If you are a wedding planner, photographer, florist, DJ, or caterer shopping for business management software in 2026, you have probably landed on two of the most talked-about options: Maroo and HoneyBook. Both platforms promise to streamline contracts, invoicing, and payments — but they are built on very different philosophies, and the wrong choice can quietly cost your business thousands of dollars a year.
This post breaks down both platforms side by side: pricing, payment processing fees, features, and the real annual cost for wedding businesses at different revenue levels. Whether you are just starting out or running a six-figure operation, this guide will help you make the decision confidently.
Quick answer: HoneyBook is a polished, feature-rich platform that serves a broad range of freelancers and creatives. Maroo is built exclusively for wedding and event professionals, with a structural advantage on payment processing that becomes increasingly powerful as your revenue grows. For most wedding pros doing more than $5,000 per month in invoicing, the difference in real annual cost is not close.
Maroo is a business management platform built specifically for the wedding and event industry. Launched to solve the specific financial and operational pain points of wedding vendors, Maroo handles invoicing, contracts, payments (ACH and card), contractor payouts, W-9 and 1099 e-filing, and CRM — all in one platform designed around how wedding businesses actually work.
To date, Maroo has supported over $300 million in invoices created, with 94% paid on time and 2,000+ contracts signed through the platform. Its headline differentiator: processing fees can be passed directly to your clients, meaning your business keeps every dollar it earns.
HoneyBook is a widely-used client management platform that serves photographers, designers, event planners, and a broad range of independent creative businesses. It offers a polished client experience with beautiful proposal templates, robust workflow automation, a built-in scheduler, and an AI assistant. HoneyBook is well-established and genuinely strong for teams that prioritize branded client communication and automated workflows.
The key trade-off: HoneyBook's processing fees are absorbed by your business — you cannot pass them to clients. At scale, this becomes a significant and recurring cost.
This is the section that matters most for high-volume wedding businesses. The platforms take fundamentally different approaches to how processing fees work — and that difference compounds dramatically as your revenue grows.
HoneyBook charges processing fees that your business absorbs. There is no option to pass these fees to clients:
Every dollar in fees comes directly out of your margin.
Maroo's fees are passable to clients — your business pays nothing. The fees are transparently shown to the client at checkout, similar to how airlines charge a credit card convenience fee:
Note: Surcharging (passing card fees to clients) is permitted in most U.S. states. Maroo handles this automatically. The exceptions are Connecticut and Massachusetts, where card surcharging is not allowed.
Imagine you send a $5,000 invoice to a couple. They pay by credit card.
With HoneyBook:
With Maroo:
Over the course of a busy wedding season with 40 bookings averaging $5,000 each ($200K in volume), that is $5,810 walking out the door with HoneyBook, versus $0 with Maroo.
This is Maroo's defining advantage and it compounds with every invoice, every season, every year. The fee passthrough model is not a minor feature — it is a structural financial advantage that no workflow tool or AI assistant can offset.
Every feature in Maroo was designed with wedding and event professionals in mind. The workflow, language, and defaults fit how wedding businesses actually operate — not adapted from a generic freelancer template.
Maroo's Starter plan is permanently free for businesses invoicing up to $5,000/month — no credit card required, no expiration date, no trial countdown. For newer wedding pros building their client base, this removes the risk entirely.
HoneyBook offers a 7-day free trial. After that, it is $36/month at minimum.
This is one of Maroo's most underrated advantages. If you pay second shooters, assistants, or subcontractors — and most wedding pros do — Maroo handles the full contractor payment workflow: outbound payments, W-9 collection, and 1099 e-filing at tax time. HoneyBook has no equivalent feature.
That means HoneyBook users are managing contractor paperwork manually, across spreadsheets and separate tools, every single tax season. Maroo handles it inside the same platform where you already invoice and get paid.
Paying vendors, venues, or supplier businesses via ACH costs nothing on any Maroo plan. For planners and caterers managing high-volume vendor relationships, this is a real operational saving.
