TTO vs HoneyBook: The Complete Wedding Planner Comparison [2026]
Key Takeaways
TTO and HoneyBook are not really competing for the same thing.
HoneyBook is a CRM built for generic freelancers.
TTO is a planning platform built for wedding professionals.
If you're a wedding planner who needs guest management, seating charts, timelines, and vendor coordination, TTO wins on every planning dimension.
TTO vs HoneyBook: The Complete Wedding Planner Comparison
Table of Contents
[[toc-anchor:The Core Difference: CRM vs. Planning Platform]]
Before diving into features and pricing, it's worth naming the fundamental tension here: HoneyBook and TTO are different kinds of tools.
HoneyBook is a client relationship management (CRM) and business management platform. It's excellent at what it does — proposals, contracts, invoicing, automations, and client communication. It serves photographers, designers, coaches, consultants, and yes, some wedding planners. But it was built for the universal freelancer, not the wedding professional.
TTO (ThatsTheOne, thatstheone.com) is a wedding planning platform. It was designed around what wedding planners actually do: managing guest lists, building seating plans, tracking dietary requirements, coordinating vendors, building event-day timelines, and collaborating with clients in real time. It's not adapted from a generic template — it's built from the ground up for this industry.
This distinction matters because wedding planners often try to use HoneyBook for everything, then spend hours working around the things it can't do. Let's look at exactly where each tool succeeds and where each falls short.
[[toc-anchor:HoneyBook: What It Does Well]]
To be fair to HoneyBook, its CRM and business management tools are genuinely strong:
Proposals and contracts: HoneyBook's branded proposal and contract builder is polished, intuitive, and well-liked by clients. The all-in-one "smart file" combining proposal, contract, and invoice is a real workflow improvement.
HoneyBook AI: Introduced across all plans, HoneyBook's AI tools help draft client communications, suggest automations, and analyze your business performance. This is a meaningful differentiator — no planning-specific competitor currently matches it.
Automations: On Essentials and Premium plans, HoneyBook's automation builder lets you trigger email sequences, document sends, and reminders based on client actions. Well-configured automations can save hours of manual follow-up each week.
Payment processing: HoneyBook processes payments in-house (not through Stripe or Square), with support for cards, ACH, Apple Pay, and Google Pay. Payment plans, late fees, and tipping are all supported.
Client portal: Every client gets a clean, branded portal showing their documents, invoices, and project timeline. It's well-designed and appreciated by clients.
Brand and community: HoneyBook has been around long enough to have a large community, extensive template library, and broad third-party integrations (Zapier, Calendly, Zoom, Meta Ads).
[[toc-anchor:HoneyBook's Critical Weaknesses for Wedding Planners]]
Here's where HoneyBook breaks down specifically for wedding professionals:
No guest management. HoneyBook has no guestlist feature, no RSVP tracking, no dietary preference tracking, no accommodation management. These are not edge-case features — they're core to every wedding. Planners currently using HoneyBook are managing these in spreadsheets, which is time-consuming and error-prone.
No seating plans. There is no seating chart builder in HoneyBook. Full stop. For an event with 150 guests across 15 tables, this is a significant daily workflow gap that HoneyBook has never addressed.
No event-day timelines. HoneyBook doesn't have a timeline builder for the event day. Wedding planners typically use a separate tool (Google Docs, Excel, or a specialty app) for this.
No vendor CRM. HoneyBook tracks your clients, not your vendors. Managing caterer contacts, photographer contracts, florist timelines, and DJ load-in schedules requires either manual workarounds or additional tools.
Price hike. On February 4, 2025, HoneyBook raised prices across all tiers — Starter by 89.5% ($19 → $36/month), Essentials by 51% ($39 → $59/month), and Premium by 63% ($79 → $129/month). No advance notice was given to existing customers. This single event prompted tens of thousands of users to evaluate alternatives.
Locked payment processing. HoneyBook processes payments entirely in-house — you cannot use Stripe, Square, or PayPal. The effective processing fee is 2.9% + $0.25 for cards, which includes HoneyBook's own 1.5% surcharge. You have no flexibility to negotiate rates or switch processors.
