Color-coded spreadsheets, dispersed email threads, and post-it notes can often spiral into convoluted communication. Agency project management software can help you keep the pieces organized.
Project management software can help you track timelines, tasks, time, and budgets in an orderly manner. You can also efficiently deal with any unforeseen problems that pop up as you work on client projects.
In this article, we’ve put together a list of the 27 best agency project management software that can help you stay on track.
Table of Contents
- 10 Factors to Consider Before Choosing an Agency Project Management Software
- 29 Marketing Agency Project Management Software
10 Factors to Consider Before Choosing an Agency Project Management Software
There’s no one-size-fits-all approach to project management software. Before making any decision, carefully explore the needs of your business. Start with these 10 factors.
1. Scalability
Switching project management tools every time you hit a company milestone can be confusing and time-consuming. If your agency is growing fast and you are working towards even more growth, you’ll need a tool that can handle the increasing number of projects, clients, and contractors.
2. User-friendliness
Before settling on a project management (PM) software for your agency, you’ll need to check in with staff to see if they like the tool’s interface. Your team should find scheduling projects, tracking time, and staying up-to-date easy.
3. Flexibility
As an agency, chances are you use other tools to handle tasks like time tracking, marketing automation, customer relationships, and even billing processes. Before choosing a PM tool, you’ll need to consider how it integrates with other software your agency uses.
4. Customization
Explore each tool’s customization options. Does the PM tool allow you to set the features and reports? Can you tailor your experience to your needs?
If you want to be able to collaborate with clients, pick a tool that allows you to do that. If you want your agency’s branding to be featured in the client’s view, choose a tool that allows you to set that up.
5. Necessary Features
There are project management systems that come loaded with everything you could ever want to use. There are also those that focus on doing just one thing well. Think about the features your agency needs to make projects easier to manage. Then, invest in a tool that has those features.
6. Client Friendliness
Just because you and your team can use a tool well doesn’t mean that your clients can. Choose a project management system that your clients can navigate easily.
Check if the tool has permission levels that can be customized. See if there are options to keep some communication private and some public. The tool you pick should make it easy for clients to communicate what they need from you.
7. Email Integration
If you have clients that prefer to communicate via email, you'll need a tool that integrates with email platforms like Gmail and Outlook.
8. Mobility Limitations
If some (or all) of your staff work remotely, you should pick a PM tool that allows them to work as they go. Check if the tool has remote working features that make it easy for remote staff or teams in different offices to use. Even better if the product offers an Android or iOS app.
9. Customer Support and Training
A more complex and customizable tool may require setup, training, and ongoing support. So before choosing a PM tool, ensure that training and support are available. Check the hours and days of the week that you can reach their customer support team. If possible, test it before you invest in it.
Pro tip: Note what forms of customer support they offer. Do they offer email, phone, live chat, or just chatbot?
10. Your goals
What do you want to achieve by using a project management system? Do you want to streamline processes? Improve efficiency and profitability? Get better insight into the types of clients and projects you want to pursue? Deliver a higher quality product?
Whatever your reasons are for investing in a PM tool, pick one that helps you achieve your goals and track your return on investment (ROI).
29
- Basecamp
- Asana
- Monday.com
- Teamwork
- Wrike
- Brafton
- Accelo
- Workamajig
- ProofHub
- Teamhood
- nTask
- ClickUp
- Service Provider Pro
- Function Point
- PSOhub
- Smartsheet
- ProProfs Project
- iMeet Central
- Zoho Projects
- WorkflowMax
- Brightpod
- FunctionFox
- Adobe Workfront
- Citrix Podio
- LiquidPlanner
- Deltek TrafficLIVE
- Advantage
- Deltek WorkBook
- Hive
1. Basecamp
If you’re looking for a simple, easy-to-use task management and communication platform, Basecamp is the go-to option.
In addition to being easy to set up, Basecamp helps users organize clients and contractors, delegate tasks, and track progress from the get-go.
Key features:
- Assigning to-do tasks to one or multiple people
- Message boards for discussing a project or idea
- Chat function for communicating with team members
- Reports for better understanding a team's capacity and projects
- Separate screens for managing projects with a client
- Interactive Gantt charts
- Tool for tracking project hours
- Customizable project templates
Pricing: 30-day free trial. Then, $11 per month with all features for the entire company.
2. Asana
Asana is currently one of the most popular project management systems — and for good reason. This aesthetically pleasing platform helps you plan projects, assign work, set priorities, and establish deadlines. You can also easily communicate with team members.
