Comparison
BeadInvoice vs HoneyBook
HoneyBook is built for creative service businesses that run projects with clients, while BeadInvoice is built for the specific arithmetic of a ring quoted from grams, stones and hours.
Comparison
BeadInvoice vs Square: quoting custom work against taking payment
Square is a payments and point of sale platform for any small business, while BeadInvoice exists to work out what a custom piece should cost before anyone pays for it.
The short answer
Square is a payments and point of sale platform, and for selling finished pieces at a show or over a counter it is hard to beat. Its invoice takes whatever total you hand it. That is the whole difference. A commission total is not known at the start, and getting it wrong by a gram of gold or two bench hours is how a designer works a month for nothing. BeadInvoice produces the number, then collects a deposit against a build stage. If your revenue is mostly finished stock, stay with the counter. If it is mostly custom, quote first.
BeadInvoice and Square side by side
| What you are deciding | BeadInvoice | Square |
|---|---|---|
| What the tool is for | Quoting and running a custom commission from consultation through final polish. | Taking payment for anything, at a counter, by link or in a simple shop. |
| Where the price comes from | Calculated from grams, alloy cost, casting loss, stone cost and bench hours. | Entered by you once the number has been worked out somewhere else. |
| Gold that moved this week | The metal line is repriced at the current cost per gram and the quote states how long it holds. | The invoice shows the figure you typed, so the spot swing stays your own to track. |
| Deposits | Deposit tied to the stage, so metal and stone are not ordered before it clears. | Deposit and installment options on an invoice, timed by the operator. |
| Client owned stones | Custody record with weight, condition notes and photos attached to the job. | Outside the scope of a payments tool, so custody lives in your own notes. |
| Stage approvals | CAD, wax, setting and finish approvals recorded against the commission. | No build stages, since the workflow is complete once payment is taken. |
| Selling finished pieces | Not a storefront and not a register. | Strong at counter sales, card readers, shows and a straightforward online shop. |
| Who it suits | A designer whose money is made at the bench on commissions and remounts. | A maker whose sales are mostly finished inventory at markets and in a shop. |
The right hand side describes where Square sits as a category and whose workflow it assumes. Products change, so check the current details with them before you decide. BeadInvoice is published by MLJ, SASU and this page is written by Jimenez Julien.
Choose BeadInvoice when
- When a client asks what a three stone remount in 18k will run and you need a defensible answer in the room, the math has to be in front of you.
- When your commissions run six to twelve weeks, the gold price at quoting and the gold price at casting are two different numbers.
- When you are holding a customer diamond, the intake photos and weights need to sit on the job record, not in a phone camera roll.
- When a commission goes sideways at the setting stage, written approvals from CAD and wax are the only thing that decides it calmly.
Choose Square when
- If most of what you sell is finished inventory at craft shows and pop ups, a register and a card reader matter more than a quoting tool.
- If you take payment in person all day and simply need it to land and reconcile, a payments platform is the right center of your setup.
- If your custom work is a handful of pieces a year, a spreadsheet plus a payment link is honestly enough and costs you nothing extra.
An invoice is the end of the job, not the start
By the time you raise an invoice, every decision that determined your margin has already been made. You chose the alloy, you accepted the casting loss, you agreed to a finish that added four hours, and you quoted a stone at a price your supplier has since moved. A payments tool cannot help with any of that, because it only sees the total.
BeadInvoice sits earlier in the sequence. It asks what the finished piece will weigh, what your metal costs landed, what the stones cost you, and how many hours the bench work takes. The invoice falls out of that. If the number is wrong, you can see which line is wrong, which is the only way a shop rate ever gets corrected.
Two businesses in one studio
Most independent designers run two businesses under one roof. There is the finished work, sold at shows, in a case or online, where a register and inventory count for a lot. And there is the commission work, where nothing is in stock, every piece is priced from scratch and the client is part of the build.
Trying to force both into one system usually means one of them is served badly. Keeping the counter where the counter works and the commissions where the trade math lives is not duplication. It is the difference between knowing your margin on a custom remount and guessing at it.
Deposits, cancellations and who is out of pocket
A deposit on a general invoice is a percentage against a date. A deposit on a commission is protection against a very specific risk: you buy a center stone and a half ounce of casting grain for a ring sized to one particular finger, and if that client walks away, the piece is worth scrap and resale value.
Tying the deposit to the stage keeps the exposure honest. The client funds the materials before they are bought, the schedule starts when the money clears, and the cancellation terms on the document say plainly what happens to the deposit once metal has been cut. None of that requires a different payment processor. It requires the deposit to be attached to the build.
Questions people ask before they choose
Can I still take card payments the way I do now?
Yes. Choosing a quoting tool does not mean abandoning your register or your card reader for finished pieces at shows. The commission side gets its own quote, deposit and approvals, and your counter sales carry on as they are.
Do I need BeadInvoice if I only do a few commissions a year?
Probably not. At three or four custom pieces a year a careful spreadsheet and a payment link will hold up fine. The tool starts paying for itself when commissions are frequent enough that mispriced metal or forgotten hours become a pattern.
What happens if the gold price jumps after I send a quote?
The quote carries a hold date you set, usually a short window that reflects how fast your refiner reprices. Past that date the metal line is recalculated at current cost. Clients accept this readily when it is stated up front rather than raised later.
Other comparisons on beadinvoice.com
Comparison
BeadInvoice vs The Edge
The Edge is a full jewelry store management system for retailers with inventory, staff and a repair counter, while BeadInvoice covers only the commission side of an independent bench.
Try both on the ring you are quoting this week
Head to head lists are useful until the piece in front of you has a client heirloom stone and a wedding date attached. Book a short walkthrough with that live commission and watch the metal, stone and bench hour lines get built one at a time. Twenty minutes is usually enough to know which side of this page your studio sits on.