Solution
Agency Software for Creative and Marketing Teams
Retainers, multi-client delivery, approvals, time and billing — with profitability per client visible while the month is still running.
Agency software runs the delivery side of an agency: campaigns and projects across client accounts, the hours spent on them, creative approvals, retainer tracking and invoicing — connecting the work to the money rather than keeping them in separate tools.
The agency that is busy but not profitable
Agencies rarely fail because the work is bad. They struggle because two or three accounts quietly consume far more hours than they pay for, and nobody can prove it until the year end. The fee was agreed on an estimate, the actual hours live in a timesheet tool nobody reads, and the approvals that caused the extra rounds happened in email.
Retainers make it worse, because the overage is invisible by design. A retainer that consumes 140% of its committed hours looks exactly like one that consumes 80% — until someone adds it up, usually during a renewal negotiation, from the wrong side.
The fix is not more discipline. It is putting the hours, the rate, the approval and the invoice on the same record, so the arithmetic happens continuously rather than annually.
Creative agency project management software
Work across multiple client accounts
A client-to-project hierarchy rather than a flat list of boards. Every project, ticket, hour and invoice belongs to a client, so "how is Account X doing" is a question the system can answer without anyone assembling a report.
Retainers tracked against consumption
Contract and retainer management compares committed hours or value against what has been used. Recurring tasks handle the standing monthly work. An over-serviced retainer surfaces mid-month, while the conversation is still a conversation.
Creative approvals with a record
Approvals happen in the client portal software with a record of who signed off what and when. Round four stops being a matter of memory, which is what makes charging for it possible.
Time and billing on one path
Hours carry a client, a project, a rate and a billable flag at capture. Approved time is priced from the rate card and drawn onto an invoice — no export, no re-keying, no spreadsheet in the middle.
Profitability per client
Revenue, cost and margin by client and by project, derived from operational records rather than a month-end export. The accounts that are quietly losing money become visible early enough to renegotiate.
Capacity across the studio
Resource management software compares each person's capacity against every commitment, so the pitch you are about to win is checked against the people who would deliver it.
Marketing agency software: campaigns, retainers and reporting
Marketing agencies carry a particular shape of work: long-running retainers with monthly deliverables, campaign projects that spike, and a reporting obligation to the client every single month. All three are awkward in a tool designed around one-off projects.
Recurring tasks handle the standing monthly commitments so they are planned rather than remembered. Campaign work runs as a project with its own budget in hours and currency. The client portal carries status and approvals continuously, which removes most of the monthly reporting call — and the CRM on the front of it means a pitch, a won account and the delivery that follows share one record.
If you are a design studio specifically rather than a full-service agency, Chronodesk for design agencies covers proofing, scope creep and studio workflow in more depth. This page covers the broader agency case.
Which plan does an agency need?
Essential — $15 (R225) / user / month
Projects, tasks, Kanban, timesheets, rate cards, billing and CRM. Enough for a small studio that bills project by project.
Professional — $30 (R450) / user / month
Adds the client portal, ticket system, knowledge base and document library — the point at which clients get somewhere to look and approve.
Advanced — $40 (R600) / user / month
Adds contract and retainer management, resource management, PMO and portfolio reporting, work breakdown structure and custom forms. Where most agencies past about fifteen people land.
Enterprise is $49 (R735) and adds SSO, the report builder and a 99.9% uptime SLA. All plans are month-to-month — see Chronodesk pricing.
Agency software FAQ
What is agency software?
Agency software runs the delivery side of a creative, marketing or digital agency: projects and campaigns across multiple client accounts, the time your people spend on them, approvals on creative work, retainer and contract tracking, and invoicing. Its distinguishing job compared with generic project management is connecting the work to the money, so an agency can see profitability per client rather than only at the level of the whole business.
What software do marketing agencies use?
Most agencies assemble a stack: a project tool, a separate timesheet tool, a proofing or approvals tool, a CRM, and accounting software, joined by exports and a monthly reconciliation. That works until the agency is large enough that nobody can answer which clients are actually profitable. Consolidating projects, time, approvals and billing into one system is what agency management software is for.
How do agencies track profitability per client?
Compare the fee against the fully loaded cost of the hours delivered. That requires every hour to carry a client, a project, a rate and a billable flag at the moment it is logged — not reconstructed at month end. With that in place, revenue per client, cost per client and margin per client are reports rather than projects, and an over-serviced retainer shows up mid-month instead of at renewal.
How is retainer work managed?
Contract and retainer management tracks committed hours or value against what has actually been consumed. A retainer running hot is visible while there is still time to have the conversation, rather than after the agency has absorbed the overage. Recurring tasks cover the standing monthly work that retainers are usually made of. Both sit on the Advanced plan.
Which plan should an agency choose?
Essential at $15 (R225) per user per month covers projects, tasks, timesheets, rate cards, CRM and billing — enough for a small studio. Professional at $30 (R450) adds the client portal and the ticket system, which matter once clients expect somewhere to look. Advanced at $40 (R600) adds retainer management, resource management and portfolio reporting, which is where most agencies over about fifteen people end up.