HoneyBook runs the client side of a creative or service business — CRM, proposals, contracts, scheduling, invoicing, and payments — but its published feature list has no timer or hourly time-logging tool. Keito is the layer in between: AI-drafted time entries the freelancer confirms, a reviewer settles billable status, and the reviewed hours become the evidence behind whichever invoice HoneyBook, or anything else, sends.
Illustrative review queue
Illustrative billing period
Hours captured
Entries confirmed
34
Billable hours
$2,140
Clients billed
5
Hours HoneyBook doesn’t capture
Client and project time logged directly
Reviewed before it becomes a bill
Billable status confirmed, not just logged
Evidence behind the invoice
Approved hours back whichever system bills
HoneyBook publishes a CRM, proposals, contracts, online scheduling, invoicing, and payment processing for photographers, event planners, designers, coaches, consultants, and other client-based creative and personal-service businesses. Its published feature list and pricing pages cover more than a dozen tools, from lead forms to HoneyBook AI, but none of them is a timer or an hourly time-logging tool. Keito answers the question HoneyBook’s own site does not: how many reviewed, billable hours did a project actually take, before that number becomes an invoice line.
Set up clients, projects, and rates in Keito in days — HoneyBook keeps running CRM, proposals, contracts, scheduling, and payments exactly as it does today.
Keito drafts time entries from the work that happened on a client project, so the freelancer confirms and corrects billable hours instead of reconstructing them from memory at invoice time.
A reviewer settles billable status before the period closes, then hands the approved hours to HoneyBook’s invoice — or any other tool the business uses to bill the client.
A client-management platform vs the hours it doesn’t track
HoneyBook is published as a CRM and client-management platform for creative and personal-service businesses — event planners, photographers, videographers, designers, coaches, consultants, and similar solo or small operations. Its own feature pages list a CRM, proposals, contracts, an online scheduler, invoicing, payment processing, a client portal, workflow automations, phone and SMS messaging, HoneyBook AI, third-party integrations, HoneyBook Finance, task management, a project pipeline, and lead capture forms. Its three published pricing tiers — Starter, Essentials, and Premium — add team seats, automations, and reporting depth at each step, but none of the three, and nothing else on HoneyBook’s public feature or pricing pages, is a timer or an hourly time-logging tool. That leaves a real gap for anyone in HoneyBook’s own target audience who bills by the hour, or simply wants to know how many hours a project actually took before pricing the next one: there is nowhere in the platform to log that time. Keito’s argument is not that a HoneyBook business needs a new CRM or invoicing tool — it is that the hours behind an hourly bill, or behind a package price that should reflect real effort, need to exist as a reviewed record somewhere, and HoneyBook’s published product does not provide that anywhere. Keito drafts time entries from the work that happened, the freelancer or team member confirms them, and a reviewer settles billable status before the entry becomes evidence for whatever invoice HoneyBook, or another tool, sends. The boundary is deliberate: Keito has no CRM, proposals, contracts, scheduling, payment processing, or lead-generation workflow, and it claims no native HoneyBook integration, automatic import, or synchronisation. HoneyBook keeps running the client relationship and the business; Keito is where the hours behind the bill actually get captured and reviewed.
Choose HoneyBook when the business needs a CRM, proposals, contracts, scheduling, payments, and lead capture running from one platform
Choose Keito when the problem is that HoneyBook has nowhere to log or review the hours behind an hourly bill or a package price
Prove it in one billing cycle: Keito runs alongside HoneyBook, capturing hours without touching CRM, proposals, or payments
Workflow fit
Keito keeps HoneyBook alternative connected to client, project, billable status, approval, and invoice context before the work reaches finance.
Choose HoneyBook when the business needs a CRM, proposals, contracts, scheduling, payments, and lead capture running from one platform
Choose Keito when the problem is that HoneyBook has nowhere to log or review the hours behind an hourly bill or a package price
Prove it in one billing cycle: Keito runs alongside HoneyBook, capturing hours without touching CRM, proposals, or payments
Keito drafts entries from the work that happened on a client project; the freelancer or team member confirms and corrects them instead of estimating hours after the fact.
A reviewer settles billable status and rate questions before the period closes, producing evidence HoneyBook’s own workflow has no step for.
