Best of
Best agency management software, compared on facts
Agency management software runs a service business end to end: clients, projects, time, invoices and the portal the client logs into. The best agency management software depends on what you bill for. Hourly shops need time and budgets; retainer and productised agencies need portals and recurring invoices. This list says which tools do which, with no prices.
Side by side.
Facts a reader can check on each vendor’s own site. No prices.
- Free plan:
- Seats from one:
- Minimum three
- Client portal:
- Invoicing built in:
- Project tasks:
- Free plan:
- Seats from one:
- Minimum three
- Client portal:
- Invoicing built in:
- Project tasks:
- Free plan:
- Seats from one:
- Quoted
- Client portal:
- Client access
- Invoicing built in:
- Project tasks:
- Free plan:
- Seats from one:
- Minimum five
- Client portal:
- Invoicing built in:
- Project tasks:
- Free plan:
- Seats from one:
- Client portal:
- Invoicing built in:
- Project tasks:
- Free plan:
- Seats from one:
- Client portal:
- Invoicing built in:
- Project tasks:
- Free plan:
- Seats from one:
- Except Elite
- Client portal:
- Invoicing built in:
- Project tasks:
- Free plan:
- Seats from one:
- Client portal:
- Invoicing built in:
- Project tasks:
- Free plan:
- Seats from one:
- Client portal:
- Invoicing built in:
- Project tasks:
- Free plan:
- Up to three people
- Seats from one:
- Free up to 3; minimum three on paid
- Client portal:
- Invoices, quotes, contracts, requests
- Invoicing built in:
- Project tasks:
- Free plan:
- Seats from one:
- Client portal:
- Invoicing built in:
- Project tasks:
- Free plan:
- Seats from one:
- Client portal:
- Invoicing built in:
- Project tasks:
- Free plan:
- Seats from one:
- Client portal:
- Invoicing built in:
- Project tasks:
- Free plan:
- Seats from one:
- Client portal:
- Invoicing built in:
- Project tasks:
- Free plan:
- Seats from one:
- Client portal:
- Build your own
- Invoicing built in:
- Build your own
- Project tasks:
- Build your own
| Free plan | Seats from one | Client portal | Invoicing built in | Project tasks | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Accelo | Minimum three | ||||
| Productive | Minimum three | ||||
| Kantata | Quoted | Client access | |||
| Workamajig | Minimum five | ||||
| Avaza | |||||
| Flowlu | |||||
| Bonsai | Except Elite | ||||
| Plutio | |||||
| SuiteDash | |||||
| Spodus | Up to three people | Free up to 3; minimum three on paid | Invoices, quotes, contracts, requests | ||
| Harvest | |||||
| Service Provider Pro (SPP) | |||||
| Moxo | |||||
| Clinked | |||||
| Noloco | Build your own | Build your own | Build your own |
Checked on , against each vendor’s public plan pages.
Each one, plainly.
What it is, who it suits, and where it stops.
- 01
Accelo
A PSA for agencies that bill tracked time.
Accelo is a PSA, professional services automation, for agencies and consultancies that bill tracked time: sales, projects, retainers, tickets and invoices from logged hours. Every plan has a seat minimum; the lowest is three seats, and it rises by tier. Accelo alternatives for a smaller shop are Avaza and Flowlu; for a bigger one, Productive or Kantata.
Best for: A services firm of ten or more that bills by the hour and wants retainers automated.
- 02
Productive
Agency management by the numbers.
Productive is agency management by the numbers: budgets, rate cards, resource planning, time, invoicing and profitability per project, with a client portal that does not use a paid seat. New accounts need three paid seats. The closest productive.io alternatives are Accelo, Kantata and Scoro, which report on the same numbers.
Best for: An agency that wants to know which clients make money.
- 03
Kantata
A PSA for larger agencies, formerly Mavenlink.
Kantata, formerly Mavenlink and Kimble, is a PSA for larger agencies and consultancies: resource planning, project accounting, forecasting and invoicing, sold by quote with an implementation. It is built for firms with dozens of billable people. Kantata alternatives at a smaller scale are Productive and Accelo.
Best for: A consultancy or agency with fifty or more billable people.
- 04
Workamajig
Agency management for creative and marketing agencies.
