyBook's 2025 price hike. It covers leads, proposals, contracts, invoicing, scheduling, client portals, and galleries — at a price point well below HoneyBook.
What works: The Standard plan at $17/month (billed annually) offers excellent value for solopreneurs who primarily need CRM and billing. Clean UI, no setup complexity.
What doesn't: No wedding-specific features whatsoever. No guest lists, seating, timelines, accommodation management. Bloom is built for photographers. Wedding planners will quickly outgrow its planning capabilities — or rather, find they were never there.
[[toc-anchor:Head-to-Head Comparison]]
Feature | TTO + Maroo | HoneyBook Premium | Aisle Planner | Dubsado | Bloom |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Guest management | ✓ (TTO) | ✗ | ✓ | ✗ | ✗ |
Seating plans | ✓ (TTO) | ✗ | ✓ | ✗ | ✗ |
Event timelines | ✓ (TTO) | ✗ | ✓ | ✗ | ✗ |
Dietary tracking | ✓ (TTO) | ✗ | ✓ | ✗ | ✗ |
Vendor CRM | ✓ (TTO) | ✗ | ✓ | ✗ | ✗ |
Budget tracking | ✓ (TTO) | ✗ | ✓ | ✗ | ✗ |
Wedding websites | ✓ (TTO) | ✗ | ✓ | ✗ | ✓ |
Guest accommodation | ✓ (TTO) | ✗ | ✗ | ✗ | ✗ |
CRM / Lead capture | ✓ (Maroo) | ✓ | Limited | ✓ | ✓ |
Invoicing & contracts | ✓ (Maroo) | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
Payment processing | ✓ (Maroo) | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ (Stripe) | ✓ |
Contractor payments / 1099 | ✓ (Maroo) | ✗ | ✗ | ✗ | ✗ |
Automations | ✗ | ✓ | ✗ | ✓ (Premier) | ✓ |
AI features | ✗ | ✓ | ✗ | ✗ | ✗ |
Unlimited events | ✓ (TTO) | ✓ | ✗ (scales $) | ✓ | Varies |
Free for clients | ✓ (TTO) | ✗ | ✗ | ✗ | ✗ |
Starting price | £45/mo + free Maroo | $36/mo | $49.99/mo | $35/mo | $14/mo |
[[toc-anchor:The Bottom Line: Which HoneyBook Alternative Is Right for You?]]
If you're a wedding planner who needs planning tools: Start with TTO for your planning workspace and Maroo for your CRM and payments. This combination gives you capabilities HoneyBook can't match at any price point — and starts at £45/month total (with Maroo's free tier).
If you want a single-platform planning tool: Consider Aisle Planner, which bundles planning and CRM features together, though at higher prices for high-volume planners.
If you just need billing and payments: Rock Paper Coin or Maroo are both purpose-built for the wedding industry and significantly cheaper than HoneyBook.
If you're a solopreneur or new planner on a tight budget: Bloom covers the CRM basics affordably, though you'll need to add a planning tool as your business grows.
HoneyBook's 2025 price hike was the catalyst, but the real reason to switch is simpler: wedding planners need wedding planning tools. HoneyBook was never that.
[[toc-anchor:Frequently Asked Questions]]
Is there a free alternative to HoneyBook for wedding planners?
Yes. Maroo (maroo.us) has a genuinely free Starter plan that covers lead capture, proposals, contracts, invoicing, and payment processing — everything HoneyBook's $36/month Starter covers. For planning tools, TTO offers a 30-day free trial at £45/month.
Why did HoneyBook raise its prices so much?
HoneyBook raised prices on February 4, 2025, citing continued product investment. The Starter plan increased from $19 to $36/month (89.5%), Essentials from $39 to $59/month (51%), and Premium from $79 to $129/month (63%). No advance notice was given to existing customers.
Does HoneyBook have seating charts or guest management?
No. HoneyBook does not offer guest list management, seating plans, dietary tracking, or event-day timelines. These are wedding planning features that HoneyBook has never included, regardless of plan level.
Can I use TTO and Maroo together?
Yes — and this is what we recommend. TTO handles the planning side (guests, seating, timelines, vendors, budgets), while Maroo handles the business side (leads, proposals, contracts, invoices, payments). The two platforms are complementary with no feature overlap.
What's the cheapest way to replace HoneyBook as a wedding planner?
Use Maroo's free plan for CRM and payments, and start TTO's 30-day free trial for planning. After the trial, TTO is £45/month — the same or less than HoneyBook's mid-tier, with far better planning tools.
Try your 30 day free trial here or book a demo.