[[toc-anchor:TTO: What It Does Exceptionally Well]]
TTO was built to solve the problems HoneyBook leaves unsolved for wedding planners.
The guest-to-table-to-catering pipeline is TTO's most distinctive capability. Guests RSVP through your wedding website (built into TTO). Their dietary preferences are collected and stored automatically. You then drag and drop guests into a to-scale floor plan — clients can do this themselves, collaboratively, in the same workspace. Once seating is confirmed, TTO generates a comprehensive catering export report for your caterer. This entire workflow, which typically takes several hours across multiple tools, happens in one platform.
Unlimited collaborators at no extra cost. Every client (couple), assistant, coordinator, and vendor you bring into TTO joins for free. HoneyBook charges per team member and limits them on lower tiers. TTO's collaborative model reflects how weddings actually work — many people, one plan.
Guest accommodation management — an often-overlooked feature — lets TTO actively help guests book discounted hotel room rates and track where everyone is staying. No other planning platform in this category offers this natively.
Flat pricing with no event limits. TTO is £45/month (~$57 USD) for unlimited weddings, unlimited collaborators, and all features. Your business volume doesn't change what you pay. This matters for growing planning firms.
Purpose-built vendor CRM. TTO's vendor management is designed around the wedding vendor ecosystem — track relationships, share vendor info with clients directly through the platform, and keep all vendor details in the same workspace as your event logistics.
[[toc-anchor:Where TTO Falls Short]]
TTO is honest about what it doesn't do. And these are real gaps worth knowing:
No payment processing. TTO tracks your payment schedule and budget, but it doesn't send invoices or process payments. You need a separate tool for this.
No lead capture or proposals. TTO assumes you've already booked a client. It doesn't have a CRM pipeline for managing leads or creating branded proposals.
No workflow automations. Unlike HoneyBook's automation builder, TTO doesn't trigger automated email sequences or reminder workflows.
No AI features. HoneyBook's AI assistant has no equivalent in TTO.
These gaps are real — but they're also addressable with a single complementary platform.
[[toc-anchor:The TTO + Maroo Stack: The Complete Solution]]
TTO doesn't process payments, but Maroo (maroo.us) does — and does it better than HoneyBook for most wedding planners.
Together, TTO + Maroo give you everything HoneyBook offers plus full wedding planning tools, starting at just £45/month + Maroo's free CRM.
What Maroo adds to the TTO stack:
Lead capture forms embedded on your website
Branded proposals and quotes clients approve in one click
Contracts with eSignature, created from approved quotes automatically
Itemized invoices with automatic payment reminders and custom schedules
Payment processing (cards, ACH, Apple Pay, Google Pay coming soon)
Free ACH payments to contractors and vendors
1099-NEC e-filing — handled entirely within Maroo
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) |
Maroo's free Starter plan alone replaces what HoneyBook charges $36/month for on its Starter tier. For planners processing under $10,000/month, the combined TTO + Maroo cost is just £45/month — with dramatically more planning capability than HoneyBook at any price.
