LaunchBay (formerly Motion.io) is one of the few client-onboarding tools that got the most important thing right: your client should never have to create an account. Like OnboardHive, it sends clients a secure magic link that opens straight into a branded portal. If you are comparing the two, you are already asking the right question, so this comparison will be blunt about where each one wins.
Disclosure up front: OnboardHive is our product. LaunchBay is a good tool and we will say plainly who should pick it.
The short version
OnboardHive starts earlier in the client relationship. Your magic link opens as a tracked proposal, you see opens, active read-time per version, and get an instant alert when a client re-opens after going quiet, and when they say yes the same link becomes the onboarding portal: e-sign, deposit, intake, uploads. LaunchBay starts at the portal: onboarding tasks, forms, contracts, invoicing, and deliverable proofing, with deeper ongoing-delivery machinery than we have.
The other structural difference is pricing. LaunchBay is priced per team member; OnboardHive is a flat account price.
At a Glance
| OnboardHive | LaunchBay | |
|---|---|---|
| Client login required | No, one magic link | No, magic link |
| Proposal read-time + re-open alerts | Yes, core feature | Not its focus |
| Onboarding portal (sign, pay, intake, uploads) | Yes | Yes |
| Ongoing delivery ops (time tracking, proofing, recurring tasks) | No | Yes, on higher tiers |
| Automations / Zapier | Not yet (webhooks planned) | Standard tier and up |
| Pricing model | Flat: $0–$49/mo per account | Per member: ~$19–$79/member/mo |
| Free tier | Yes, no card | 14-day trial |
Pricing researched July 2026; confirm current numbers on each vendor's site.
Where OnboardHive wins
The proposal moment. Most deals are won or lost before onboarding starts. OnboardHive tracks whether the proposal was opened, how long it was actually read, and pings you the moment a client comes back to it after going quiet, which is the single best follow-up signal there is. LaunchBay's intake and task tooling begins after the yes.
One link across the whole close. The proposal and the onboarding are the same URL. Your client never switches contexts, and you never send a second link. In LaunchBay, onboarding lives in the portal; the proposal step is yours to handle elsewhere.
Flat pricing. A three-person agency on LaunchBay Standard is roughly $150/mo billed annually. The same agency on OnboardHive Scale is $49/mo flat, and Pro is $19/mo. See pricing.
Where LaunchBay wins
Ongoing delivery operations. Time tracking, recurring tasks, deliverable proofing, meeting notes, and reporting make LaunchBay a real home for the work after onboarding. OnboardHive deliberately stops at the handoff into delivery.
Automations today. LaunchBay's Standard tier has automations and Zapier now. OnboardHive's webhooks are on the roadmap but not shipped.
Team structure. If you want per-member permissions and a larger team working inside the tool daily, LaunchBay's per-seat model maps to that reality.
How to choose
Pick LaunchBay if you want one system to run client delivery end to end and you are happy paying per seat for it.
Pick OnboardHive if the moment you care about is the close, sending a proposal, knowing exactly when to follow up, and turning yes into a finished onboarding the same hour, at a flat price a small agency can ignore on the P&L. Start free.
For the wider field, see best client onboarding software for agencies.