Best PSA software for agencies and professional services firms (2026)

All nine tools connect client projects, people’s time and the money around them. They differ in who they are built for, how you buy them and how much of sales and finance they cover.

• Large firms with resource and finance teams: Kantata, or Certinia if you run on Salesforce.
• Accounting, engineering and consulting firms on QuickBooks: BigTime.
• Retainer firms that need quotes, contracts and tickets: Accelo.
• Quoting, CRM and project finance in one suite: Scoro.
• Resource planning and a sales pipeline at a published price: Productive.
• A free or low-cost start: Teamwork.com.
• Customer onboarding and implementation teams: Rocketlane.
• Firms of up to 25 people that want projects, approved time, profitability and invoices at a flat workspace price: PLYNTUM, our product.

• Which tools. Nine client-work PSA tools that agencies and consultancies often shortlist, from enterprise suites to small-team tools.
• Sources. Prices and plan details come only from each vendor’s own pricing and product pages: no review sites, resellers or sales calls. Kantata, Productive, Scoro, Accelo and Teamwork.com were read on 14 September 2026 for our 2026 software pricing study; BigTime, Certinia and Rocketlane on 25 September 2026. PLYNTUM’s figures come from our own price list.
• What “price for 10 people” means. The published per-user price multiplied by 10, per month, on annual billing unless stated, tax excluded. It is arithmetic on a list price, not a quote. Onboarding fees, add-ons and discounts are left out.
• No published price, no estimate. Where a vendor gives prices only on request, we write “price on request” and do not repeat figures from third-party sites.
• What we checked. Who the vendor says the tool is for, time approval, invoicing, resource planning, sales CRM and quotes, and whether you can start a trial yourself.
• Our bias. PLYNTUM is our product. It is included under the same rules and is not placed first by default. The tools are grouped by the kind of firm they suit, not scored.

“PSA” names two different markets. This guide covers PSA for client-work firms: agencies, consultancies, accounting and engineering practices and implementation teams, where the job is to plan people’s time, record it, bill it and see the margin. PSA for managed IT service providers, such as ConnectWise PSA, Autotask and HaloPSA, is built around helpdesk tickets, service-level agreements, per-device contracts and remote monitoring. Those products are not covered here, and PLYNTUM does none of that. For what a PSA does step by step, see our page on professional services automation.

US dollars per month for 10 people unless stated. PLYNTUM is priced per workspace with members included; the others per user.

From each vendor’s own pages. Annual billing unless stated; tax excluded. Feature scope differs, so the table compares price, not value.

Three patterns stand out. Kantata, Certinia and Accelo publish no price, and BigTime prices only its entry plan. Among published prices the spread is wide: Teamwork.com Accelerate, with profit tracking by project or client, costs $249.90 a month for 10 people; Rocketlane Premium, with resource management, invoicing and margins, costs $690. And per-user prices grow with every hire, while PLYNTUM moves in steps: the 11th member moves a workspace from Core to Scale, $450 a month or $360 billed annually. For more tools, see our agency management software guide.

Kantata: best for large services organizations

Kantata, formed from Mavenlink and Kimble, is built for larger services organizations: resource forecasting, matching people to work by skill, and revenue-level financial management. Time approvals, invoicing and expenses are built in.

• Suits: firms with dedicated resource managers and a finance team, often across departments or countries.
• Watch: no native CRM (Kantata offers a Salesforce-based product and integrations instead), and buying starts with an adviser, not a trial.
• Price for 10 people: not published (read 14 September 2026).

More: PLYNTUM vs Kantata and Kantata alternatives.

Certinia: best for firms that already run on Salesforce

Certinia is built natively on the Salesforce platform. It sells Professional Services Cloud, its PSA, next to Financial Management Cloud, which it describes as ERP, so sales, delivery and accounting can share one platform.

• Suits: services firms whose sales team already works in Salesforce.
• Watch: the purchase starts with a demo, and no trial is stated. If you do not use Salesforce today, ask what the platform itself adds to the price and the rollout.
• Price for 10 people: not published; the pricing page is a demo request form (checked 25 September 2026).

