Dubsado Review: Why I Chose it for My Branding and Website Design Business
Find out the pros and cons, and if it will work for your online business
Dubsado* is a popular business management software if you’re an entrepreneur who needs the following functionality:
Customer Relationship Management (CRM) software
Proposals
Contracts
Invoicing + Payments
Scheduling
Integrated Project Management
Client Portal
As someone who’s been using Dubsado consistently for several years to power and grow my branding and website design business, I’ll lay out:
Who should and should not use Dubsado
What types of businesses would benefit from using the software
Pros and cons
*Full disclosure: This post contains affiliate links, and I may receive a small commission. Rest assured I only suggest software that I use, have used or can recommend!
Who Dubsado is for and not for
Dubsado is appropriate and helpful for business owners who need proposals and contracts (e-signing), and who also have a bit of tech savvy, or patience to learn a robust software.
If you only need invoicing, you could use a payment processor such as Stripe, or an accounting software such as Quickbooks.
If you only need contracts and e-signing, you could just use DocuSign, Hello Sign or Adobe Sign.
If you only need scheduling and payments, I’d recommend Acuity Scheduling* because it’s simpler and centered around scheduling
If you’re not tech-savvy or want a simple software to manage your contacts with e-signing, proposals and invoicing, I’d recommend Bonsai*
If you need proposals and contracts/e-signing in your business, and you want a robust software that can automate processes, impress your clients, has a secure client portal, and has a scheduler, keep reading!
Types of businesses that would benefit from using Dubsado
Service-based businesses such as: graphic designers, website designers, copywriters, photographers, lawyers, accountants, illustrators, artists who commission paintings, consultants, book doctors, social media managers, virtual assistants, life coaches and business coaches, to name a few.
In my experience, Dubsado is best for those who need to be able to customize their proposals, versus simple e-commerce, where one lists a product or service on one’s website that can be bought immediately.
You CAN do that with Dubsado, but where I think it really excels is the fact that you can present proposals with different packages that you can amend if need be.
Also, if you are selling a premium service with many details, you may not want to put all of that on you website, as it might overwhelm the buyer. I use Dubsado to send proposals to my clients after they’ve described what they need during a discovery call.
If you are a service-based professional, such as a massage therapist, herbalist, intimacy coach, etc whose business is centered around one-off appointments and appointment packages that do not shift constantly, and who just needs online booking and payments primarily, I would recommend going with something simpler such as Acuity Scheduling*.
Having said that, if you’re a coach who has high-ticket packages that you’d present as a proposal and have someone sign a contract, then Dubsado would be a better choice.
Again, Dubsado is for business owners who need proposals andcontracts/e-signing, and want a robust software that is flexible and can streamline processes.
Dubsado Pros + Cons
Pros to Dubsado
When I first started my website design business, I used Bonsai* for proposals, invoicing and contracts. I loved its simplicity, and I still recommend it to my clients who need that functionality. However it became too simple for what I needed in my website design and digital marketing coaching business.
Dubsado has the following capabilities that Bonsai didn’t have:
Status tracking. Ability to track clients according to where they are in the process, and to customize your tracking—are they cold leads, warm leads, have they had a consultation, do they owe you a testimonial? You can track the client’s “status” in your sales and project pipeline. This is the CRM portion of Dubsado.
Dynamic, flexible proposals. Ability to create packages that you can pick and choose, and populate instantaneously into your proposals. Essentially it has dynamic templates that are flexible, including the design.
Facilitates high-ticket sales. If a client chooses a package within a proposal, it can AUTOMATICALLY POPULATE within the contract, which they are taken to immediately. It can also automatically populate an invoice. This is the main reason I chose Dubsado—a big sale can happen in one-fell-swoop.
Secure portal. I can create questionnaires and forms in a secure portal within a client project, which allows me to keep a lot of sensitive information in one place: the contract, invoices, passwords and logins, and questionnaires.
Canned emails. I can write those emails that I would have to write over and over again ONCE, and save them as templates. With a click of a button, I can pull up that email that I send to all my clients (such as a welcome email with next steps) so I don’t have to write the same thing a million times.
Lead capture forms and workflows. I can embed a form on my website collecting whatever information I need to get the process started. When someone fills out a form on my website design page, I can have Dubsado create a Website Design Project with the lead’s name on it, set a status for it (lead), and send it into a workflow—I have it set where I ask the minimum information upfront to make sure I secure the lead, and send an email with a questionnaire to get more information about the project when the customer has more time to fill out a form. This ensures that I both capture the lead AND I have enough information about the project prior to the consultation.
Cons to Dubsado
So robust, it can be hard to get the hang of. It took me a while to get the hang of it, and I’m fairly good with technology. You need to be willing to invest time to get set up, learn the software, and commit yourself to mastering it. Otherwise you could make mistakes—a few times I did send a client a proposal that didn’t have a contract attached; for a month I didn’t realize that if you ask a client for a start date and end date for the project, and it’s mapped to the project, that it will block you off as busy on your calendar. So I was blocked off on projects and didn’t know it for about a month, which meant people could not schedule a call with me. You simply need to be committed to learning the software in and out. I would not recommend it for those who don’t like technology, aren’t super organized and on top of things, or don’t have a need for a robust CRM solution. Even as someone that’s used it for over a year, it can at times be a challenge to use.
Somewhat slow to load. The software takes a second to load whenever I move from page to page—not a huge deal but sometimes I get impatient!
Some limits to branding. Can’t brand your contracts or scheduler. This isn’t a huge deal, but as a website designer I would like to be able to have my booking software that’s embedded on my site match my brand.
Conclusion
There are other competitors, such as 17 Hats and Honeybook, but I’m sticking with Dubsado* because it has a ton of functionality and flexibility, and the pros outweigh the cons.
If you are a relatively tech-savvy entrepreneur, or you’re patient and dedicated enough, and you need proposals, contracts, invoicing, scheduling and a client portal, I think Dubsado will work very well for you.