Maroo provides full API access on Business and Pro plans, enabling custom integrations for growing operations. HoneyBook does not offer API access on any plan.
Maroo's structure is straightforward. HoneyBook has more gated tiers, more feature dependencies, and the pricing increase history suggests costs will continue climbing.
Being honest matters here. HoneyBook is a mature, well-funded platform with real strengths:
HoneyBook's proposal and contract templates are genuinely beautiful. If the visual impression you make during booking is central to your brand, HoneyBook has the edge here.
HoneyBook's automation engine is robust — you can map inquiry-to-delivery workflows and automate follow-ups, reminders, and task assignments. Maroo does not yet offer comparable automation.
HoneyBook AI can draft proposals based on your past work and a client's inquiry. For high-volume businesses, that is a meaningful time-saver. (Keep in mind: you are still paying 2.9% + $0.25 on every payment that proposal generates.)
HoneyBook includes a native scheduler that syncs with your calendar. Maroo does not yet offer scheduling.
For businesses that want banking, savings accounts, and small business loans inside the same ecosystem, this is a compelling add-on.
HoneyBook includes unlimited e-sign contracts on every plan, including Starter.
This section uses realistic assumptions for a wedding business: 70% of payments via credit card, 30% via ACH, with an average transaction size of $2,500. HoneyBook costs reflect the Essentials plan at $49/month (annual billing). Maroo costs reflect the Business plan at $50/month.
The critical distinction: HoneyBook's processing fees are a real cost absorbed by your business. Maroo's fees are passed to clients, so your business cost is the subscription only.
The math is stark. At $100K in revenue, Maroo costs $2,575 less per year. At $500K, it is $12,523 less. That is money that stays in your business — funds a second shooter, new equipment, a marketing budget, or simply stays as profit.
A note on client-side fees: Passing processing fees to clients is a transparent, common industry practice (airlines, event venues, and many service businesses do this). Most clients understand and accept a 1.5-3.5% fee for the convenience of paying by card.
HoneyBook is a genuinely good product, and it earned its reputation for a reason. If you are a creative freelancer who wants beautiful client-facing materials, robust automation, and an AI assistant — and you are okay with absorbing processing fees as a cost of doing business — HoneyBook delivers on those promises.
But for wedding and event professionals who want to keep more of what they earn, Maroo is the stronger choice.
The fee passthrough model is not a minor feature — it is a structural financial advantage that compounds over every invoice, every season, every year. A wedding photographer doing $150K/year saves roughly $3,700 annually. A planner managing $400K in bookings saves over $10,000. That is not a rounding error.
Add in the free Starter plan, contractor payment + 1099 management, free B2B ACH, and an industry-specific design, and Maroo is the platform built for how wedding businesses actually work — and how much they actually spend.
Ready to see the difference? Maroo's Starter plan is permanently free for businesses invoicing up to $5,000/month — no credit card required, no time limit.
Already doing more volume? The Business plan at $50/month pays for itself the moment you collect a single $3,500 wedding deposit by card.
Q: Does Maroo charge processing fees?
Maroo does have processing fees (1.0–1.5% for ACH, 3.25–3.5% for cards depending on plan), but they can be passed to clients at checkout, so your business doesn’t have to absorb them.
Q: Can I pass credit card fees to clients on HoneyBook?
No. HoneyBook does not allow surcharging, so your business absorbs card and ACH processing fees.
Q: Is Maroo really free?
Yes. Maroo’s Starter plan is permanently free for businesses invoicing up to $5,000 per month (~$60,000/year). There is no trial period or expiration. Contracts are $5 each, but the core invoicing, CRM, and payment features are free.
Q: Does HoneyBook have a free plan?
No. HoneyBook offers a 7-day free trial and a 60-day money-back guarantee, but all paid plans start at $29/month (annual billing) or $36/month (monthly billing).
Last updated: March 2026. Pricing and features are subject to change — visit maroo.us/pricing and honeybook.com/pricing for the latest information.