With Asana, you're able to follow tasks and projects from start to finish. You know what's going on at every stage, and you can keep team members aligned on goals.
Key features:
- Custom calendars and views
- Multiple workspaces
- Kanban boards
- Gantt charts
- Real-time updates
- Phone and email notifications and reminders
- iPhone app and mobile site for team members to work on the go
Pricing: Free version. Paid plans start at $10.99 per user a month (premium) and $13.49 per user a month (business).
3. Monday.com
Monday.com is a leading project management platform that helps project managers and teams streamline their workflows and stay aligned on goals.
This tool syncs all project information in a single location and displays it in a visually appealing way. Monday.com makes it easy for team members to track project statuses and know which task they're responsible for at any given time.
Key features:
- Seeing all your team's work at a glance
- Automation to Keep all team members aligned with automation
- The ability to measure your team's progress and document achievements
- Permissions to protect the privacy of certain data
- Syncing with Gmail and Outlook
- Third-party integrations with apps like Slack, Pipedrive, and Dropbox
Pricing: Free forever plan. Paid plans start at $8/user/month (Basic), $10 per user a month (Standard), and $16 per user a month (Pro). Enterprise plan available.
4. Teamwork
Teamwork is a project management platform built to help agencies manage the entire lifecycle of their client work in one place.
The platform provides all of the features you'd expect, as well as integrated time tracking, financial management, robust reporting, and free access for clients, to ensure your projects are delivered on time and on budget.
Key features:
- Multiple views to suit your needs, kanban boards, gantt charts, tables, and more
- Resource and workload management to manage your team’s capacity and long-term forecasting
- Track and log billable time to better understand where time and money is being spent
- Financial management including budgets, retainers, invoicing, and profitability
- Streamline client feedback with with proofing, versioning, and sign-off of assets
- Profitability reports to get a real-time view of your financial performance for each project and by client, and track against your budget
- Seamless integrations with a variety of other platforms and apps including Slack, Hubspot, and MS Teams
Price: 30-day free trial. Free forever for up to five users. Paid plans scale from $9.99 a user per month (Deliver plan) to $17.99 per user a month (Grow plan), billed yearly. Get a custom quote to be on the company’s Scale plan.
5. Wrike
Wrike is a powerful work management platform built for teams and organizations looking to collaborate, create, and exceed every day. Wrike's solution for agencies creates a central hub that allows teams to monitor all client projects and resources in one place, improve workflow, and track progress. Key features include real-time collaboration, time tracking, cross-tagging for full visibility, proofing and approvals, resource management, and insights and analytics. Wrike is where agencies unite to delight their clients by completing more projects in less time.
Key features:
- Real-time collaboration
- Cross-tagging for full visibility
- Proofing and approvals
- Resource management, insights, and analytics
Pricing: The essential plan starts at $9.80 per month per user, and the Business plan is $24.80 per month per user.
6. Brafton
The Brafton Content Marketing Platform is a project management tool that has one goal: to simplify content marketing for any organization or business. The Brafton Platform accomplishes this by streamlining any content team’s workflows, organizing marketing collateral in an easy-to-use system, and giving visibility into all past and current projects to all pertinent stakeholders.
Key features:
- Pre-built dashboards that provide at-a-glance visibility into all projects
- Content calendar that automatically updates according to each project’s timeline
- Color-coded tiles on the content calendar that show each project’s current phase
- Pre-built best practice workflows that help you create the best marketing content
- Customizable workflows to help you tailor your operations to your needs
- Clear view into resourcing and internal KPIs for project stakeholders
- Performance tracking through integrations with Google Analytics, Semrush, and more.
Price: $100 per user per month. No minimum or maximum number of users. Month-to-month plans. Enterprise plans are available.
7. Accelo
Accelo is an end-to-end client work management platform designed to help professional services businesses, including agencies, manage client relationships from prospecting and projects through to payments and retainers.
The platform can handle complex projects, as it contains a wide range of project templates and auto-assigns tasks based on quoted work. It can also attach tasks to projects, client records, and invoices, making it simple to follow and report on project progress and client history. Accelo features built-in automation and customizable triggers to streamline project workflows.
Key features:
- Robust CRM with custom fields that connect projects and tasks to a client record
- Quote-to-project conversion for an easy transition from sales to project management
- Automated time tracking — even at the task level
- Customizable project templates and trigger automation
- Integrated billing that accurately reflects logged time
- A white-label client portal for status updates, invoice history, request submissions and more
Price: Starting at $24 per module per user per month. You pay only for the licenses you’ll use for each module: Sales, Projects, Tickets, Retainers, Billing and Reports.