[[toc-anchor:Full Feature Comparison]]
Feature | TTO | HoneyBook Starter | HoneyBook Essentials | HoneyBook Premium | Maroo (Free) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Guest management | ✓ | ✗ | ✗ | ✗ | ✗ |
Seating plans | ✓ | ✗ | ✗ | ✗ | ✗ |
Dietary tracking | ✓ | ✗ | ✗ | ✗ | ✗ |
Event timelines | ✓ | ✗ | ✗ | ✗ | ✗ |
Budget tracking | ✓ | ✗ | ✗ | ✗ | ✗ |
Vendor CRM | ✓ | ✗ | ✗ | ✗ | ✗ |
Wedding websites | ✓ | ✗ | ✗ | ✗ | ✗ |
Guest accommodation | ✓ | ✗ | ✗ | ✗ | ✗ |
Video/voice comments | ✓ | ✗ | ✗ | ✗ | ✗ |
Unlimited collaborators | ✓ | 1 user | 2 users | Unlimited | Varies |
Unlimited events | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
Free for clients | ✓ | ✗ | ✗ | ✗ | n/a |
Lead capture forms | ✗ | Up to 2 | Up to 10 | Unlimited | ✓ |
Proposals & contracts | ✗ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
Invoicing | ✗ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
Payment processing | ✗ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
Contractor payments/1099 | ✗ | ✗ | ✗ | ✗ | ✓ |
Automations | ✗ | ✗ | ✓ | ✓ | ✗ |
AI features | ✗ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✗ |
QuickBooks integration | ✗ | ✗ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
Price | £45/mo | $36/mo | $59/mo | $129/mo | Free |
[[toc-anchor:Pricing Comparison]]
Option | Monthly Cost | Annual Cost | What You Get |
|---|---|---|---|
HoneyBook Starter | $36/mo | $348/yr | CRM, proposals, invoicing, payments. No planning tools. |
HoneyBook Essentials | $59/mo | $588/yr | Above + automations, scheduler, QuickBooks |
HoneyBook Premium | $129/mo | $1,308/yr | Above + multiple brands, advanced reports, priority support |
TTO only | £45/mo (~$57) | ~$684/yr | Full planning suite. No payments/invoicing. |
TTO + Maroo (Free) | £45/mo | ~$684/yr | Full planning + full CRM/payments (starter limits) |
TTO + Maroo Business | £45/mo + $50–85/mo | ~$1,884–2,304/yr | Full planning + full business management, higher volume |
[[toc-anchor:Who Should Choose TTO?]]
Choose TTO if:
Your primary workflow involves guest lists, seating, timelines, and vendor coordination
You manage multiple weddings and want flat-rate pricing
You want clients to collaborate directly in your workspace
You need a tool built for weddings, not adapted from a generic freelancer CRM
Choose HoneyBook if:
Your primary workflow is client communication, proposals, and contracts with minimal planning logistics
You value AI-powered features and workflow automations
You don't manage guest lists or seating plans (e.g., you're a coordinator, not a full-service planner)
You want a single platform for business management and don't need planning tools
Choose TTO + Maroo if:
You want the best of both: full planning tools and full business management
You want to avoid HoneyBook's locked payment processing and rising prices
You're building or growing a wedding planning business and want a scalable foundation
[[toc-anchor:Frequently Asked Questions]]
Can TTO replace HoneyBook completely?
For planning features, yes — and TTO exceeds what HoneyBook offers. But TTO doesn't process payments, send invoices, or manage leads, so you'll need a second tool for those. Maroo is the recommended pairing and, combined with TTO, covers everything HoneyBook does plus more.
Is TTO cheaper than HoneyBook?
TTO at £45/month (~$57 USD) with Maroo's free plan is comparable to or cheaper than HoneyBook Essentials ($59/month). For planners who need automations or multiple team members, HoneyBook Premium at $129/month is significantly more expensive than the TTO + Maroo Business stack.
Does HoneyBook have any wedding planning tools?
HoneyBook announced basic floor plan tools as part of its 2025 product updates, but these are early-stage and not comparable to TTO's dedicated seating and floor plan system. HoneyBook still has no guest management, RSVP, dietary tracking, or event-day timeline features.
Why did HoneyBook raise its prices in 2025?
HoneyBook raised prices on February 4, 2025, citing ongoing product investment and company growth. The Starter plan increased by 89.5% overnight. Many long-time users felt blindsided, and the migration to alternatives (including TTO, Maroo, Bloom, and Dubsado) accelerated significantly after the announcement.
Is TTO available outside the UK?
Yes. TTO is available in 30+ countries, with the platform available in both British and American English. Guest pages can be translated into any language, and accommodation bookings are supported in any currency. The £45/month price is charged in GBP but accessible globally.
For more comparisons, see: Best HoneyBook Alternatives for Wedding Planners | HoneyBook vs Aisle Planner
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