Best Agency Client Management Software [2024]

Agency client management can make or break your relationship with your clients. And while things might be just fine with a spreadsheet when you’re just starting out, it can all very easily get out of control as you grow.

The alternative is proper agency client management software—a tool that helps you stay in touch with clients, communicate effectively, deliver on time, and invoice whenever needed.

Let’s look at a few software options available, what differentiates them, and how you can choose the best software for your needs.

What is agency client management software?

Agency client management software is a program businesses use to manage their clients and everything related to them: requests, tickets, contracts, documents, billing, and other important information. The goal of this type of agency software is to streamline processes. Beyond that, the main thing it does is provide a better B2B client experience.

The last thing you want is to fumble for information in emails, notepads, and video recordings every time your client has a question or when you need to create a brief for, say, your content marketing team or freelancers.

Outside of the actual project management part, some of the most important features of an agency client management software include the following.

Self-service features

Customer self-service is great for those who want to take matters into their own hands and see how things are progressing without having to contact the agency. With self-service, clients can check on project status, view important documents, ask questions through a messaging system and even track billing.

Allowing your clients to access information on their own is a win-win scenario—they can do it at their own pace and in their own way, while your team can focus on agency operations without constant interruptions.

Subscription management

If your agency runs on a subscription model, it’s essential to have a clear and organized way of tracking subscriptions. A good agency management system will have subscription management features that include automated billing, sending out reminders for renewals, and updating credit card information when necessary. This makes the process smoother for both your team and your clients.

Ideally, it also allows you to set up free trials so clients can test your services for a short time before upgrading to a paid plan.

Invoice access

Similarly, an agency client management tool should allow you to give them access to all their invoices. Automatic invoicing and payment reminders can take a lot of the burden off your team’s shoulders.

Plus, having all invoices in one place makes it easier for both parties to keep track of payments and past transactions—an incredibly useful feature year-round, but especially during tax season.

File access

A good management platform will also enable you (and your customers) to share and access files. When your clients have work-in-progress documents, it’s convenient for agency managers to know where they are so they can easily access them.

It also makes it easier for everyone on the team to access important files and information related to the project, eliminating the need for constant back-and-forth communication.

Client communication

Communication is crucial for maintaining good agency-client relationships. Think of it this way: the more efficient communication is, the less likely you’ll be misunderstood and face potential issues. A good agency client management tool will have messaging and email features that facilitate client communication.

This keeps all discussions in one place, making it easier to track client information and updates—and helping you avoid he-said-she-said type of situations.

How to choose the best agency client management system

There are a lot of client management solutions agency owners can pick. From Google Sheets automations to project management tools, the variety of software is overwhelming.

Here are some tips to help you find the best software solution for digital marketing agencies.

Consider your agency needs

You need to know your clients and what they want. Before choosing an agency client management software, consider the type of work you do and how your clients communicate with you. Do they prefer emails or calls? Do they need to access their files often? The answers to these questions will help you determine which features are essential for your business.

For instance:

• Content agencies are likely to need intake forms—they need to get their briefs and their requests straight and as clear as possible from the beginning, to avoid revisions later on.

• Podcast editing agencies need a system that can handle large file uploads (or at least integrates with a system that allows this, like Google Drive or Dropbox).

• SEO agencies require a spreadsheet-style input that makes it easy for their clients to copy-paste data from their spreadsheets.

• Creative agencies need annotation tools to help clients give feedback on creative work (and make sure the feedback is consistently collected in one place, as opposed to all over the place).

• Link building agencies need an easy way to show clients the domains they have access to, and let them add them to a shopping basket.

• Video editing agencies have to handle large uncompressed files, which can be multiple gigabytes in size.

Integrations with other tools

Software integrations allow your tools to communicate with one another without coding. For instance, if your client management tool and your payment processor are integrated, you will be able to automatically invoice and even charge a recurrent subscription, saving you a lot of time.

Some systems will also integrate with third-party tools, like accounting software or project management tools. Having these integrations can make your life easier and streamline processes even more.

Your existing software

You don’t want to give up on the features of your current system—you want to get an upgrade that allows you to streamline client communication even more. When considering a new agency client management system, make sure it integrates with your existing tools and that the transition is as smooth as possible.

For instance, with SPP you can integrate Stripe and PayPal directly, which allows you to invoice automatically, keep track of all your invoices, and have them in handy at all times (which is just as true for your clients too). It also supports automations via Zapier, Webhooks and the API, making it easy to transition from your old agency management tool.

7 best agency client management software to choose from

Still not sure which option to choose for your client management software? Here are the top seven ones—the ones that stand out the most.

Service Provider Pro

Service Provider Pro has been fueling agency growth for many years. Thanks to its many features, such as billing, analytics, forms, CRM, and workflow management, it’s easy to manage multiple clients in one interface. Agencies and their clients can log into the portal, and get an overview of all ongoing tasks, making it easy to stay on top of account management, new clients that need to be onboarded, and paying outstanding invoices.

Compared to other agency management system tools, SPP.co excels at offering all basic features agencies of all sizes require to function and grow. At the same time, it doesn’t overwhelm with features that are too complicated. Instead, it targets digital agencies that have productized their services, and are looking to deliver them in an efficient manner.

SPP’s pricing is simple, and allows small agencies to get started from just $129/month for the Basic plan. Established agencies can opt for the Pro plan at $299/month, giving them access to powerful features such as the template editor, or allowing their clients to become a white label reseller.