8. Workamajig
Workamajig is the only all-in-one marketing project management software that was built exclusively for the specific needs of marketing agencies and in-house creative teams.
This unique creative project management tool gives you everything your agency needs to focus on the work at hand. More profit and less stress is the Workamajig promise.
Key features:
- Easy project creation allows you to create fully scheduled projects in just a few clicks
- Finance and accounting will keep your agency’s financial health on track with key reports
- Task management gives more transparency and billable hours to keep projects on schedule
- Project templates can be created easily and quickly for efficient project management
- Real business insight to forecast revenue and grow your agency
- Customizable reports with all the data that matters to you
Price: $50 per month for 5-9 users; $41 per month for 10-19 users; $39 per month for 20-49 users; $37 per month for 50-99 users; custom enterprise pricing for 100+ users.
All plans get all features, as well as training and support.
9. ProofHub
ProofHub is an all-in-one project management and team collaboration software. This tool is designed to help teams of all sizes manage complex tasks and work together seamlessly.
With this tool, project managers can efficiently handle all phases of a project: from planning and assigning to managing and submitting deliverables on time. This software helps clients, teams, and contractors share notes and discussions that result in a productive collaboration.
Key features:
- Custom workflows and Kanban boards
- Gantt charts and project calendars
- In-built chat and real-time discussions
- Robust table view to keep track of every product detail
- Automatic and manual time trackers to keep track of your team’s productivity
- Project reports
- A proofing tool to streamline your review and approval process
- File management
- Stickies and notes
Pricing: The essential plan starts at $45 per month, and the Ultimate Control plan is $89 per month.
10. Teamhood
Designed to set the new standard in the realm of project tools, Teamhood offers a perfect blend of lightweight usability, comprehensive features, and unmatched flexibility.
Advanced Kanban Board empowers you with custom columns, rows, and secondary workflows for tracking subtasks' progress. Task dependencies, Timeline, and time tracking are integrated into the Kanban workflow for efficient planning and monitoring.
- Supports Swimlanes
- WIP Limits
- Classes of service
- Performance metrics
- Supports Agile, Waterfall, Hybrid, and Kanban project management
- Workload management
- Resource planning
Price:Free for unlimited users. The professional plan at $9.50 per month, the premium plan at $15 per month, and the ultimate plan at $19 per month. Enterprise plans are available for teams.
11. nTask
nTask offers a wide variety of features and customization options to adapt to the way your team works. For instance, they recently introduced an interactive Gantt chart where everything can be customized.
Furthermore, nTask includes all of the typical project management tools. That includes time tracking, recurring tasks, notification, reminders, and collaboration.
Key Features:
- Calendar management
- Time tracking and timesheets
- Recurring tasks
- Admin approval process control
- Budget and resource management
- Task creation and management at various team levels
- Team management
Pricing: 7-day free trial. Premium and business plan scale from $3 to $8 per user a month. Enterprise plans are available for teams.
12. ClickUp
Many marketing agencies use ClickUp to manage their campaigns, clients, standard operating procedures, and more. You can collaborate with your team, work with contractors and clients through guest permissions, and connect your data all in one place.
Furthermore, if you need help getting started, ClickUp offers multiple templates for various marketing workflows.
Key features:
- Dashboards and chat view to communicate with clients and stakeholders
- Gantt and timeline view to visualize campaigns and relationships between tasks
- Proofing and annotation features to get feedback directly on files
- Documents to create content, outline processes, and save internal wikis
- Recurring tasks and reminders to automate repeated tasks
- The ability to synch with your calendar to view all your tasks, events, and reminders in one place
- 1000+ integrations to connect your marketing apps
Price: Free Forever (unlimited users); $5/month for unlimited; $12/month for business; $19/month for business plus. Enterprise Plan available.
13. Service Provider Pro
SPP is one of the most popular agency tools when it comes to project management. It's been built from the ground up for marketing agencies who need to manage their projects, assign tasks, set deadlines, and deliver their services swiftly. The software also allows agency owners to invite external collaborators and limit their access to roles.
With Service Provider Pro, every team member gets a view of the tasks they have to complete, while managers can keep an eye on all orders being fulfilled. Thanks to order statuses, both the team and the client know the current status of their project, making it easier to align common goals.
Key features:
- Service-based tasks and order assignment
- Set deadlines on a per-service basis
- Communicate with the team in private notes
- Gather project information with intake forms
- Email, in-app & push notifications for team
- Powerful analytics to check team performance
14. Function Point
Function Point is a marketing agency project management software that provides tools for multiple departments. This tool integrates business, accounting, client services, traffic, and creativity.