BigTime: best for accounting, engineering and consulting firms on QuickBooks

BigTime targets accounting, architecture, consulting, engineering and IT services firms that need more than a time tracker and less than an ERP. It says it is the only PSA natively integrated with both QuickBooks Desktop and QuickBooks Online. Every plan includes time tracking, invoicing, expenses and payments.

• Suits: firms that bill by the hour and keep their books in QuickBooks.
• Watch: only the entry plan is priced. The client portal starts on Advanced, and project budgeting and multi-level approvals on Premier, both priced on request. No trial is stated.
• Price for 10 people: from $200 a month on Essentials, which starts at $20 per user a month; the billing cycle is not stated (read 25 September 2026).

Accelo: best for quote-to-invoice with retainers and tickets

Accelo covers client work from quote to invoice and goes deeper than most along that path: quotes and opportunities, retainers, contracts, tickets, weekly timesheet approval and a client portal where clients accept quotes. It integrates with HubSpot and Salesforce.

• Suits: established firms with retainer clients and a support side.
• Watch: neither a price nor a trial is published, so get a written quote for your headcount before you compare.
• Price for 10 people: not published; quote only (read 14 September 2026).

More: PLYNTUM vs Accelo.

Scoro: best for quoting, CRM and project finance in one suite

Scoro combines projects, resourcing and finances for consultancies, agencies and engineering firms, with quoting, a sales CRM and reports such as quoted-versus-actual and work in progress. It is sold as apps, so the price depends on which you choose.

• Suits: firms with a finance person or team that need detailed project accounting.
• Watch: a 5-user minimum; onboarding, add-ons, the client portal and additional legal entities cost extra, and the billing cycle is not labelled next to the prices.
• Price for 10 people: about €150 to €520 a month, before onboarding and add-ons; not a confirmed quote (read 14 September 2026).

More: PLYNTUM vs Scoro and Scoro alternatives.

Productive: best for agencies that want planning and a pipeline at a published price

Productive runs resources, projects and finances for agencies and consultancies. Resource planning, time approvals and a sales pipeline with deals are on every plan; billable-time and expense approvals start on Professional, and revenue recognition is on Ultimate.

• Suits: agencies that want resourcing, time, invoices and a pipeline in one tool and accept per-user pricing.
• Watch: a 3-seat minimum, Ultimate priced on request, and an English-only interface.
• Price for 10 people: $250 a month on Professional ($25 per user, billed annually) or $100 on Essential (read 14 September 2026).

More: PLYNTUM vs Productive and Productive alternatives.

Teamwork.com: best for a free start and a low entry price

Teamwork.com runs projects, resources and financials for client work and has a free plan for up to 5 users. Basics includes simple invoices and client users on projects; Accelerate adds profit tracking by project or client, and costs and expenses against budgets.

• Suits: agencies that want to start free on a familiar project tool and add the money side later.
• Watch: scheduling by role and skill and the CRM-to-project link sit on higher plans, which are priced on request.
• Price for 10 people: $249.90 a month on Accelerate ($24.99 per user, billed annually) or $99.90 on Basics (read 14 September 2026).

More: PLYNTUM vs Teamwork.com.

Rocketlane: best for onboarding and implementation teams

Rocketlane calls itself an all-in-one PSA and is built for delivery teams, including the customer onboarding and implementation teams of software companies. Standard covers projects, time tracking and a customer portal; Premium adds resource management, invoicing, revenue recognition and margins.

• Suits: teams that deliver projects together with the client in a shared portal.
• Watch: the highest published price in this guide, a 5-seat minimum, and invoicing and resource management only on Premium.
• Price for 10 people: $690 a month on Premium ($69 per team member, billed annually) or $490 on Standard (read 25 September 2026).

