Yes. HoneyBook runs its payment processing on Stripe. Stripe’s own customer case study, “HoneyBook Processes $8.4 Billion in Payments”, says exactly that. But using HoneyBook is not the same as using Stripe: you pay HoneyBook’s rates, on HoneyBook’s terms, inside HoneyBook’s platform.
Who actually processes a HoneyBook payment?
Under the hood, the money moves on Stripe infrastructure. Your relationship, though, is with HoneyBook: its pricing FAQ says plainly, “As a payment processor, HoneyBook charges a small fee.” That distinction matters: the rates you pay are HoneyBook’s published rates, and your payment history lives in HoneyBook rather than in a Stripe account you control.
What are HoneyBook’s payment fees?
HoneyBook’s pricing page lists card fees starting at 2.7% plus 10 cents per transaction and 1.5% for bank transfers. Its plan comparison table on the same page shows 2.9% plus 25 cents on cards, so the two figures published there differ; we quote both rather than pick one. The page also states that vendors transacting over $500,000 a year on the Premium plan may be eligible for discounted card fees.
How does that compare with Stripe’s standard rates?
Stripe’s published standard pricing is 2.9% plus 30 cents for domestic cards and 0.8% capped at $5 for ACH direct debit. Cards are close either way: both companies publish card rates in the same 2.7% to 2.9% range plus a small per transaction fee, so cards are not where the models diverge.
Where the difference shows up: bank transfer deposits
Service vendors collect large dated deposits, and clients paying a big number often prefer a bank transfer. That is where the two fee models are shaped differently. Stripe publishes a cap: 0.8% capped at $5, so through your own Stripe account any bank transfer above about $625 costs exactly five dollars to collect, and a $10,000 balance payment still costs five dollars.
HoneyBook publishes a 1.5% bank transfer rate. It does not publish a cap on that rate, and an unpublished cap is not the same as no cap, so we will not put a dollar figure in your head for a large transfer on their side. Ask them what a transfer of your typical deposit size actually costs, and compare that against the capped number above.
Whose Stripe account is it?
The quieter difference is ownership. Inside HoneyBook, the processing account is HoneyBook’s. BookNox is built the other way around: you connect your own Stripe account, clients pay into it directly, and deposits settle to your bank from your own Stripe balance. Your payment history, payouts, and dispute records live in your own Stripe account, and they stay yours if you ever leave. BookNox adds a 0% platform fee on top of a flat $29 a month, so the only processing cost is what Stripe itself charges you.
The full side by side is at BookNox vs HoneyBook, and how payments work explains where every dollar of a deposit lands. For the money path in detail, including who holds the funds at each step and what happens on a dispute or a refund, read where deposits actually land.
To see the processing math on your own numbers, the free Stripe fee calculator computes both directions: what lands after fees, and what to charge to net a target.
HoneyBook figures accurate as of August 12, 2026, from honeybook.com/pricing; Stripe figures from stripe.com/pricing. Both change without notice: confirm current rates with each company before relying on them.