Workamajig is agency management for creative and marketing agencies: traffic, timesheets, budgets, billing and a client portal in one system, with a five-user minimum. It has been on the market a long time and the interface shows its age, but it does the whole job. Workamajig alternatives are Productive, Accelo and, for smaller studios, Avaza.
Best for: A creative agency that wants traffic, time and billing in one system.
- 05
Avaza
A small-agency suite with a free plan.
Avaza is a small-agency suite: projects, time, expenses, resource scheduling, estimates and invoices, with a customer portal where clients see estimates and invoices. The free plan is real but tightly capped. Avaza alternatives are Flowlu, Plutio and Bonsai.
Best for: A small agency that wants projects and invoices in one tool without a sales pitch.
- 06
Flowlu
CRM, projects, invoices and a portal for small teams.
Flowlu is an all-in-one for small teams: CRM, projects, tasks, invoices, a knowledge base and a client portal, with a free plan for two users. It is broad rather than deep in any one module. Flowlu alternatives with a similar shape are Avaza, SuiteDash and Spodus.
Best for: A small team that wants one login for the CRM, the projects and the invoices.
- 07
Bonsai
A freelancer and small-studio suite.
Bonsai is a freelancer and small-studio suite: proposals, contracts, time tracking, invoices, a client portal and light bookkeeping. It stops short of agency finance, so there is no utilisation or profitability reporting. Bonsai alternatives for a growing team are Plutio and Avaza; for a solo consultant, HoneyBook.
Best for: A solo consultant or a studio of two or three.
- 08
Plutio
An all-in-one sold as team plans, not by seat.
Plutio is an all-in-one for freelancers and small agencies: projects, tasks, time, proposals, contracts, invoices and a client portal, sold as team plans rather than per seat. The Core plan is for solo work; contributors arrive on Pro. Plutio alternatives are Bonsai, SuiteDash and Flowlu.
Best for: A small agency that would rather pay for clients than for seats.
- 09
SuiteDash
A client-portal-first suite with unlimited staff.
SuiteDash is a client-portal-first suite for small businesses: CRM, portal, projects, invoicing, scheduling and file sharing, with unlimited staff on every plan. It is deep on portal branding and configuration, which takes time to set up. SuiteDash alternatives are Plutio, Flowlu and Moxo.
Best for: A small business that wants a branded portal and will spend a weekend configuring it.
- 10
Spodus
CRM, invoicing, time, support and a portal on one record.
Spodus is a client-operations workspace for service businesses: a CRM with pipelines, boards and tasks, quotes, invoices and retainer contracts, support tickets with SLAs, HR basics and a client portal where clients see their invoices, quotes, contracts, projects and requests, all on one customer record. Retainer hours, project budgets, utilisation and profit per client sit on the same records. It is free for up to three people, and paid plans start at three seats.
Best for: A service business that sells, delivers, bills and supports the same clients.
- 11
Harvest
Time tracking with invoicing on top.
Harvest is time tracking with invoicing on top, and many small agencies run on it beside a separate project tool. Hours become invoices, budgets warn before they run out, and retainers draw down. There is no client portal and no task management. Harvest alternatives are Avaza for a suite and Toggl Track for time alone.
Best for: An agency that bills by the hour and already has a project tool it likes.
- 12
Service Provider Pro (SPP)
Order management for productised agencies.
Service Provider Pro, usually SPP, is order management for productised agencies: a client portal where clients buy packages, pay, submit briefs and follow their orders, with tasks and invoices behind it. It is built for productised services, not hourly work. Service Provider Pro alternatives are Agency Handy, Moxo and SuiteDash.
Best for: An agency that sells fixed packages through a storefront.
- 13
Moxo
A client portal for firms that serve clients through steps.
Moxo is a client portal for firms that onboard and serve clients through steps: accounting, legal, financial and consulting practices. Workflows, document requests and approvals happen in a branded portal, and the Team plan is priced as a plan rather than per seat, with larger plans quoted. It has no billing engine, so invoices come from elsewhere. Moxo alternatives are Clinked, SuiteDash and, with invoicing, Spodus.
Best for: A professional practice that runs client onboarding as a checklist.
- 14
Clinked
A client portal and file-sharing tool.
Clinked is a client portal and file-sharing tool: branded workspaces, documents, discussions and tasks, sold as plans that include a block of members rather than per seat. It does no invoicing and no project finance. Clinked alternatives are Moxo, SuiteDash and, for a portal with tickets and invoices, Spodus.
