Comparison
Herd vs HoneyBook
Client management software for independent professionals: proposals, contracts, invoices, scheduling and payments in one place. This page puts it beside Herd for UK creators, with the pricing checked on 21 September 2026 and the places HoneyBook wins written down as such.
Herd at a glance
- Plans
- From £99/month for creators, in GBP
- Covers
- Creators, brands and agencies in one account, on the same deal record
- Based
- United Kingdom. Herd UK Ltd, registered in England & Wales
- Best for
- UK creators who want the content, the paperwork and the money in one system rather than in eleven tabs
HoneyBook at a glance
- Pricing
- According to third-party listings, Starter is $36 a month or $29 billed annually, Essentials is $59 or $49, and Premium is $129 or $109, with GBP pricing available in the UK since 28 May 2026.
- Head office
- San Francisco, US
- Best for
- Freelancers and service businesses of any kind, photographers especially, who need a polished client workflow and do not need anything social.
Pricing last checked 21 September 2026 from assembly.com (a third-party listing).
Prices in USD, with GBP in the UK since May 2026; features change, check HoneyBook's site before deciding.
The short version
HoneyBook is a better general-purpose client workflow and a fraction of the price. Herd is the better fit if your clients are brands and your deliverables are posts, because the content, the media kit and the brand side sit in the same account as the paperwork. If you do mixed freelance work, HoneyBook may still be the sensible base.
HoneyBook is run from San Francisco, US. It suits freelancers and service businesses of any kind, photographers especially, who need a polished client workflow and do not need anything social.
Herd is a UK product with three sides in one account. Creators run content, deals, contracts and invoices. Brands run campaigns, review content and pay creator invoices by card. Agencies run a roster with commission splits and white-label client portals. Herd costs from £99/month for creators, billed in pounds. That breadth is the whole trade: Herd covers more of the week, and in a few places it covers it less thoroughly than HoneyBook does.
Feature by feature
Every line in the Herd column is a feature that works today. The HoneyBook column is what its own site and the listings we read showed on 21 September 2026: a dash means we could not find the feature there, and a plan name in the Herd column is the plan the feature starts on.
| Feature | Herd | HoneyBook |
|---|---|---|
| Who it is for | ||
| Creators | Free, £99 or £299 a month | From around $29 a month annual |
| Brands | £999 a month | No |
| Agencies | £1,999 a month | No |
| Content | ||
| Content calendar and publishing | Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, X | No |
| Video editor | Yes | No |
| Media kit and public profile | Yes | No |
| Deals & paperwork | ||
| Proposals | Yes | Yes |
| Contracts with e-signature | Pro | Yes |
| Deals pipeline shared with the other side | Yes | Client projects |
| Rate card | Yes | Not verified |
| Money | ||
| Invoices with a card pay link | Starter and above | Yes |
| Digital products and memberships | Pro | No |
| Expenses, cashflow and tax view | Pro | Not verified |
| Communication | ||
| Gmail or Outlook inbox | Yes | Not verified |
| Video meetings with guest links | Yes | Scheduling |
| Team & agency | ||
| Creator roster and commission splits | Agency plan | No |
| Pricing & billing | ||
| Currency | GBP | USD, with GBP in the UK since May 2026 |
| Free plan | Yes, for creators | No |
| Cooling-off period | 14 days on paid plans | See their terms |
Where HoneyBook is stronger
Nothing below is a concession for the sake of looking fair. These are the parts of HoneyBook that Herd either does not have or does less well, and if one of them is the deciding factor for you, buy HoneyBook.
- A mature, well-tested client workflow: proposal to contract to invoice, refined over years.
- Far cheaper than Herd Pro, starting around $29 a month billed annually.
- Now sells in GBP in the UK, so the currency objection has gone.
- Works for any service business, not just creators, which matters if you do mixed work.
- Built-in scheduling and an AI notetaker.
What Herd adds
The other direction. These are jobs Herd covers that we could not find in HoneyBook's published feature list when we checked on 21 September 2026, taken from the same list as the table above, plus the differences in how the two are priced. Some of them sit on the higher Herd plans, and the pricing below says which.
- No social publishing, content calendar or video editor.
- No media kit, public profile or rate card built for brand deals.
- No opportunities queue and no brand or agency side.
- No digital products or memberships.
- No creator discovery for the brands you work with.
- Nothing that understands a deliverable as a post on a platform.
Pricing side by side
According to third-party listings, Starter is $36 a month or $29 billed annually, Essentials is $59 or $49, and Premium is $129 or $109, with GBP pricing available in the UK since 28 May 2026. HoneyBook does not publish those figures in a form we could read directly, so they come from a third-party listing, last checked on 21 September 2026. Herd is priced in pounds and costs from £99/month for creators, with 17% off when you pay for the year and a 14-day cooling-off period on every paid plan.
