Solo helps freelancers manage clients, send invoices, and automate busywork with AI — so you can focus on the work that matters.
See Solo plansLooking for a HoneyBook alternative after the 2025 price increase? We compare 7 options for freelancers — pricing, features, pros, cons, and who each one is best for.
Read moreIs HoneyBook worth the cost, or is a DIY freelance tool stack cheaper? We break down the real numbers — monthly costs, hidden fees, and time investment — so you can decide.
Read moreHoneyBook raised prices up to 89% in February 2025. Here's what changed, how it affects freelancers, and what your options are going forward.
Read moreProjects, clients, invoicing, and AI workflows — all in one calm system built for solopreneurs.
Dubsado, HoneyBook, and Solo are three of the most popular business management tools for freelancers, but they take fundamentally different approaches to the same problem. HoneyBook aims for simplicity and polish. Dubsado offers deep customization. Solo leads with AI and purpose-built workflows for solopreneurs. Choosing the right one depends on how you work, what you value most, and where your business is headed.
Here is a detailed, fair comparison across the factors that matter.
| Feature | Dubsado | HoneyBook | Solo |
|---|---|---|---|
| Starting price | $20/month | $36/month | Free |
| Mid-tier price | $40/month | $59/month | $29/month |
| Top-tier price | $40/month | $109/month | $39/month |
| Free tier | No | No | Yes |
| Unlimited clients | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Mobile app | No | Yes | PWA |
| AI workflows | No | Limited | Yes |
| Proposals | Templates | Templates | AI-generated |
| Contracts | Yes | Yes | Coming soon |
| Setup time | 1-2 weeks | 1-2 hours | Minutes |
| Client portal | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Time tracking | Basic | No | Yes |
HoneyBook's February 2025 price increase reshaped its positioning. The Starter plan at $36/month covers basic features but limits functionality. The Essentials plan at $59/month is where most freelancers land, unlocking scheduling, automation, and priority support. The Premium plan at $109/month adds reporting and team features.
Annual billing saves roughly 20%, bringing Essentials to about $47/month. But even with the discount, HoneyBook is the most expensive option of the three for individual freelancers.
For full context on what changed, read our HoneyBook pricing breakdown.
Dubsado offers two plans: Starter at $20/month and Premier at $40/month. The Starter plan covers basic CRM, invoicing, and forms. Premier unlocks workflow automation, which is Dubsado's strongest feature. Annual billing drops the Premier plan to $33/month.
Dubsado does not offer a free tier, but it does offer a limited trial. The real cost with Dubsado, though, is time — not money. More on that below.
Solo offers a genuine free tier with core features — no trial period, no credit card required. The Plus plan at $29/month adds AI workflows and advanced features. The Pro plan at $39/month increases AI credit allocation and adds premium capabilities.
At $39/month for the top tier, Solo's most expensive plan costs less than HoneyBook's cheapest post-increase plan when comparing the same billing cycle.
Dubsado offers solid invoicing with customizable templates and payment plans. You can set up recurring invoices and accept payments through Stripe or Square. The interface is functional but requires initial setup time to configure templates.
HoneyBook provides polished invoicing with a clean interface. Payment processing is built in, though users have reported deposit times of 5+ business days. The invoice creation flow is guided and beginner-friendly.
Solo includes invoicing with AI-powered line item suggestions. It generates professional PDFs, integrates with Stripe for payment processing, and tracks invoice status from draft to paid. The AI suggests line items based on your project scope, reducing the time spent creating invoices.
Dubsado has extensive proposal templates that integrate with contracts and invoicing. You can build complex proposal workflows that automatically trigger contracts and invoices upon acceptance. The templates are highly customizable but require time to set up.
HoneyBook combines proposals, contracts, and invoices into a single interactive document called a "smart file." This is convenient for simple use cases but can feel limiting for complex proposals.
Solo generates proposals using AI workflows. Feed in the client requirements and your service details, and the workflow produces a complete proposal with scope, timeline, and pricing. You review and customize before sending. The speed advantage is significant — proposals that would take 2-3 hours to write manually are ready for review in minutes.