Reviewers approve hours and hand the evidence to whichever system turns the project into a bill — HoneyBook’s invoicing or otherwise — through exports the team designs and tests itself.
The difference is not just recording time. It is whether the record can support billing, project decisions, and client conversations.
Product shape
A standalone workspace for captured, reviewed billable hours and invoice evidence.
HoneyBook publishes a broad client-management platform — CRM, proposals, contracts, scheduling, invoicing, and payments for creative and personal-service businesses.
Time tracking
AI drafts entries from the work that happened; the freelancer confirms them and a reviewer approves before anything backs an invoice.
HoneyBook’s published feature list and pricing pages do not include a timer or hourly time-logging tool on any of its three tiers.
Review before billing
A reviewer settles billable status and rate questions before the period closes.
With no time-tracking feature published, HoneyBook has no billing-hours review step to compare — the gap is capture, not review depth.
Billing model fit
Built for the hourly or package-priced hours behind a creative or service-business invoice that need a reviewed record.
Built around CRM, proposals, contracts, and payment collection for a project or package price, not around logging the hours behind it.
Pricing and adoption
Published flat team pricing and a setup measured in days, run alongside HoneyBook.
HoneyBook’s three published tiers run $29 to $109 a month billed yearly, scaling by team seats, automations, and reporting depth rather than time tracking.
Data movement
Team-designed, tested exports and API handoffs moved in deliberate stages.
No native Keito-HoneyBook import or automatic synchronisation is assumed in either direction; HoneyBook’s own CRM, scheduling, and payment tools belong to its platform.
It is software a creative or service business adopts instead of — or alongside — HoneyBook, which runs a CRM, proposals, contracts, scheduling, invoicing, and payments. Because HoneyBook covers that much of the client relationship, an alternative rarely replaces all of it at once. Keito is the alternative for the piece HoneyBook does not publish at all: capturing and reviewing the hours behind an hourly bill or a package price.
No. HoneyBook’s published feature list — CRM, proposals, contracts, scheduling, invoicing, payments, a client portal, automations, phone and SMS, HoneyBook AI, integrations, HoneyBook Finance, tasks, pipeline, and lead forms — does not include a timer or hourly time-logging tool, and none of its three pricing tiers mentions hourly billing or timesheets.
The gap is that HoneyBook has nowhere to log time at all. Keito drafts a time entry from the work that happened, the freelancer or team member confirms it, and a reviewer approves billable status before the entry becomes evidence for an invoice. HoneyBook still owns the CRM, proposals, contracts, scheduling, and payment collection; Keito owns the record of the hours behind the bill.
Choose HoneyBook when the business needs a CRM, proposals, contracts, online scheduling, payment processing, and lead capture running from one platform. Keito does not reproduce any of that — no CRM, no proposals, no contracts, no scheduling. It is the wrong choice if the immediate need is a client-facing business platform rather than a reviewed record of billable hours.
Each reviewed record keeps the client, project, contributor, duration, description, billable status, rate context, reviewer, approval state, and billing period. That package backs the invoice line HoneyBook, or any other system, turns into a bill, and gives a freelancer or small business a reviewed answer when a client questions the hours behind a project.
No. Keito claims no native HoneyBook integration, automatic import, or two-way synchronisation — HoneyBook’s own CRM, scheduling, and payment tools belong to its platform, not Keito’s. Capture in Keito is its own workflow: AI-drafted, typed, timed, and manually entered records that pass review before becoming invoice evidence. A business can keep HoneyBook for client management and proposals and run Keito alongside it as the time-capture and review layer, with any transfer between them designed and tested by the team.
Solo includes 1 licensed user, unlimited AI agents, Mac desktop and iOS apps, Stripe payments, and standard CSV and Excel exports. Pro adds your team. Business adds integrations, planning, advanced reporting, and stronger controls.
1 licensed user
For independent consultants, freelancers, and small studios running work with AI agents.
Team collaboration
For teams that need shared workspaces, approvals, and team-level project visibility.
Advanced operations
For organizations that need integrations, planning, advanced reporting, and stronger controls.
AI agents do not require licenses on any plan.
Solo, Pro, and Business can use API keys for agent workflows.
Solo, Pro, and Business include standard CSV and Excel data export.
Start with Solo, add people on Pro when you need reviewers or collaborators, and see how Keito turns tracked effort into clearer reports.