Herd, in pounds
For creators
- FreeFree, no card
- Starter£99/month, £986/year
- Pro£299/month, £2,978/year
Annual billing saves 17% on creator and Brand plans and 20% on the Agency plan. 14-day cooling-off on every paid plan. Brands and agencies can book a live demo before subscribing.
HoneyBook, as published
- Starter$36/mo or $29/mo annual
USD
- Essentials$59/mo or $49/mo annual
USD
- Premium$129/mo or $109/mo annual
USD
- UK pricingGBP pricing launched 28 May 2026
Check honeybook.com from the UK for the pound figures
Pricing last checked 21 September 2026 from assembly.com (a third-party listing).
HoneyBook does not publish those figures in a form we could read directly, so they come from a third-party listing, last checked on 21 September 2026.
Prices in USD, with GBP in the UK since May 2026; features change, check HoneyBook's site before deciding.
Invoices and money
The invoice, the pay link and the payout in one place
An invoice in Herd is attached to the deal it came from and carries a card pay link, so the brand can settle it without a bank transfer form. What it is not is a general accounting package: Herd does not replace your accountant, and it does not track billable hours.
- Send real invoices with a card pay link from Starter upwards.
- On Pro, Stripe Connect settles the money into your own bank rather than a platform wallet.
- Expenses, cashflow and a tax view sit beside the invoices in Financials.
Herd and HoneyBook, asked and answered
- No. HoneyBook starts around $29 a month billed annually. Herd Starter is £99 and Pro is £299. Herd costs more because it also publishes your content, runs your inbox and connects to the brands and agencies you work with.
- It is good at the client side of any freelance business, and creators do use it. What it does not understand is a social deliverable, a media kit or a brand campaign, so the content half of the job stays somewhere else.
- Yes. HoneyBook launched in the UK on 28 May 2026 with GBP pricing, according to its own announcement. Check the pound figures on honeybook.com from the UK, as the listings we could read show dollars.
- Publishing to four networks, a content calendar, a video editor, a live media kit at herduk.co.uk/yourname, an opportunities queue, digital products and memberships, and the brand and agency sides of the same deal.
Creator pricing
Start free and stay there as long as you like. Paid plans add real invoices, the inbox, the media kit and everything else.
Free
Have a proper look around
£0/month
No card needed.
- Content calendar and drafts
- One draft deal to set up
- Invoice preview
- Dashboard with sample data
- Video editor · 1 watermarked export a month
- Community
- Send invoices or activate deals
- Inbox, meetings, media kit
- 7 days of history
- No social integrations
Starter
Run the business by hand
£99/month
Billed monthly. Cancel from your settings at any time.
- Active deals · Up to 5 at a time
- Send invoices your clients pay by card through Stripe
- Stripe payouts to your own bank
- Gmail or Outlook inbox and opportunities queue
- Live media kit, rate card and video meetings
- Video exports · 5 a month, no watermark
- Social integrations · 2 connected accounts
- Contracts, expenses, products and memberships
- 90 days of history
- No automated reminders
Pro
The whole business, no limits
£299/month
Billed monthly. Cancel from your settings at any time.
- Unlimited active deals and video exports
- Contracts with e-signature
- Proposals to brands and agencies
- Payments page with your Stripe balance and payout history
- Digital products and memberships
- Expenses, cashflow and tax-ready exports
- Asset library and email
- Unlimited social integrations
- Prices in GBP. VAT added where applicable.
- Annual billing saves 17% on creator and Brand plans and 20% on the Agency plan.
- 14-day cooling-off period on every paid plan.
- Card payment through Stripe. Cancel from your settings at any time.
- Platform fee on digital product sales: 5%.
Keep reading
The switching notes for HoneyBook, the other comparisons UK creators tend to read, and how Herd works day to day.
Herd has a page for each side of the market: creators, brands and agencies. The full list of what the product does is on the features page, and every plan and fee is on the pricing page.
- HoneyBook alternativeWhat changes if you move, what you give up, and the steps for leaving HoneyBook.
- Herd vs BeaconsA creator toolkit built around a link-in-bio page, with a storefront, an auto-updating media kit, email and invoicing attached to it.
- Herd vs KitlyA media kit and collaboration tracker for creators, with a separate product, Kitly Business, for agencies managing a roster.
- Herd vs LaterA social media scheduler with a visual planner, publishing to seven or more networks, a link-in-bio page and post analytics.
- How creators use HerdA working week on Herd from the creator side, feature by feature.
Run the business side from one screen
Plan the week, send the invoice, sign the contract and watch the money land in your own bank account.
The free plan does not expire and needs no card.