A lighter 17hats alternative for wedding photographers
17hats wants to run your entire solo business — quotes, contracts, invoices, payments, scheduling, the lot. That's genuinely useful if you'll live in it. But if the part you actually care about is the wedding quote closing and the deposit landing, you may be buying a whole workshop to hang one picture.
Here's the wedge in one breath: quolby is a single branded link where the couple accepts, e-signs and pays the deposit — straight into your own Stripe, at a 0% platform fee. Because quolby is never in the money flow, there is no platform layer sitting between you and what you're paid — and quolby takes 0% of it. That's the whole product: the booking moment, not another CRM to run.
This is an honest comparison, not a takedown. 17hats is a capable, long-running tool with a real audience, and for some photographers it's exactly right. The goal here is to help you tell whether you need a full business-management suite — or whether the one booking moment is what you're really trying to fix. We'll only make claims that are publicly checkable, and where price is concerned we'll point you to the source rather than quote a number that may already be out of date.
What 17hats actually is
17hats is an all-in-one business-management platform aimed at solo entrepreneurs and small service businesses — not photographers specifically. Its scope is deliberately broad: capturing leads, sending quotes and proposals, contracts with e-signatures, invoicing and online payments, scheduling, a client portal, email templates, workflows and automations, and light bookkeeping. The pitch is "run your whole business from one place," and if you're a one-person operation juggling admin across a dozen tabs, consolidating into a single system is a legitimately appealing idea.
The trade-off is the same one every all-in-one carries. Breadth costs setup and upkeep. You import your data, build templates, wire up workflows, and then keep the whole thing populated as your business runs. For a photographer shooting a healthy volume across the year, that structure can pay for itself. For a solo or part-time wedding shooter whose real bottleneck is turning enquiries into booked, paid dates, a lot of that machinery sits unused — while the one step that moves money still feels clunky.
What quolby is — and isn't
quolby is the opposite bet. Instead of covering everything a business does, it does one thing and tries to do it brilliantly: the moment a couple decides. You build your catalogue of packages and add-ons once, then send a single branded link. The couple opens it on their phone, picks what they want, watches the total and the deposit update live, accepts, e-signs a real booking contract on the spot, and pays the deposit — straight into your own Stripe account.
That's the whole product. quolby is not a CRM, not an invoicing suite, not a scheduler, and not a bookkeeping tool. It won't manage your delivery pipeline or track every project stage. If you need those things in one place, 17hats (or a photography CRM) will serve you better, and you should keep it. quolby's argument is simply that the quote-and-deposit moment is where bookings are won or lost, and it deserves a tool built only for it.
17hats vs quolby, side by side
| 17hats (business suite) | quolby | |
|---|---|---|
| Scope | Whole solo business — leads, contracts, invoices, scheduling, bookkeeping | One step: the interactive quote + deposit |
| Built for | Solo service businesses in general | Wedding photographers specifically |
| Setup | Import, configure templates and workflows | ~10 minutes — build packages, send a link |
| The couple sees | A proposal / invoice you send | An interactive quote they build themselves |
| Contract | Yes — e-signed documents | Yes — e-signed at the moment of accepting |
| Deposit | Yes, via its payment features | Yes — paid on the spot, straight to your Stripe |
| Who holds your deposit | Paid through its own payment processing / integrations — check their terms | No one but you — a direct charge into your own Stripe; quolby never holds it |
| Platform fee on deposit | Check their current terms | 0% — quolby takes no cut of the deposit |
| Price | Paid subscription — check their current site | Free to start · €15/mo Pro |
We don't print 17hats' exact price or plan names here on purpose: SaaS pricing changes, and a stale figure would be worse than no figure. Check 17hats.com for their current plans before you decide.
Where quolby's narrow wedge fits
The clearest way to choose is to be honest about your real bottleneck. Two photographers with identical skill can have completely different problems.
- Your admin is the mess. You lose track of which client is at which stage, invoices slip, and you genuinely want one dashboard for the whole business. A suite like 17hats is a reasonable fit — adopt it fully and it earns its keep.
- Your booking moment is the mess. Enquiries come in warm, you send a PDF or a long email, and too many go quiet. The quote is a chore to say yes to, and the deposit is a separate awkward step. This is quolby's exact wedge — collapse "yes," the contract and the deposit into a single tap.