This tool efficiently streamlines business processes and automates many functions. With Function Point you can improve the quality of communication and collaboration between clients and teams, which allows the agency to achieve more without sacrificing quality.
Key features:
- File sharing and approvals workflows
- The ability to schedule tasks, assign work, and manage individual workloads
- Financial reporting and invoicing
- Project and task dashboards for understanding timelines and profitability of projects
- CRM tool
Price: Paid plans scale from $40 per user a month (agency), to $42 per user a month (studio), to $47 per user a month (boutique), billed annually. Enterprise plans are also available.
15. PSOhub
PSOhub is the all-in-one marketing agency project management software tailored to professional services. It’s also designed with HubSpot users in mind.
PSOhub provides everything businesses need to manage projects — plus robust integrations to keep contracts, time tracking, team collaboration, and more under one digital roof.
Key features:
- Self-driving time tracking to eliminate manual entry and promote productivity
- Contract management for retainers, time-and-material, fixed-price, recurring, and installments with dashboards and reporting plus smart contract generation
- Task management/collaboration to assign tasks and share information
Price: 30-day free trial. Paid plans scale from $8.50 per user a month (base), to $12.50 per user a month (starter), to $16.50 per user a month (rise), to $20.50 per user a month (growth).
16. Smartsheet
Smartsheet is a web-based project management and planning tool with an interactive interface. Accessible from any device, this tool combines the user-friendliness of a spreadsheet with collaborative time management, file sharing, and automated workflow capabilities.
Smartsheet was designed to enable teams to work on projects without unnecessary hitches.
Key features:
- A drag-and-drop interface that allows managers to adjust timelines and projects based on evolving needs
- A dashboard allowing managers to see each project's status based on time, fees, and expenses
- Visual reporting for viewing the big picture of how teams, clients, and projects are doing against goals
- The ability to export documents and information to clients' emails
- Custom branding visible in the client's view
Price: 30-day free trial. Paid plans start from $7 per user a month (pro), billed annually. Contact the company for custom pricing for business or enterprise plans.
17. ProProfs Project
ProProfs Project offers a flexible, all-in-one solution to manage tasks, resources, and deadlines in one place. It lets you set up project workflows and track progress in real-time using Gantt, Kanban, List, and Calendar views. Using the tool, you can quickly adjust workflows, customizing them to suit the ongoing project and team requirements.
With ProProfs’ data-driven project reports, you never have to second-guess your project's performance. The reports give rich insights into key project metrics, helping you keep your agency projects on track.
Key features:
- Mobile access lets you manage projects on the go
- Give and receive feedback via task comments
- Share relevant files from anywhere, anytime
- Track employee productivity with time tracking
Price: 15-day free trial, annual plan starts at $39.97 per month.
18. iMeet Central
iMeet Central (formerly Central Desktop) is an online-based collaboration tool that helps the entire agency stay on task and informed of a project's status.
With this tool, you can build online workspaces where team members can share files, exchange ideas, and collaborate on client projects.
Key features:
- Online mood boards for sharing inspiration between creatives
- Customizable workflows that will automatically assign tasks
- Meetings feature to schedule events, upload notes, and share documents
- The ability to make certain files and folders viewable to only agency employees
- A centralized feedback system that organizes comments and shows who has reviewed, approved, or ignored the notice
Price: $45 per user a month for marketers and agencies, $25 per user a month for enterprise.
19. Zoho Projects
Zoho provides tools for a variety of different business functions, including finance, HR, sales, marketing, and project management. The Zoho Projects tool provides agency teams with an easy way to manage communication and track progress.
Key features:
- Tracking for employees’ billable and non-billable hours
- The ability to see projected timelines versus the actual time needed to achieve specific milestones
- Integration with Google Apps for more efficient collaboration
- Project chat rooms that can be public or private
- Forums for discussions among team members
- Kanban boards for tasks
- Custom widgets, views, and fields
Price: 10-day free trial. Free for up to three users. Paid plans scale from $4 per user a month (premium) to $9 per user a month (enterprise), billed annually.
20. WorkflowMax
WorkflowMax is a full-featured project management system that provides agencies with the ability to manage finances, billing, leads, sales, and productivity.
(WorkflowMax is a HubSpot integration partner.)
