TL;DR: The right payment setup depends on subscription cost, payment mix, transaction size, and whether the business also needs contracts, contractor payouts, or tax-document workflows. Maroo’s Starter plan includes its CRM and associated core features for free within published plan limits. Business is optional at $50 per month, and a business that passes every eligible processing fee and absorbs no other transaction fee pays only the $600 annual subscription; clients pay the shifted eligible fees.
Wedding professionals often collect large retainers and milestone payments. A small difference in processing cost can therefore matter, but a fair comparison also has to include subscription fees, payment method, transaction count, and the operational tools a business would otherwise buy separately.
Before comparing platforms, model the variables that actually affect your business:
Wedding businesses commonly need one connected workflow for:
This guide compares seven established options or planning-side complements using public pricing and product pages checked August 21, 2026. Sprout Studio FlowPay is discussed separately because its official page still labels it as coming soon.
Rates and plan terms can change. Stripe publishes 2.9% + $0.30 for domestic cards and 0.8% for ACH Direct Debit with a $5 cap. Sprout Studio’s FlowPay page advertises pricing starting at 2.75% + $0.30 but still labels the product as coming soon, so it is not ranked as a currently available option here.
These examples isolate published processing prices for one payment. They do not make every platform equivalent: subscription terms, card-entry method, bank-payment rules, fee-pass eligibility, and workflow scope differ. Confirm the current rate for the exact plan and payment method you will use.
Best for: Wedding and event businesses that want client payments, a free CRM and associated core features, contracts, invoicing, and contractor workflows in one system
Starting price: Starter is free for businesses invoicing under $5,000 per month; Business is $50 per month; Pro is custom
Website: Maroo pricing
Maroo is built for wedding and event businesses. Its payment workflow connects to a CRM, quotes, contracts, and invoicing. The CRM and associated core Starter features do not require a subscription within the plan’s published limits.
Current client-payment pricing:
Maroo publishes card rates of 3.5% on Starter, 3.4% on Business, and 3.25% on Pro. Published client ACH rates are 1.5%, 1.25%, and 1%, respectively. The current pricing page does not show the retired ACH maximums that appeared in the earlier version of this article.
Business can pass eligible processing fees to clients. If a business passes every eligible processing fee and absorbs no other transaction fee, the optional Business plan costs that business only its $50 monthly subscription, or $600 per year. Clients pay the shifted eligible fees. Passing a fee shifts it to the client; it does not eliminate it.
Contractor-payment and tax-document workflow:
Maroo also supports paying contractors, which makes it relevant to wedding businesses that regularly hire second shooters, assistants, coordinators, or production partners:
That connected workflow can reduce duplicate entry for businesses that would otherwise manage client collection, contractor payments, and year-end records in separate tools. The value depends on how often the business hires contractors and which plan limits it needs.
Fee pass-through is subject to eligibility, card-network rules, applicable law, and clear client disclosure. Maroo’s published support for eligible fee passing should be evaluated for the business’s specific payment methods and location; it should not be described as making a fee disappear.
Maroo reports serving more than 15,000 businesses and processing more than $450 million in payments. For a smaller business within Starter limits, the CRM and associated core workflow are free; paid Business features are optional rather than required to use the core platform.
Related: Maroo vs. HoneyBook
Planning businesses can also pair Maroo’s business-side payment workflow with planning software for client budgets and vendor schedules. See the related wedding-planner CRM guide for a broader workflow comparison.
Best for: Businesses that prioritize clientflow, automation, scheduling, proposals, contracts, and payments in one general-purpose platform
Starting price: $29, $49, or $109 per month when billed yearly
Website: HoneyBook pricing
HoneyBook combines lead management, proposals, contracts, invoices, scheduling, and automation. Its three current plans list unlimited clients and projects, with more automation and team capability on higher tiers. See HoneyBook’s official payment-fee guide for method-specific rates.
HoneyBook’s published card price is not one universal percentage. Its guide lists manually entered Visa and Mastercard payments at 2.9% + $0.25, while card-on-file, American Express, and Discover transactions are listed at 3.4% + $0.09. ACH is listed at 1.5%. The exact cost therefore depends on how the client pays.
HoneyBook is primarily a clientflow platform. Businesses that need a connected contractor payout and W-9/1099 workflow should compare that requirement separately rather than infer it from client-payment features.
The right comparison is total workflow cost: annual subscription, the business’s actual mix of payment methods, and the value of HoneyBook’s automation and client experience for that business.