For large agencies, Service Provider Pro offers the Plus plan at $1,500/month, making the tool fully white label, and allowing agency professionals to build automations thanks to the API.

Keap

Keap is a software company that specializes in providing sales and marketing automation solutions tailored to small businesses. Their product suite, which includes Keap Grow, Keap Pro, and Infusionsoft, offers a range of tools designed to streamline customer lifecycle management, enhance customer service, and boost sales.

Keap Grow caters to startups and smaller businesses with features for contact management and professional email sending, while Keap Pro offers more advanced capabilities such as sales pipeline management and detailed reporting for scaling businesses.

Infusionsoft, their most robust product, is a CRM system with advanced sales and marketing automation features, targeting established businesses that require high levels of customization and control.

All in all, Keap has built quite a reputation for themselves. However, for agencies, it still works better as a lead generation and lead nurturing tool, than a client management one.

Pricing for Keap starts at $199/month and goes as high as $359. There are three pricing plans, and you can save up to 23% of what you choose to pay annually. The main differences between the packages are based on features, number of users, and number of contacts you can add into the CRM.

Wrike

Wrike is a comprehensive project management and collaboration platform designed to streamline workflows and enhance productivity for teams. Its features include task management for creating, assigning, and scheduling tasks, project planning tools such as Gantt charts for visual timelines, real-time updates, and file sharing capabilities for seamless collaboration.

Additionally, Wrike offers advanced functionalities like resource management to track team workload, time tracking to monitor time spent on tasks, and reporting tools for detailed project insights. Its integrations with applications like Google Drive, Dropbox, Microsoft Office 365 further bolster its versatility, making it a robust solution aimed at boosting team productivity by providing effective work planning, management, and collaboration tools.

Although, as a general rule, Wrike is more focused on project management, it does have a very useful approval feature, which is great for agencies whose workflows are built around approval processes.

Wrike’s pricing is split into five packages. The first three ones have a set price (from $0 to $24.80), and the latter ones are quote-based (so you will have to contact their sales team to find out a price). You can try any of the paid plans for free, for 14 days, with no strings attached (not even entering a credit card).

Honeybook

Honeybook is a tool based on building client workflows, from sending invoices to setting meetings, delivering projects, sending questionnaires, making payments, and more.

This tool offers an array of features that include client invoicing, secure payment processing, contracts, fast scheduling, and powerful automations. With Honeybook, businesses can create interactive experiences for their clients, making it convenient for them to select services, eSign contracts, and send payments all in a single sweep.

The platform also allows users to showcase their services through interactive proposals. Also, Honeybook’s mobile app enables you to manage your business from anywhere.

Pricing for Honeybook starts at $19.50/month and comes in two other versions: $39/month and $79/month. Paying annually will save you 50% and they run recurrent offers where you can get at least a couple of months at half the price too. They also offer a free 7-day trial, in case you want to test it out first,

Trello

Trello is a very well-known project management tool. It’s largely suitable for Kanban or Scrum-type of project management, but it’s not exclusive to that. It can work as a to-do list, it allows you to create ticket templates, it’s quite flexible, and, quite importantly, it includes a lot of features even in its free version.

In fact, the free version might just be one of the most generous ones: it allows you up to 10 boards, 250 workspace commands, and great security.

Paid versions are also quite affordable. There are three paid packages, at $5, $10, and $17.50/month, each with increasingly more boards, workspace commands, and control over who sees what (e.g., on the $5/month plan you can already invite people to one board only).

All in all, Trello isn’t a bad tool (at all, and especially for the price). It might not be as scalable when it comes to larger operations.

ClickUp

ClickUp rose to fame a couple of years ago, and ever since, it has been on everyone’s lips.

The main goal of ClickUp is to bring documentation and project management together. On the project management side, it offers a lot of features like custom views, task checklists, Gantt charts, and goals tracking. On the documentation side, you can create wikis with rich media embedded into them.

Additionally, ClickUp provides collaboration tools like commenting, mentions for easy communication between team members and integrates with over 1,000 other applications to streamline workflows further.

ClickUp’s pricing is split in four main plans: a free one, a $5/month/member one, a $12/month/member one, and an Enterprise one (where you have to contact sales to find out more). The main differences are that the Unlimited plan offers unlimited tasks and members, a 100MB file size limit, and standard features. The Business plan provides all of Unlimited’s offerings plus goals, portfolios, custom fields, and other advanced features with a 1GB maximum file size.

EngageBay

EngageBay has long been known as a one-stop-shop for businesses to manage their marketing, sales, and customer interactions. Its CRM capabilities include contact management, lead scoring, email tracking, sales pipeline management, and more.

The platform’s features also extend to automated marketing tools such as email campaigns, web push notifications, and landing page creation. Moreover, EngageBay offers project management functionalities like task assignment and progress tracking.

EngageBay comes in four pricing tiers: $0/user/month, $12.47/user/month, $55.24/user/month, and $101.99/user/month. The main differences lie in the number of contacts you get and how advanced your features are.

FAQ

Choose the best agency management software solution

Finding a client management software for your agency can seem like an overwhelming task, considering the range of options available in the market.

However, it’s essential to keep in mind your agency’s specific needs. If you need something smart, built specifically for agencies, and which comes at an affordable price, go with SPP. It has solid CRM features that allow you to capture and save a multitude of information about your clients. Plus, thanks to the integrated billing and project management features, all information (from files to invoices) are saved in one place.

Whatever your choice may be, the important thing is to find a tool that helps run a profitable agency that is efficient and organized. Using the best agency management software enables you to focus on delivering top-notch services to your clients.