17hats Alternatives for Small Consulting Businesses
Compare 17hats with Dubsado or HoneyBook for the enquiry-to-payment workflow, and Bonsai for project and resource management. Include Nynch when your main gap is developing relationships before and after booked work. Avoid replacing useful administration merely to add another CRM.
By Peter O'DonoghuePublished Last updated
Published by Nynch. This guide uses linked vendor information and our evaluation criteria. It is not a hands-on benchmark, an independent review or a promise of better results. Prices and plan features were reviewed on 30 October 2026. Confirm them for your account before buying.
What 17hats currently offers
17hats publishes lead-capture forms, workflows, client portals, scheduling, pipelines and combined quote, contract and invoice documents. It also describes online payments through Stripe. These operational functions need a separate check in any replacement.
A shortlist organised around the work
These are candidates for different jobs, not a ranked result from hands-on testing. Keep the current product in the evaluation and use the same inputs wherever the products address the same task.
Option
Reason to evaluate
Dubsado
Configurable client workflows
HoneyBook
Booking and payment experience
Bonsai
Project and resource operations
When to stay with 17hats
Stay if its automated steps and client documents fit a repeatable service. The important question is whether the process still works when a client changes the date, scope or payment arrangement.
Compare the complete commitment
Check the current subscription and included workflow, scheduling and user capabilities. Include payment-processing costs and the work of rebuilding templates. Compare the complete small-business setup rather than a CRM seat in isolation.
Nynch Solo: $2,148 per year ($179/month equivalent), annual only, in USD. 1 user, 300 monitored people and 1,000 new prospects a year. Unlimited stored contacts is different from unlimited monitoring. Confirm account entitlements and monitoring frequency before purchase. Confirm the enabled account features. Nynch is not presented as a replacement for every function of the other products here.
A task to run before choosing
Create a fictional enquiry, send a quote through a test path, schedule a call and show the client portal. Then return to the same client six months later for a different service.
Reschedule the engagement and alter a line item before acceptance. Check which reminders, documents and project dates need manual updates and whether the client sees the latest version.
Record what was demonstrated and what was only promised.
Include the manual steps and the person responsible for them.
Use fictional or expressly permitted records during evaluation.
Protect the work before switching
Save quotes, contracts, invoices, questionnaires and portal documents before moving. Verify contact-to-project associations and workflow templates. Agree where historical financial records will remain accessible.
Keep an untouched export and access to the original until records, permissions and the daily workflow have been checked. This guide does not promise a native or complete migration to Nynch.
Use the same test for every CRM
Bring one former-client conversation, one meeting and one active opportunity. Record evidence, manual effort, plan limits and the total commitment before choosing.
Choose relationship follow-up, meeting preparation or an opportunity. Each starts at an existing chapter in the complete film and continues from there. These are demonstrations, not customer outcome evidence.
No. Your client documents, open projects, workflows and payment history may be equally important. Test those separately and retain the originals before changing systems.
When should I keep 17hats?
Stay if its automated steps and client documents fit a repeatable service. The important question is whether the process still works when a client changes the date, scope or payment arrangement.
What should I check before moving away from 17hats?
Save quotes, contracts, invoices, questionnaires and portal documents before moving. Verify contact-to-project associations and workflow templates. Agree where historical financial records will remain accessible.
Sources and review scope
Vendor sources establish advertised capabilities and commercial terms. They do not prove the performance of a workflow in your account. Demonstrations use example data unless explicitly labelled otherwise.