Best for: A firm that mainly needs to share documents with clients securely.
- 15
Noloco
A no-code builder for portals and internal tools.
Noloco is a no-code app builder for internal tools and client portals on top of Airtable, Google Sheets, SmartSuite or its own tables. You build the agency system yourself, so what it does depends on what you build. There is a free plan. Noloco alternatives are Softr and Glide for the same job, or any tool above if you would rather not build.
Best for: An agency with its data already in Airtable and someone willing to build.
How we chose.
We started with the agency tools people search alternatives for by name, added the ones a small agency is most often offered, and read each vendor's public plan pages on the date above. The columns are what an agency asks first: free plan, seat minimum, client portal, invoicing and project tasks. Budgets, utilisation and profitability are the line between a PSA and a suite, and each entry says which side of it the product is on.
More best-of lists.
The same table, dated the same way, for the other categories a service business buys.
- Best ofBest CRM software: a list of CRM systems, compared on facts
- Best ofBest CRM for small business, compared on facts
- Best ofBest HR management software for small and mid-sized teams
- Best ofBest helpdesk system for small support teams
- Best ofBest invoice software for small business, compared on facts
- Best ofBest project management software, compared on facts
- Head to headSpodus against one tool at a time
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Questions, answered
A PSA, professional services automation, is agency management software that starts from time: hours become budgets, utilisation, invoices and profit per project. Accelo, Productive, Kantata and Workamajig are PSAs. A suite such as Avaza or Flowlu covers clients, projects, invoices and a portal but does not report on the economics of the hours. Spodus sits between the two: it bills hours and reports utilisation and profit per project, and on its Growth plan it books people onto projects week by week against their capacity. If planning capacity across fifty or more billable people is the main job, a PSA goes deeper.
Software for pricing a piece of work before you win it: line items, rates, a total and the terms, sent to the client to accept. The useful kind keeps the estimate after the yes, so you can compare it with the hours logged. Most tools on this list do estimates. In Spodus, an accepted quote can open the project with the quote as its budget, set up deposit and milestone invoices, and start the retainer contract.
Production work is priced per job, so look for estimates that turn into the job's budget, time and costs logged against it, and invoices that follow the job's milestones. Workamajig and Productive are built around that. Spodus does it at a smaller scale: a quote becomes the project and its milestone invoices, and costs are logged against the project. Spodus has no media buying or ad trafficking, so a media agency keeps its buying tools beside it.
A page where an agency's clients sign in to see what is theirs: invoices, quotes to approve, contracts to sign, project progress and their requests. Most tools on this list have one, but they differ in what it shows. Some only share files; some only take orders. Check that it shows the documents your clients ask about most, and that clients do not count as paid seats.
Agency Handy is a client portal and order tool for productised agencies. The closest Agency Handy alternatives are SPP, which does the same order flow with more years behind it, and SuiteDash, which adds a CRM and projects. If your clients need support tickets and invoices on one record more than an order form, Spodus does that without the storefront.
OneSuite is a small all-in-one for agencies: leads, clients, projects and invoices. OneSuite alternatives with the same shape are Flowlu, Plutio and Avaza, all of which have been around longer and connect to more tools. For an agency that also runs a support desk, Spodus covers CRM, invoicing, tickets and a portal in one workspace.
Taskip is a client-management and project tool for small agencies, with a portal, tasks and invoices. Taskip alternatives are Plutio and SuiteDash for a similar suite, Bonsai if you are a freelancer, and Spodus if the client record needs to carry support tickets and quotes as well as invoices and tasks.
SPP alternatives depend on what you sell. For productised packages with a storefront, Agency Handy is the closest. For hourly or retainer work, SPP is the wrong shape, and Avaza, Accelo or Productive fit better. For a services firm that wants a client portal beside a CRM, invoices and support tickets, Spodus is an alternative without the shop front.
We have not reviewed Workspace369, so we cannot compare it feature by feature. The Workspace369 alternatives on this page are the small-agency suites: Flowlu, Plutio, SuiteDash and Avaza for projects, invoices and a portal, or Spodus if you want CRM, invoicing, support and HR basics on one customer record. Check the table above for the free-plan and seat-minimum facts.