The wedding industry has been buzzing this month after the popular CRM software platform HoneyBook announced a 50% price increase to its current users. It has been interesting watching the small business community react to this news from the outside. Bride&Groom.video uses Hubspot for our CRM, which is best suited for large businesses like ours with dozens of team members and hundreds of projects. But we like to stay on top of what’s happening in the small business community because what’s important to wedding videographers like you is important to us. 

With that in mind, I wanted to share an alternative CRM to HoneyBook that I have experienced as a client and been incredibly impressed with: Dubsado.

Using Dubsado From the Client’s Perspective

dubsado dashboard
Dubsado Dashboard

I don’t think I’m exaggerating when I claim to be an expert in outsourcing: I founded and operate Bride&Groom.video, which offers photo and video editing outsourcing as our core services; manage a team of dozens of employees across the globe; and regularly hire service providers for special projects. I’ve seen a lot of invoicing and contract softwares, including the one we built in-house at Bride&Groom.video for our clients. But when I first experienced Dubsado from the client’s perspective, as I was hiring a copywriter for our website, it caught my attention. 

I inquired through the copywriter’s website, which I later learned was an embedded intake form from Dubsado. After a consultation call, she sent me a sleek, well-branded proposal that bundled the contract and invoice with it in one tidy package. I received copies of the signed contract and receipts from the paid invoices immediately, all sent automatically through Dubsado. And two days later, she sent me a comprehensive onboarding email with tasks to complete, project date reminders, and an onboarding questionnaire. (These seemed personal to me, but I later learned that they were automated through Dubsado as well.) 

As a client, the process of hiring and onboarding couldn’t have been more clear, swift, or easy — three things I highly value as a busy businessman. I know your couples will value this, too. 

The Benefits of Dubsado vs. HoneyBook

Switching gears from the client’s perspective to the business owner’s, there are a lot of reasons why a videographer might enjoy Dubsado. I’ve researched the CRM and talked to several users, and here are a few of my favorites: 

Proposals That Encourage Sales

Dubsado offers many form types, including proposals that bundle together a service proposal, contract, and invoice into one package. By including these together when you send a proposal, you’re more likely to get a couple to hire you for wedding videography because there’s no time gap between them saying “yes” to your services and the ask to sign on the dotted line and make their first payment. It might be my favorite aspect of Dubsado’s entire feature suite.

Customization & Automations

Lack of customization and automations is one of the top critiques of HoneyBook, but Dubsado has these features in spades. Its workflow feature allows you to automate a variety of actions —  things like sending a client a form, or creating a to-do for you or your team — after one of any number of triggers occurs. 

Combined with its customizations, which span from basic (like inserting a client’s name into an email) to advanced (like creating a “custom mapped field” for the name of the client’s wedding planner and inserting that into an email as well), you can design intricate, repeatable automations that create an exceptional client experience without any extra effort from you. Win-win.

Built-In, Monetized Scheduler

Switch to Dubsado, and you can quit your HoneyBook and Calendly or Acquity subscriptions. Though it’s still in beta, Dubsado’s scheduler offers all of the features that other scheduling apps do, including being able to set consistent days and times that you are available for meetings, and to require a payment to schedule the appointment if you choose. I love this scheduler for simple calls, like scheduling a planning or video review meeting with couples, or for monetizing your consultations if that’s something you choose to do as your business grows into a luxury market. Pro tip: embed the scheduler onto your website for an even smoother client experience. 

User Friendliness

Another common complaint about HoneyBook is the security codes that are sent to clients in order to view a proposal. These codes add security, but are also clunky and make things more difficult for the client. In Dubsado, you can send a client a direct link to a form, invoice, or contract without the annoying security code email. 

If you’re concerned about security, Dubsado has that covered, too, if you set up a password-protected portal for your clients. The portals can be customized to reflect your videography business branding, and are a centralized hub to store all of your client’s forms, invoices, and even video or photography files. Instead of sending links to individual documents, you’ll be able to direct your clients to their portal. 

Extra Business Support

Lastly, I can’t help but applaud Dubsado for its next-level customer service for wedding videographers. Its help center includes extensive help articles and training videos. They regularly host industry- or feature-specific webinars from users like you to get ideas on how you can get the most out of Dubsado. They have a brand new mobile app that makes managing your business on the go even easier. And you can also hire a Dubsado-certified specialist to migrate your account from HoneyBook. 

Save When You Switch

HoneyBook still seems like a great software. But if you can’t afford to renew your contract after they doubled their price, or if how they handled the increase gave you the ick factor, I think Dubsado is worth giving a shot. Use this affiliate link, sign up for a free trial, and get 20% off if you decide to purchase. Yet another perk of Dubsado — their free trial is for three projects, not a specific amount of time, so you can spend as long as you’d like poking around inside the CRM before making a commitment.