All three platforms offer client management with contact records, communication history, and project association. The differences are in the details:
Dubsado is the clear leader in traditional automation. Its workflow builder lets you create complex multi-step sequences: when a client fills out a form, automatically send a contract, then schedule a meeting, then create a project. If you want to automate every step of your client intake process with precise control, Dubsado is unmatched.
HoneyBook offers automation but with less granularity than Dubsado. Its automations cover common scenarios well but do not offer the same depth of customization.
Solo takes a different approach with AI-powered workflows. Rather than automating sequences of actions, Solo uses AI to generate content — emails, proposals, case studies, status updates — that you review before sending. Learn more about how AI workflows save time.
This is where the three platforms differ most dramatically.
Dubsado's power comes at the cost of setup time. Configuring templates, building workflows, setting up forms, and customizing the client portal takes 1-2 weeks for most freelancers. The learning curve is steep enough that professional Dubsado setup specialists exist — you can hire someone to configure Dubsado for you, which tells you everything you need to know about the complexity.
If you enjoy systems building and want total control, this investment pays off. But if you need to be productive this week, Dubsado's setup time is a real barrier.
HoneyBook is designed for quick onboarding. Most freelancers are sending invoices and proposals within a couple of hours. The trade-off is less customization — you are working within HoneyBook's structure rather than building your own.
Solo prioritizes getting you productive immediately. Core features — invoicing, client management, project tracking — work out of the box. AI workflows require no configuration because they pull from your business context automatically. There is no setup wizard because there is nothing to set up.
This does not mean Solo lacks depth. As your needs grow, you can customize workflows, set trust levels for AI autonomy, and configure your dashboard. But none of that is required to start. You can send your first invoice the day you sign up.
This is the dimension where the comparison shifts most significantly.
Dubsado and HoneyBook offer traditional automation — if/then workflows that execute predefined actions. They are powerful for streamlining repetitive processes, but they do not generate content or make context-aware suggestions. If you want an automated email follow-up sequence, they handle it well. If you want a contextually relevant proposal draft based on a client conversation, they cannot help.
Solo was built with AI at its core. Constrained AI workflows generate email drafts in your writing style, create proposals from client requirements, build case studies from project data, and analyze email threads for context before meetings. The AI understands your client relationships, project history, and communication patterns because it is connected to your business data.
The trust-based autonomy system means you are always in control. AI starts by suggesting drafts for your review. As it proves accuracy for specific task types, you can grant it more independence. Sensitive actions — sending money, contacting clients, modifying calendars — always require explicit approval. The guardrails are hardcoded, not configurable.
For freelancers spending 10-15 hours per week on admin tasks, this is a fundamentally different value proposition than traditional automation. It is not just about automating sequences — it is about generating the content that sequences send.
All three platforms are actively developed, but they are at different stages.
Dubsado has been in the market for years and has a stable, loyal user base. Its feature set is mature, and the community has created extensive resources for getting the most out of it. The downside of maturity is that innovation tends to be incremental — Dubsado is unlikely to add breakthrough AI features because its architecture was not built for them.
HoneyBook has significant venture capital backing and a large team. It is unlikely to disappear, but the price increase signals that the company is under pressure to grow revenue — which may mean further price increases down the road. VC-backed tools often follow a pattern of low introductory pricing followed by steady increases as the company matures.
Solo is the newest of the three, which means it has the smallest track record but also the most modern architecture. Building with AI at the core rather than bolting it on later means the AI features are deeply integrated, not afterthoughts. The trade-off is that some features (like contracts) are still in development.
All three are capable tools. The decision comes down to what you value: deep customization (Dubsado), polished simplicity (HoneyBook), or AI-powered efficiency (Solo).
If you have been on the fence, the best way to decide is to try them. Solo's free tier lets you test-drive the full platform with no credit card and no time limit.
Try Solo free — no setup wizard required. Start free.
For broader context, see our complete guide to HoneyBook alternatives or explore Solo's feature set.