PLYNTUM: best for small firms that want a flat, published price

PLYNTUM is our product: a business workspace for agencies and service companies, in English and Georgian. Projects, manual time tracking, invoices, expenses and receivables are on every plan. From Core, managers approve timesheets, and approved hours become project cost at each person’s loaded hourly cost, so profitability (contribution before overhead) shows while the work runs. Core also adds recurring invoices and a client portal; resource planning comes with Scale. See time tracking and finance.

• Suits: agencies, studios and consultancies of up to about 25 people that want a price they can check before a sales call.
• Watch: no sales CRM, quotes, revenue recognition or integrations today, and the 11th member moves a workspace from Core to Scale.
• Price for 10 people: Core, $150 a month for up to 10 members, or $120 billed annually ($1,440 a year). Scale, for 11 to 25 people, is $450, or $360 billed annually. The 7-day free trial is on Launch only. See pricing.

A demo shows a tool at its best; a month of real work shows whether your team will use it.

1. Days 1–3: write down what the PSA must answer. Usually three questions: what is this project earning while it runs, who is free next month, and what is done but not yet invoiced. Add fixed points: your accounting system, a sales pipeline now or later, Salesforce or QuickBooks.
2. Days 4–7: shortlist three tools. Use the table above to drop tools built for a different size of firm. Ask quote-only vendors for a written price for your headcount, onboarding included, before you book a demo.
3. Days 8–10: set up one live project. Pick one with a fixed fee or a set budget and three to five people. Enter the client, the project value, the tasks and each person’s loaded hourly cost; the hourly rate calculator helps if you do not know it.
4. Days 11–20: log time daily and approve it weekly. Watch whether people actually do it. A PSA nobody fills in is a spreadsheet with a login.
5. Days 21–25: close the loop. Add an expense, draft the invoice you would really send and read the project margin. Count how many other tools you had to open.
6. Days 26–30: price three years, not one month. Work out the cost at today’s headcount and with 50% more people, add onboarding and add-ons, and compare per-user with flat pricing. Then move one client at a time.

Trials on this list last 7 to 14 days, so start yours on day 8; if it ends before day 25, finish on the vendor’s monthly paid plan.

Example, for illustration only. A 14-person agency on published annual prices would pay $349.86 a month on Teamwork.com Accelerate, $350 on Productive Professional, $360 on PLYNTUM Scale and $966 on Rocketlane Premium. At 20 people the two per-user plans reach $499.80 and $500, while PLYNTUM Scale stays at $360. The cheapest option depends on headcount, so price the team you expect to have.

If any of these is a requirement today, another tool on this list will serve you better.

• No MSP or IT ticketing. No helpdesk tickets, service-level agreements or device monitoring.
• No revenue recognition or accounting. No general ledger, tax filing or payroll, and profitability is contribution before overhead, not net profit. Productive (Ultimate) and Rocketlane (Premium) list revenue recognition.
• No API or integrations today. No connection to calendars, Slack, Zapier or accounting software; data moves by import and export.
• No quotes or estimates module. Scope and price are agreed outside PLYNTUM and entered as the project value.
• No sales CRM yet. Contacts, deals and a pipeline are planned, with no release date. Productive, Scoro and Accelo have one today.
• No automatic time capture. Time is entered with a manual timer or a timesheet; desktop capture is in development.

Each vendor’s own pages, with the date we read them:

• Kantata: kantata.com/pricing, 14 September 2026
• Certinia: certinia.com and certinia.com/pricing, 25 September 2026
• BigTime: bigtime.net and bigtime.net/pricing, 25 September 2026
• Accelo: accelo.com/how-to-buy and accelo.com/features, 14 September 2026
• Scoro: scoro.com/pricing, 14 September 2026
• Productive: productive.io/pricing, 14 September 2026
• Teamwork.com: teamwork.com/pricing, 14 September 2026
• Rocketlane: rocketlane.com and rocketlane.com/pricing, 25 September 2026

Prices change. Check the vendor’s page before you buy or quote a figure; if one here is out of date, write to us and we will re-read it.