HoneyBook pricing covers three plans, and the monthly plan price is the figure most coaches look up first. But if your clients pay you through HoneyBook, the plan price isn’t the only cost. Payment fees are charged each time a client pays.
For a coaching practice with regular client payments, those fees can add up to more than the plan itself over a year. The worked example under What Could a Coaching Practice Pay in a Year shows how, and the plan comparison after it shows which tier a coach usually needs. Coaches weighing HoneyBook against coaching software will also find what it covers for the coaching side of the work.
TL;DR
HoneyBook plans start at $29 a month billed yearly, rising through Essentials to Premium, and every plan allows unlimited clients and projects. The plan is only part of the cost. Card payments carry a fee on every transaction and bank transfers carry a lower one, so for a coach collecting steady monthly payments, the fees can come to several times the price of the plan over a year. Choose the plan by the features and team access you actually need, then check how your clients pay before you budget. If your session notes, goals, and progress sit outside HoneyBook, weigh that alongside the price.
How Much Does HoneyBook Cost in 2026?
HoneyBook offers three plans: Starter, Essentials, and Premium. Prices were checked on September 25, 2026.
| Plan | Billed yearly | Billed monthly | Key features |
|---|---|---|---|
| Starter | $29/month | $36/month | Unlimited clients and projects, invoices, contracts, calendar, client portal |
| Essentials | $49/month | $59/month | Scheduler, automations, QuickBooks Online, up to 2 team members |
| Premium | $109/month | $129/month | Unlimited team members, priority support, multiple companies |
All three plans support unlimited clients and projects, so a solo coach doesn’t have to upgrade simply because the client list grows. There is no free plan, but HoneyBook offers a 30-day free trial with no credit card required.
HoneyBook is currently available to professionals in the U.S., Canada, the UK, and Australia.
What Payment Fees Does HoneyBook Charge?
HoneyBook’s pricing page says card-processing fees start at 2.7% + $0.10. Its detailed payment-fee guide lists specific rates by payment type:
- Visa and Mastercard cardholder-entered payments: 2.9% + $0.25
- American Express, Discover, and card-on-file payments: 3.4% + $0.09
- ACH bank transfers: 1.5%
Use the rate that matches the way your clients usually pay when estimating your costs. Premium customers processing more than $500,000 a year may also be eligible for lower card fees.
Bank transfers carry the lowest of these fees. That doesn’t mean every client needs to pay by bank transfer, since some clients prefer cards, and the payment experience still needs to work for them.
If you already use HoneyBook, start with your own payment records: which plan you’re on, how your clients usually pay, the fees charged on those payments, and how much you expect to collect this year. If the rest of HoneyBook works well for you, changing how clients pay may cut some of the cost without changing software.
What Could a Coaching Practice Pay in a Year?
Take a coach with six clients, each paying $1,000 a month. That’s $6,000 a month, or $72,000 a year in client payments.
If the coach uses Essentials:
- The plan costs $588 a year when billed yearly.
- Six monthly Visa or Mastercard payments at 2.9% + $0.25 would add about $2,106 a year in payment fees.
- The same $72,000 collected through ACH at 1.5% would add about $1,080 a year.
That brings the estimated yearly cost to:
- About $2,694 with Visa or Mastercard
- About $1,668 with ACH
This is only an example. Your cost will depend on how much you charge, how often clients pay, and which payment methods they use.
It does show why checking payment fees is useful when you’re budgeting for HoneyBook.
Which HoneyBook Plan Makes Sense for a Coach?
HoneyBook’s three plans suit different setups, and the features and team access you need usually decide between them, not the number of clients.
Starter covers much of the basic administration a solo coach may need, including contracts, invoices, a calendar, and a client portal.
Essentials adds the Scheduler, automations, QuickBooks Online integration, and access for up to two team members. It can make sense if you want more of the routine admin handled automatically.
Premium adds unlimited team members, multiple companies, and priority support. It’s more relevant when several people need access or the business has become more complex.
If your practice is adding coaches, compare how each platform charges for team access too. Coaching.com pricing is one example of a different approach aimed at larger coaching businesses.
What HoneyBook Covers for a Coaching Practice
HoneyBook is designed around the business side of a client relationship: proposals, contracts, scheduling, invoices, payments, and client administration.
