Agency management software for marketing, creative and digital agencies

Agency management software is one system for the five things an agency runs on: projects, people, time, money and clients. A task belongs to a project, the project to a client, and hours logged on the task become that project’s cost once a manager approves them. That chain separates it from agency project management tools, which show who does what by when but stop short of the invoice.

This page is about marketing, creative, digital and consulting agencies, not the insurance-agency systems that share the name.

Most agencies start with a task board, a spreadsheet for hours and margins, and separate invoicing software. That works until a simple question — did our biggest retainer make money last quarter? — takes an afternoon of copying. It breaks in four places:

• Hours live apart from tasks. Friday’s timesheet is rebuilt from memory and never reaches the right project.
• Margins arrive late. The spreadsheet is right once a month, after the overrun has been paid for.
• Invoices are typed twice. The retainer fee sits in the contract, the invoicing tool and the spreadsheet, and the three drift apart.
• Capacity is a guess. A new brief gets a yes before anyone checks who is on leave or already booked.

PLYNTUM puts projects and tasks (list, board, calendar and timeline views), time tracking, people and capacity, invoices, expenses and receivables and client records in one workspace. To see what your current tools cost together, try the stack calculator.

The software is the same; what breaks first is not. Consultancies have their own page.

Marketing agencies: retainers that erode

A monthly fee covers an agreed scope, then the scope grows one channel at a time while the invoice stays the same. With hours logged against the client every week, you see the drift in month two, not at renewal. Recurring invoices (Core and above) issue the fee on schedule. More on PLYNTUM for marketing agencies.

Creative and design studios: fixed fee, open-ended revisions

The quote assumed two rounds of changes; the client is on round five. When each round is its own task with hours against it, the cost of the extra rounds is visible before the client conversation. Proofing stays in your current tool; PLYNTUM has none. See PLYNTUM for creative agencies.

Video production: crew, kit and licences

A production’s margin often leaks outside the team: freelance crew, equipment hire, music and stock licences. Record them as direct expenses on the production, next to your people’s approved hours, and project profitability sets both against the production’s value. PLYNTUM does not make call sheets. See PLYNTUM for video production.

Digital and web agencies: fixed-price builds plus support

A site is built for a fixed price, then looked after on a monthly support retainer. Both sit on one client record: the build as a project with a timeline, support as recurring work with its own recurring invoice. Hours on each show whether the build ran over and whether support costs more than it earns. PLYNTUM is not a ticketing helpdesk; support requests are handled as tasks.

PR and SEO agencies: retainers and reporting hours

The work is usually a monthly retainer, and a real share goes into the report. Set the report up as recurring work, log time to it, and you know what reporting costs on each client. PLYNTUM does not pull rankings, media coverage or ad data; it tracks the hours and money around the report.

1. Time is approved before it becomes cost. A manager reviews the week’s hours, so a mistyped 40 does not land on a client’s margin. Time tracking is on every PLYNTUM plan; timesheet approval starts on Core.
2. Project profitability from real hours. Profit should come from hours logged against tasks, each person at their own cost, not an average rate. PLYNTUM sets approved hours plus direct expenses against the project’s value, using each person’s loaded hourly cost.
3. Capacity before promises. Before agreeing a start date, see who is assigned to what and who is on leave. PLYNTUM keeps assignments, attendance and leave together.
4. Client history in one place. A client’s projects, hours and invoices should sit on one record, so a new account manager does not start from zero. That is how PLYNTUM’s client records work.
5. Recurring invoices for retainers. The monthly fee should go out without anyone remembering it. Basic invoices and receivables are on every plan; recurring invoices start on Core.
6. A client portal. Clients see what you choose to share, not your internal board. PLYNTUM’s scoped client portal starts on Core.
7. Pricing that doesn’t punish growth. Per-user prices rise with every hire; some tools add an onboarding fee, others leave invoicing out. PLYNTUM is priced per workspace with members included: Launch covers 5, Core 10, Scale 25. The catch: crossing a band, say from 10 people to 11, moves you to the next plan.

Say your agency has 10 people. These are the published prices of tools agencies often compare, read 14 September 2026, billed annually and excluding tax.

The rows are not the same purchase. ClickUp and monday.com are cheaper partly because invoicing is not part of them, so add whatever you pay for invoices. Productive has a sales pipeline today; PLYNTUM’s is still in development. Feature scope differs, so read the table as prices, not a ranking.

PLYNTUM Core includes timesheet approval, recurring invoices and the client portal at that price. The agency management software guide reads more tools on the same basis. If you are weighing Productive, see Productive alternatives; the comparison pages go tool by tool.

• No ad-platform connections. Ad spend is entered as an expense; nothing is pulled from Meta or Google.
• No post scheduling. Keep your social media scheduler.
• No proofing canvas or file versioning; markup on designs and edits happens elsewhere.
• No sales CRM yet. A pipeline for new business and proposals is in development; until then, deals live in another tool.
• Not accounting software. No ledger, no bank feeds, no tax filing, no payroll. PLYNTUM’s invoices and receivables sit alongside your accountant’s system, not in place of it.

Time is logged by hand; there is no automatic desktop time capture today.

You do not need to move the whole agency to test this. The 7-day trial runs on Launch (up to 5 members), and one client is enough.

1. Know your real hourly cost. Work out what an hour of your team really costs with the hourly rate calculator. Without that number, every margin is a guess.
2. Set up one client properly. Pick the client you suspect gets more work than they pay for. Add its current project or retainer, this month’s tasks and the people who work on it.
3. Log a week and compare. For five working days, everyone logs time to those tasks. Then set the hours against what the client pays. If the gap looks like unpriced extra requests, read our article on scope creep before the next call.

Timesheet approval, recurring invoices and the client portal start on Core: the trial shows you the gap, and a paid plan adds the controls. There is no free plan.