HoneyBook’s published annual-billing snapshot is $29 per month for Starter, $49 for Essentials, and $109 for Premium. Promotions can differ, so use the current checkout price when making a final decision.
Best for: Businesses that need invoices alongside in-person or broader Square commerce tools
Starting price: Free is $0 per location; Plus is $49 per location per month; Premium is $149 per location per month
Website: Square Invoices pricing
Square Invoices publishes 3.5% + $0.15 for manual or card-on-file invoice payments. Its paid invoice plans add features such as custom invoice templates and milestone-based payment schedules.
Square publishes ACH invoice pricing of 1% with a $1 minimum. The paid Plus and Premium plans show a $10 maximum, while the Free plan does not show that maximum. Model the exact plan rather than applying one cap to every Square invoice.
Square is commerce-led rather than wedding-specific. It can cover invoices and payments, but a business may still need separate tools for wedding CRM, contracts, contractor payouts, or tax-document workflows.
For a vendor that collects both scheduled wedding payments and occasional in-person payments, Square can be evaluated as a complement or alternative based on whether the business prefers one connected wedding workflow or Square’s broader commerce ecosystem.
Best for: Wedding businesses that want proposals, contracts, invoices, and payments in an industry-specific product
Starting price: Basic is free; Professional is $27 per month billed annually or $33 monthly; Premium is $33 per month billed annually or $41 monthly
Website: Rock Paper Coin pricing
Rock Paper Coin supports invoices, payments, and 1–2 day payouts. Its published plans separate free invoice/payment use from Professional proposal and contract features and Premium lead-management features.
The pricing page lists 2.5% processing on Professional and volume-based pricing on Premium. Because the official page does not publish one exact ACH percentage for the comparison modeled here, the bank-payment column is left uncalculated rather than guessed.
Rock Paper Coin focuses on the client-facing wedding transaction. Businesses that need an integrated contractor payout and W-9/1099 workflow should evaluate that requirement separately.
The free Basic plan can suit a business that needs invoices and payments without proposals or contracts. Professional adds those client-workflow features, while Premium adds lead management and inquiry forms.
Published annual-billing equivalents are $27 per month for Professional and $33 per month for Premium. Month-to-month prices are $33 and $41, respectively.
Best for: Businesses already using Dubsado forms, portals, scheduling, and automation
Starting price: Dubsado Starter is $35 per month or $335 per year; Premier is $55 per month or $525 per year. Processing is separate.
Processor reference: Stripe pricing
When Dubsado payments route through Stripe, Stripe’s public standard price is 2.9% + $0.30 for domestic cards. Manually entered cards add 0.5%. Stripe publishes ACH Direct Debit at 0.8% with a $5 cap.
Any fee pass-through depends on the processor, payment method, card-network rules, applicable law, and client disclosure. Passing an eligible fee shifts who pays it; it does not remove the fee from the transaction.
Dubsado offers a broad client-workflow layer, while Stripe supplies processing. Businesses that also need contractor payouts and W-9/1099 support should include a separate workflow or service in the comparison.
The Dubsado subscription is separate from processing. Starter is $335 per year when billed annually, and Premier is $525 per year when billed annually.
Best for: Businesses that want payment collection close to their QuickBooks accounting records
Starting price: QuickBooks subscription plus the business’s current payment rates
Website: QuickBooks Payments pricing
QuickBooks Payments is the payment layer inside the QuickBooks ecosystem. For a business already using QuickBooks Online, that proximity can simplify payment-to-accounting reconciliation.
QuickBooks payment pricing and eligible rate offers can vary. Because the official page was not reliably accessible to the automated verifier during this review, exact QuickBooks processing figures are excluded from the cost tables. Verify the current official page and the rate shown in the business’s account before deciding.
Wedding businesses can also keep a client-facing platform and sync accounting separately. Maroo publishes a direct QuickBooks Online integration for that division of work.
Best for: Wedding planners who need client budgets, vendor payment schedules, and planning-side visibility rather than payment processing
Starting price: $61/month
Website: ThatsTheOne wedding features
ThatsTheOne is not a payment processor. It belongs in this guide as a planning-side complement because it tracks budgets and vendor-payment schedules rather than collecting a planner’s business invoices.
Its planning workflow can help a planner compare a client’s budget with actual spend and monitor vendor deposits, balances, and due dates across an event.