Plenty of photographers sit in both camps, which is why quolby is happy to live alongside whatever admin tool you already use. Keep your suite for the back office; hand the front-door moment to something built only for it. Because the deposit pays into your own Stripe, nothing about your existing invoicing or bookkeeping has to change.
See the booking moment in 60 seconds
Build a sample quote exactly like your couple would — no signup, nothing to install.
Try the free quote makerThe honest case for staying with 17hats
Fairness cuts both ways, so here's when you should not switch. If you already run your whole business through 17hats and it's working — your templates are built, your workflows fire, your invoicing and bookkeeping live there — ripping the quote step out to bolt on a second tool may add friction you don't need. An all-in-one's whole value is that everything is in one place; breaking that on purpose only makes sense if the booking moment is genuinely costing you weddings. If it isn't, the smart move is to keep what you have.
quolby is for the other photographer: the one who never fully adopted the suite, quotes by PDF or WhatsApp today, and just wants the yes-to-paid moment to look professional and close faster — without running a whole back office to get there.
What you actually get with quolby
- A branded quote link your couple builds themselves — pick packages, watch the total settle, accept.
- A real booking contract e-signed at the moment they say yes, not chased for afterwards.
- The deposit paid in the same tap, directly into your own Stripe account — quolby takes 0% of it.
- A no-signup AI catalogue builder to draft your packages, and a public lead-intake page if you want enquiries to come to you.
- Free to build and send quotes; Pro (€15/mo) adds online deposit collection and removes the small credit line.
FAQ
Is quolby a 17hats alternative?
Yes, for one specific job. 17hats is a whole-business suite — leads, invoices, scheduling, bookkeeping and workflows. quolby covers only the booking moment: an interactive wedding quote the couple accepts, e-signs and pays the deposit on, all from one branded link. If your bottleneck is turning enquiries into paid, booked dates rather than running back-office admin, quolby is the narrower, sharper alternative built for exactly that step.
Does quolby charge a fee on deposits?
quolby takes a 0% platform fee on the deposit — we never take a cut, because the money never passes through us. The couple pays by card directly into your own Stripe account via a Stripe Connect direct charge. Stripe's own card processing fee (around 2.9%) still applies and is billed through your Stripe, exactly as it would be on any payment. quolby itself adds nothing on top.
Where does the couple's deposit go?
Straight into your own Stripe account. quolby uses a Stripe Connect direct charge, so the deposit is paid by the couple to you, not to quolby and not into any shared balance we control. You connect your Stripe once, and from then on every deposit lands in your account on your normal payout schedule. quolby is never a step in the money's path.
Can quolby freeze or hold my money?
No. quolby is never in the flow of funds — there is no quolby balance your money passes through, and your account answers to Stripe's normal rules alone. Because the deposit is a direct charge into your own Stripe, your money is governed by your relationship with Stripe, not by us. This is the core difference from tools that act as merchant of record and sit between you and your clients' payments.
How much does quolby cost?
Building and sending interactive quotes is free. Collecting the deposit online is a Pro feature at €15 a month, and even on Pro quolby charges a 0% platform fee on the deposit itself — only Stripe's standard card fee applies, billed through your own Stripe. There's a no-signup builder at /try if you want to try the flow first before creating an account.
Can I keep 17hats and still use quolby?
Yes. Plenty of photographers keep a general business tool for admin and hand only the quote-and-deposit moment to quolby, because that's where bookings are won or lost. Since the deposit lands in your own Stripe rather than in quolby, nothing about how you invoice, schedule or do your books in 17hats has to change. The two sit side by side without conflict.
The short version
17hats is a whole-business suite for solo entrepreneurs; quolby is a single, sharp tool for the wedding booking moment. If your problem is running the business, a suite fits. If your problem is turning "how much?" into a booked, deposit-paid couple, buy the narrow thing built for exactly that — and, if you like, run it alongside whatever else you already use.
Build your free quote link with quolby
Set your packages once, send one interactive link, and let couples accept, e-sign and pay the deposit on the spot.
Build your free quote link →Comparing the other big suites too? See our HoneyBook, Dubsado and Studio Ninja comparisons, or learn how to collect a wedding photography deposit and how to structure your packages.