A longer coaching relationship creates other information you may want to keep together:
- Session history: what happened last time and what was agreed.
- Goals and actions: what the client is working toward and what comes next.
- Resources and reflections: work shared between sessions.
- Progress: how the client’s work develops over time.
Before your next client session, check whether you can easily find the previous session notes, goals, actions, resources, and progress. Can clients find what they need to work on between sessions?
If HoneyBook already handles the business side well and that record is easy to find, you may be happy with that setup.
If session notes, goals, actions, and progress are spread across different tools, compare how coaching-specific platforms handle that part of the work. HoneyBook alternatives for coaches are built around different parts of a coaching practice, and a feature-by-feature HoneyBook review shows where HoneyBook stops for coaching.
Simply.Coach, one of those coaching-specific platforms, starts at $9 a month on Starter for three active clients and is built around sessions, goals, actions, and client progress. Its Essentials plan supports seven active clients at $29 a month.
Conclusion
HoneyBook’s plan price is easy to find, but the real cost includes the fee charged every time a client pays. For a coach collecting steady monthly payments, check how clients pay before you budget, because card fees can outweigh the plan itself.
HoneyBook handles proposals, contracts, payments, and client administration well. The harder part for a coach is the coaching record, as session notes, goals, actions, and progress build up over months. Simply.Coach is built for that side of the work, keeping the coaching record with each client alongside scheduling, contracts, and invoicing.
Key Takeaways
- Upgrade for features only. Every plan allows unlimited clients, so move up for scheduling, automation, or team access.
- Price in the fees. Add the processing fee on each client payment to the plan cost before you compare.
- Match fees to payment habits. Card and bank transfer rates differ, so the way clients pay changes the total.
- Use your own numbers. Estimate from what you collect in a year, not from a sample practice.
- Test during the trial. Run real client work through the free trial before paying for a plan.
- Ask about volume discounts. Premium practices processing over $500,000 a year may qualify for lower card fees.
- Weigh the coaching record. Decide where session history will live before choosing any platform.
HoneyBook covers the paperwork and payments, and the coaching record often ends up somewhere else. Built as a HoneyBook alternative for coaches, Simply.Coach keeps session notes, goals, actions, resources, and progress with each client, alongside scheduling, contracts, and invoicing.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
How Much Does HoneyBook Cost in 2026?
HoneyBook costs $29 a month for Starter, $49 for Essentials, and $109 for Premium when billed yearly. When billed monthly, the plans cost $36, $59, and $129 respectively.
What Payment Fees Does HoneyBook Charge?
HoneyBook's detailed fee guide lists Visa and Mastercard cardholder-entered payments at 2.9% + $0.25, American Express, Discover, and card-on-file payments at 3.4% + $0.09, and ACH transfers at 1.5%. Its pricing page says card fees start at 2.7% + $0.10, so check the rate that applies to the way your clients usually pay.
Can HoneyBook Payment Fees Cost More Than the Plan?
Yes. It depends on how much you collect and how clients pay. For example, six $1,000 Visa or Mastercard payments each month would cost about $2,106 a year in payment fees, compared with $588 a year for the Essentials plan.
Is HoneyBook Free?
HoneyBook has no free plan, but it offers a 30-day free trial of nearly every feature with no credit card required, with minor limits on some advanced features. After the trial, plans start at $29 a month billed yearly, before any payment fees.
Is HoneyBook Suitable for a Coaching Practice?
HoneyBook can work well for the business side of a coaching practice, including proposals, contracts, scheduling, invoices, payments, and client administration. If you also want session notes, goals, actions, resources, and progress connected across the coaching engagement, compare how different platforms handle that part of the work.
How Is Simply.Coach Different From HoneyBook for Coaches?
HoneyBook is built around the business side of client work, such as proposals, contracts, invoices, and payments. Simply.Coach covers contracts, invoicing, and scheduling too, but centers on the coaching itself, keeping session notes, goals, action plans with reminders, and a client portal together for each client.
Does Simply.Coach Offer a Free Trial?
Yes. Simply.Coach offers a free 14-day trial with no credit card required, and every feature is open during it. That gives you time to run real coaching sessions through it before comparing the cost with what you pay for HoneyBook.