Outgrew your client tools?
Keep the money you earn.
DealNest Workspace runs the whole engagement — intake to deal to approval to invoice to payment — with a 0% platform fee on every client payment.
Free plan · No credit card · No platform fee on payments
Sound familiar?
What are you running client work in today?
Client-management suites
HoneyBook, Dubsado, and friends
- Per-payment fee stacking on top of the subscription — up to 3.4% on the payment plans you run most.
- Core features like automations and scheduling locked out of entry plans.
- Setup measured in weekends, not minutes.
Project tools
Trello, Asana, Notion boards
- Great at tasks — but no client portal, no approvals, no invoicing, no money.
- Your client's sign-off still lives in a 40-message email thread.
- When something goes wrong, there's no audit trail to reconstruct it.
Spreadsheets + email
The tracker-of-trackers workflow
- No ownership, no status, no due dates — just cells.
- The brief, the quote, the contract, and the approval live in four different inboxes.
- Every Friday you write the same status email seven times.
The fee difference
Some tools charge you to get paid.
The leading client-management suite charges 2.9% + $0.25 on card payments, 3.4% + $0.09 when your client is on a payment plan, and 1.5% with no cap on bank transfers — on top of the subscription. On high-ticket deals that compounds on every milestone payment.
DealNest charges a 0% platform fee on invoice payments. Stripe processes the money at its own rate, and the rest is yours.
Competitor rates per their published pricing and fee documentation, June 2026. Always verify current rates with each vendor.
- HoneyBook — card payment(2.9% + $0.25)–$145.25
- HoneyBook — payment plan / card on file(3.4% + $0.09)–$170.09
- HoneyBook — ACH bank transfer(1.5%, no cap)–$75.00
- DealNest — any payment method(0% platform fee)$0 platform fee
On a $5,000.00 payment plan, that's up to $170.09 kept by your software — per payment. DealNest takes $0.
Side by side
The honest comparison
Not a feature-count contest — the question is whether the tool runs the whole engagement, and what it costs you when money moves.
| What matters | DealNest Workspace | Typical alternatives |
|---|---|---|
| Platform fee on client payments | 0% — Stripe processing at cost | Up to 3.4% + fixed fees stacked on your subscription |
| ACH / bank transfer fee | 0% platform fee | Up to 1.5% with no cap — $75 on a $5,000 payment |
| Automations | Every plan, including Free | Often excluded from entry plans entirely |
| Client & vendor portals | Scoped portal links — no accounts needed | Client-only, or not at all |
| Approvals with e-signature | Typed-name e-sign, IP + timestamp recorded | Separate e-sign subscription |
| Proposal → deal → deposit invoice | One accept click runs the whole chain | Manual re-entry between tools |
| Automatic audit trail | Every decision logged, printable, exportable | Reconstruct it from email when something goes wrong |
| Time → profitability per deal | Built in — cost vs invoiced vs collected | Spreadsheet math |
| Drag-and-drop pipeline board | Included | Included (it's the whole product) or an add-on |
| Vendor directory + job board | Built in — find help, award work, bring them into the deal | Not a thing |
| Entry price | $0 free plan · Pro $29/mo | $35–36/mo entry tiers are common |
Switching is an afternoon, not a project
Industry presets seed your pipeline and templates at signup. A demo deal shows you the whole product before you have data. Your first real client can be in their portal before your coffee goes cold.
Pick your industry
Pipeline stages and a starter template, seeded instantly.
Create a deal
Or one click for a demo deal with tasks, an approval, and a draft invoice.
Invite your client
A portal link — no account for them, full audit trail for you.
Fair questions
We're already set up somewhere else. How painful is switching?
Minutes, not weekends. Pick an industry preset at signup and your pipeline stages, a starter task template, and a demo deal are seeded for you. Add your clients, create your first real deal, and invite a client to their portal — most teams send their first approval request the same afternoon. Some tools in this category are famous for 15–20 hour setups; we think that's a product bug, not a rite of passage.
What does the free plan actually include?
The full toolkit — deals, tasks, portals, approvals with e-sign, proposals, invoicing with online payment, time tracking, automations, the board, the calendar, and the API. Free is gated by volume (active deals, clients, storage, seats), not by features. You upgrade when your pipeline outgrows it, not to unlock the product.
How do you make money if you don't take a cut of payments?
Subscriptions — $29 Pro and $79 Business, flat per workspace. We deliberately don't stack platform fees on your client payments: when your client pays a $5,000 invoice, the only processing cost is Stripe's own rate. Your revenue is yours.
What makes DealNest different from a project tool with a client field?
The deal is the unit of work, and money is native. A deal carries its tasks, files, document checklist, approvals, messages, time, invoices, portal participants, and a tamper-evident audit trail — and payments settle on a double-entry ledger with bank withdrawal built in. Project tools track work; DealNest runs the engagement end to end.
Can my clients and vendors use it without creating accounts?
Yes — that's the point. Clients and vendors get scoped portal links: they see exactly the slice you share (status, files, approvals, invoices for clients; assigned tasks for vendors) and nothing else. No signup, no software to learn, no over-sharing your operation.
Is my data locked in?
No. Time entries export to CSV, audit trails export to CSV and print to PDF, invoices print to PDF, and the read/write API plus signed webhooks are available on every plan.
Pick the platform that doesn't take a cut.
Free to start, $29 when your pipeline outgrows it, and 0% platform fee on every payment forever. The deal — and the money — stays yours.