A potential two-tool setup is Maroo for the wedding business’s client payments and contractor payouts, with TTO for the event’s planning-side budget and vendor-payment schedule. Whether that is preferable to one platform depends on the planner’s workflow.
TTO’s payment tracking answers planning questions such as which vendor deposits are due and how current spend compares with the client budget. Those are distinct from accounting, invoicing, and payment-processing tasks.
This section is relevant to wedding businesses that hire independent contractors. The correct reporting treatment depends on the worker relationship, payment method, and current tax rules, so businesses should use current IRS guidance or professional advice rather than rely on a software comparison as tax advice.
The IRS explains forms and associated taxes for independent contractors in its current independent-contractor guidance. Thresholds, exceptions, deadlines, and penalties can change, and a business should confirm which forms apply to its facts.
Most client-payment products in this comparison do not present a connected wedding-contractor payout plus W-9/1099 workflow on their public pricing pages. QuickBooks tax capabilities vary by product and plan, so they should be confirmed directly rather than treated as part of standalone payment processing.
Maroo’s current contractor workflow includes individual and bulk W-9 requests, payment tracking, 1099 preparation, e-filing, and mailing under its published plan terms. Published 1099 pricing is $5 per form on Starter, $3 per form on Business, and included on Pro.
The operational benefit is having contractor-payment records and tax-document requests in the same workflow. The financial value depends on contractor count, plan limits, and what the business would otherwise pay or do manually.
Illustrative scenario: $100,000 in annual revenue; $60,000 across 10 card payments and $40,000 across 10 bank payments. Figures use the published prices described above, annual-billing subscriptions where stated, and no promotions. This is a comparison example, not a quote.
The model is intentionally transparent rather than a universal ranking. HoneyBook uses the manually entered Visa/Mastercard rate for the card example; a different card-entry method changes the result. Rock Paper Coin’s bank fees and QuickBooks rates are excluded where the current official pages did not provide a dependable exact figure for this calculation.
Choose Maroo when: A connected wedding-industry CRM, contracts, invoices, client payments, contractor payouts, and W-9/1099 support matter. Starter’s CRM and associated core features are free within published limits; Business is an optional $50 monthly plan.
Choose HoneyBook when: Its clientflow, automation, scheduling, and broad business workflow fit the team, after modeling the actual subscription and method-specific payment rates.
Choose Square when: In-person collection and the broader Square commerce ecosystem matter more than a wedding-specific contractor or tax-document workflow.
Choose Rock Paper Coin when: An industry-specific client-payment workflow, free invoice/payment entry point, and its proposal/contract plan structure fit the business.
Choose Dubsado with Stripe when: Dubsado’s automation system is the preferred client workflow and the business is comfortable treating payment processing and contractor-tax needs as separate layers.
Use ThatsTheOne alongside a payment platform when: A planner needs planning-side budgets and vendor-payment schedules at $61/month in addition to the business-side collection workflow.
Q: What is the lowest-cost way to accept wedding payments?
The answer depends on subscription cost, payment method, transaction size, transaction count, and who absorbs eligible fees. Use your own annual card/bank mix and current plan terms; do not choose from one advertised percentage alone. FlowPay is excluded from the active ranking while its official page says coming soon.
Q: Can a business pass eligible processing fees to clients?
Maroo supports passing eligible processing fees under applicable rules. If a business on Business passes every eligible processing fee and absorbs no other transaction fee, its business-side cost is the $50 monthly subscription, or $600 per year; clients pay the shifted eligible fees. Passing a fee shifts it to the client and does not eliminate it. Eligibility, disclosure, card-network rules, and applicable law still matter.
Q: How do contractor payments work in Maroo?
Maroo supports individual and bulk B2B ACH contractor payments within plan limits. Contractors can complete a secure W-9 request flow, and the business can use payment records for 1099 preparation, e-filing, and mailing under current plan terms.
Q: Is Maroo’s free tier functional?
Yes. Starter is free for businesses invoicing under $5,000 per month. Its CRM and associated core features—including lead capture, quotes, contracts, invoicing, payment collection, and limited contractor workflows—do not require a subscription within the published plan limits. Processing and per-use charges can still apply.
Q: How does Maroo compare with using Stripe directly?
Stripe is a payment processor. Maroo adds a wedding-industry CRM, quotes, contracts, invoicing, payment schedules, contractor payouts, and W-9/1099 workflow around payment collection. A business that only needs processing may prefer a processor; a business that values the connected operating workflow should compare total subscription, processing, and administration costs.
