Honest comparison
HoneyBook vs CaterKit
The short version: HoneyBook is a good general client tool — inquiries, proposals, contracts, invoices, one polished flow. It just doesn’t know anything about food. There’s no recipe or portion costing, no margin math, no shopping or prep or pack lists. It knows your invoice, not your food cost. And in 2025 it did the one thing our whole promise is built against: it raised prices on existing customers by roughly 68–89% (verified July 2026). CaterKit costs your recipes, builds your event-day lists, and never reprices the people who already trust it.
If you want a general CRM for a service business and you already do your food math elsewhere, HoneyBook is a fine choice, and this page will tell you when. If the hard part of your business is knowing what a dish actually costs and what to charge for it, that’s the half HoneyBook is missing.
When HoneyBook is the right choice
Credit where it’s due: HoneyBook is a genuinely good generic client-flow tool. Inquiries land, proposals go out, contracts get signed, invoices get paid — clients can pay without creating an account, deposits and installment reminders are built in, and there’s light AI for drafting emails. Plenty of service businesses run happily on it. Some caterers even run both: HoneyBook for leads and contracts, a costing tool for the kitchen. Pick HoneyBook if:
- You need a general client CRM more than you need food math.
- Your business is proposal-and-contract heavy across mixed service types, not catering-specific.
- You already cost your recipes somewhere else and just want the front office in one place.
That’s a real use case, and CaterKit doesn’t try to be a general CRM. What CaterKit does is the catering half HoneyBook leaves out.
Side by side
Here’s the comparison, with HoneyBook figures verified July 2026:
| What matters | HoneyBook | CaterKit |
|---|---|---|
| Recipe & portion costing | None — generic client CRM | Per-portion recipe costing with live margins, on every plan (free holds 15 recipes). |
| Margin at quote time | None | A live margin bar while you build the quote. |
| AI menu import | None | Photograph a menu. AI drafts costed recipes you review before they count (5/50/150 imports a month by plan). |
| Event-day lists (shopping / prep / pack) | None | Shopping, prep & pack lists build themselves from the menu you sold, offline and printable. |
| Quotes | Generic proposals & invoices | Costed catering quotes with live margins, sent as a branded page clients accept on their phone. |
| Monthly price | $36 / $59 / $129 by tier (up 68–89% in 2025) | Free to start · Solo $59/mo · Pro $99/mo, flat |
| Payments | HoneyBook processing (2.9% + 25¢) | Clients pay you directly through your own Stripe, Square, or Venmo links. Never a cut, never a processor penalty. |
HoneyBook pricing verified July 2026 from their public pricing pages. Their current numbers may differ, so always check their site. We never invent competitor claims: rows we can't verify say so.
Knows your invoice, not your food
The costing rows are the whole story. A caterer’s most expensive mistake isn’t a slow contract — it’s charging $2,500 for a job that cost $2,130 to put on and calling it a win. HoneyBook will send that invoice beautifully. It won’t tell you the number was wrong. CaterKit shows you your food cost, your loaded cost with labor and overhead, and your margin before you hit send.
The 2025 price hike is the promise, proven
We say "existing customers are never repriced" as a promise. HoneyBook is the live example of the other choice. In 2025 it raised its plan prices substantially — the Starter tier went from $19 to $36, and the Premier tier from $79 to $129, a jump of roughly 68% to 89% (current prices confirmed on HoneyBook’s pricing page; the historical deltas are from a third-party pricing tracker cross-referenced against those current prices — verified July 2026).
That’s not a jab at HoneyBook’s product. It’s the clearest possible illustration of why promise #4 exists. When a tool reprices its base, the people who trusted it earliest pay the most. CaterKit runs the opposite way: the price you sign up at is the price you keep. The product keeps getting richer at the same price — that’s the deal, and it’s a promise we can’t quietly walk back, because breaking it is the thing we sell against.
The promises, line by line
- No setup fees. Neither of us charges one.
- Clients pay you directly. We never take a cut. HoneyBook processes payments at 2.9% + 25¢; with CaterKit, the money goes straight to you through your own links.
- No per-quote quotas. Quote every job, win or lose.
- Existing customers are never repriced. HoneyBook raised its base 68–89% in 2025. CaterKit keeps your price where you signed up. This is the one to read twice.
- Export everything, free, on every tier, forever. Recipes, clients, events, quotes — CSV or JSON, subscribed or not.
FAQ
Can HoneyBook do food costing?
No. HoneyBook has no recipe or portion costing, no margin math, and no shopping/prep/pack lists (verified July 2026). It’s a general client-flow tool — proposals, contracts, invoices. The food math is the part CaterKit adds.
How much did HoneyBook raise its prices?
Its Starter tier went from $19 to $36 and Premier from $79 to $129 in 2025 — roughly a 68–89% increase (current prices confirmed on HoneyBook’s site; the deltas are from a third-party tracker, verified July 2026). Existing customers were carried onto the higher prices.
Should I use HoneyBook and CaterKit together?
You can, and some caterers do — HoneyBook for general client management, CaterKit for the costing, quoting, and event-day half. If you specifically want your quotes to be costed and your lists to build themselves, CaterKit covers the catering-specific work HoneyBook doesn’t.
Does CaterKit process my payments like HoneyBook?
No, deliberately. CaterKit never touches your money. You add your own Stripe, Square, or Venmo links, your client pays you directly, and there’s no processing cut going to us.
Is CaterKit’s costing math trustworthy?
It’s the same math the product runs. Our free food-cost & margin calculator uses the exact costing engine inside CaterKit — cost, loaded with labor and overhead, divided out to a suggested price at your target margin. Try it below with one of your real dishes.
Try the other way, free
free, no signup, running the same costing math as CaterKit itself — find out what to charge for a dish.
Or see the full pricing page. It lists every limit and every price, so there are no surprises at checkout.