For embroidery shops on HoneyBook
HoneyBook is strong software for contracts, proposals, and payment schedules. This page covers what it does well, what it costs, where a custom stitched order outgrows it, and when to stay.
A HoneyBook proposal lets the client book, sign, and pay from one file. If your shop does big jobs with real terms, like a corporate uniform contract or a wedding with a deposit schedule, that's a polished way to get a signature and the money together.
HoneyBook invoices can run on one-time, recurring, or custom schedules. Clients can turn on autopay, reminders go out on their own, and late fees can apply automatically. Bank transfers cost 1.5%, which is cheaper than a card on a large order.
Clients can book a time with you. Every project moves through stages you set up. The Essentials plan adds automations and text reminders. For a business that sells hours, this is a complete back office.
HoneyBook's own list of business types is planners, photographers, DJs, coaches, agencies, trainers, and home services. Its order is a project: a client, a date, a contract, and an invoice. An embroidery order is a product with a spec: the garment, the size, the color, the name, the spelling, the font, the thread colors, and where it goes. In HoneyBook you build that into a questionnaire and type it into the invoice yourself.
A live preview of the customer's text in your real fonts, a price worked out from the choices they make, and a mockup of the garment are not among the features HoneyBook lists. Approval happens off a picture you put together yourself. The customer types their name on a Broidry order and sees it in your fonts. The price follows their choices from your rate card. When you post a stitch-out proof, they approve it or ask for a change right on their order page.
HoneyBook's pricing guides let a client pick from services you listed. A stitched piece is priced from the blank, stitch count, and placement. You still do that math somewhere else and type the total in. Broidry builds the quote from your listing and your rates, so the price follows what the customer picked without a calculator.
HoneyBook keeps the client, the files you sent them, and payments. A record of the design file, thread colors, and spelling you stitched is not among the features it lists. A reorder a year later starts with digging through old questionnaires. Broidry keeps those on the customer's record.
Where the details live before you stitch.
Both take the money. HoneyBook has more ways to schedule it.
A paid order should turn into a schedule and a history.
If that's you, put the full spec in the questionnaire (name, spelling, font, thread color, placement) and copy it onto the invoice, so the paid invoice is also your work order. The embroidery order form template has every question to put on it. The deposits and payment policy guide covers when to ask for a deposit.
HoneyBook starts at $29 a month billed yearly. It has no free plan and offers a 30-day free trial. Essentials is $49 and Premium is $109, also billed yearly. Card fees start at 2.7% plus 10 cents by one line of HoneyBook's pricing page and 2.9% plus 25 cents by its plan table, and bank transfers are 1.5%. Broidry is free to start, with up to 15 orders a month and a 2% fee on payments that go through Broidry. The Maker plan ($19 a month) makes orders unlimited and drops the fee to 1.5%. The Shop ($39) and Atelier ($79) plans add more on top. Card processing applies to card payments either way. Full detail on the pricing page.
HoneyBook's plans are Starter at $29 a month, Essentials at $49, and Premium at $109, each billed yearly. Essentials allows up to 2 team members and Premium allows unlimited. There's no free plan. Every plan starts with a 30-day free trial with no credit card. Card payments cost a percentage on top: the fees section of HoneyBook's pricing page says card fees start at 2.7% plus 10 cents, its plan table says 2.9% plus 25 cents, and bank transfers are 1.5%. These are HoneyBook's published numbers as of October 2026; check their pricing page before you decide.
It's good at the parts of a shop that look like a service business: proposals, contracts, payment schedules, and booking calls. It's thinner on the parts that are about the piece itself. You build your own questionnaire for the order details, type the price yourself, and show the customer a picture you put together. If most of your work is one-off names on shirts, you'll be doing that setup on every order.
For one case, yes. When a customer sends their own garment, you can write a waiver and the customer has to check it on the order before it goes through. Broidry doesn't have general contracts with e-signatures. If your shop runs on signed contracts for big jobs, that's a real reason to keep HoneyBook for those jobs.
Use HoneyBook if your orders are a few large jobs a month, each with a contract and a payment schedule. The client books a call before anything is quoted. Use order software built for embroidery if your orders are many small pieces, each with a name, a font, and a thread color, where the risk is a wrong spelling, not an unsigned contract.
HoneyBook plans, fees, and business types as published by HoneyBook on honeybook.com, read October 14, 2026. Getting paid by invoice instead? See Broidry vs PayPal invoices.
The customer picks from what you sell, sees their name in your fonts, approves the proof, and pays. The order shows up on your stitching list with nothing missing. Free to start.
The Free plan costs nothing until your first sale, and signing up does not ask for a credit card. The Free plan covers 15 orders a month, however your customers pay.