Dubsado, HoneyBook, 17Hats, Releventful
In searching for a new CRM I heavily valued two things: Automation and Support. Dubsado brings these in spades.
CRM Quick Compare
| Features vs CRM | Dubsado | 17Hats | HoneyBook | Releventful |
| Lead Intake Form | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Bulk Import Leads | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Contracts | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Visual Lead Board | Ok | Meh | Best | Meh |
| Automated Workflows | Best | Ok | Meh | Ok |
| Song List Manager | No | No | No | Yes |
| Support/Community | Best | Ok | Ok | ? |
| QuickBooks Link | Yes | Yes | Yes | No |
| Price/Year | $350 | $295 | $400 | $240 |
| My Ranking | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 |
My Favorite: Dubsado FTW
Support & Community
Their chat support responded nearly in real time, under a minute! And look at the interactivity in their Facebook group? Questions pop up all the time because there’s so much under the hood, and if you can’t figure it out someone else has likely engineered a workaround and will gladly help.
Automation & Workflows
I have a tech background and experience coding and with automation. You can’t code in Dubsado, but you can implement conditional logic for workflows to do things for you under various criteria. Look at how specific you can get:
Smart Fields As Integrated Variables
Dubsado also uses Smart Fields which are essentially variables that allow you to use the same data across forms, emails, contracts, etc. Proposals and Contracts can build themselves as clients select their own packages and options, then automatically create an invoice and pay on the spot.
Weakness One: No Song Selection For Clients
If you’re a DJ who incorporates a song selection system for clients to pick out tracks, you won’t find that with Dubsado. It’s not targeted to DJs so you’ll have to incorporate another service such as Vibo.io That being said I’ve heard great things about Vibo, though it’s also expensive going at more than $30 per month.
Weakness Two: Lead Board
The other thing I’m not in love with is the lead board. You have to click into each category to get a sense of what’s going on. I really love the one on HoneyBook pictured in the second image below. You can customize your categories in Dubsado, I just wish they utilized a more condensed drag & drop system like HoneyBook.
Conclusion
Dubsado’s not the cheapest but it’s still in the same price range as other options. They’ll even transfer all contacts from your old CRM for free! With the level of customized automation Dubsado offers paired with the Support Community and speed of updates, I’ll be happy with Dubsado for quite a while. Even better, you can get 20% off your first year by using anyone’s referral promo code!
Disclaimer: I get a free month if you use it. I wasn’t however biased in any way in writing this review or deciding which service to use.
On that note, happy automating!
PS: A Note On DJ Event Planner (DJEP)
DJ Event Planner is used by many many DJs to manage their business. For years it looked like Windows 95 had a baby with GeoCities, and they got away with it because they were really the only game in town for us. A big plus they had going for them is client song selection.
But after a visual refresh it still looks dated and feels clunky. Workflow automation is severely lacking and their comparative service plan still comes in at $240 per year, a similar price range as our modern alternatives above. For that reason I didn’t include DJEP in my showdown, automation is KEY these days. DJ Event Planner also doesn’t integrate with QuickBooks. Should I go on?
Some will disagree with me, that’s fine. I’ll be automating my business so I can focus on what we enjoy most: playing music and making money!