Key features:
- Reporting to uncover inefficiency and the agency's most profitable projects and clients
- A job costs system to keep track of all expenses per project and actual versus predicted costs to better understand profitability
- The ability to create customized fields to better suit the individual needs of the agency
- A tool for sending accurate quotes to prospects quickly
- Powerful, custom reporting
- Third-party app integrations
- 24/7 email support
- Free online webinars and video tutorials
Price: Paid plans scale from $20 per user a month (standard) to $70 per user a month (premium). There's a discount with an increase in the number of users.
21. Brightpod
Brightpod has a Trello-like board interface that allows users to track projects, ideas, and tasks.
Key features:
- Custom workflows for different types of projects
- An editorial calendar for managers who track social and content plans
- Individual dashboards so team members can track their high-priority items each day
- The ability to log time per task and create recurring tasks
- The ability to add tasks, messages, and files via email
Price: 14-day free trial. Paid plans scale from $29 per month (professional), to $59 per month (studio), to $99 per month (agency), to $199 per month (agency plus).
22. FunctionFox
FunctionFox is a simple online timesheet and PM software that was built with creatives in mind. This tool helps you monitor your entire project lifecycle — from ideation to delivery.
FunctionFox provides three different levels of project management features. That includes simple project and time tracking to advanced reporting and project management.
Key features:
- A dedicated account manager who helps agencies set up the software and provides support as the company changes and grows
- Client- and project-based reporting
- A dashboard so leadership can view profitability and productivity
- Custom fields for adding information unique to your agency
- Group and individual calendars
Price: $35/month for one user, plus $5 per month for each additional user for timesheets and project tracking; $50/month for one user, plus $10 per month for each additional user for advanced project management; $150 per month for one user, plus $20 per month for each additional user at in-house creative teams.
23. Adobe Workfront
Workfront is a customizable tool that gives project managers a 360° view of business operations. That allows PMs to easily spot issues and attend to every team member's needs. This tool allows agencies to set priorities, assign tasks, manage projects, and keep stakeholders up-to-date.
Key features:
- Built-in approval paths for getting work out the door more quickly
- Visibility of team-wide resources for better managing workloads
- A work backlog feature for organizing and prioritizing creative requests
- The ability to mark teams as “Agile” to organize work into stories or points
- Gantt charts
- Workflow automation capabilities
Price: Contact the company for pricing information.
24. Citrix Podio
Citrix Podio is a collaboration tool that organizes all of a team's communication into one place. Whether you're trying to close a lead or you're already working on a project, you'll get everything work-related on one page. That makes it easier to collaborate and complete the task at hand.
Key features:
- Tons of integrations and extensions, such as SmartGantt, and the option to build a custom integration
- Apps that can be added to the core product to customize the project management system for the way a team works
- Automated workflows triggered by task completion
- The ability to create custom web forms for collecting information to be sent directly to the tool
- Data visualization
- Unlimited storage
Price: Free version for up to five users. Paid plans scale from $7.20 per month (basic), to $11.20 per month (plus), to $19.20 per month (premium), billed yearly.
25. LiquidPlanner
LiquidPlanner has a different methodology for project management in that it sets timelines based on estimates. The platform then gives you a realistic due date based on best-case and worst-case scenarios. LiquidPlanner also provides a priority-based scheduler, so teams can understand which projects to prioritize to meet deadlines.
With LiquidPlanner, you can also share details about the project with internal teams and external partners, such as clients and business partners. You can also control who has access to specific information on each project.
Key features:
- Time tracking features integrate with a rate sheet
- Drag-and-drop prioritization
- A resource management screen for viewing who is at capacity and who can take on more projects
- Note features for adding obstacles to getting projects done
- Communication boards that are task-specific
- iOS and Android apps
Price: 14-day free trial. Paid plans range from $15 per user a month (essentials), to $25 per user a month (professional), to $35 per user a month (ultimate). Larger companies can get a custom quote from the company.
26. Deltek TrafficLIVE
TrafficLIVE works to give account managers, sales professionals, financial managers, and leadership the tools they need to serve clients more effectively and be more profitable.
Key features:
- MS Project integration, so account managers can easily import and export project plans
- A visual dashboard that shows the breakdown of time spent, money, overruns, deadlines, deliveries, and more for each project
- A native CRM for business development that tracks clients and prospects
- Custom rate cards that can be applied to new client projects
- Utilization charts so agency owners can determine staffing needs
Price: Contact TrafficLIVE for pricing information.
27. Advantage
Advantage assigns every account an implementation specialist, making this project management software perfect for those who need more in-depth training and support. If you’re an individual consultant, Advantage may provide the perfect solution.
Key features:
- Preset templates for creating schedules automatically
- The ability to change schedules and tasks for multiple projects at once
- Burn rate charts and risk analysis summaries to discover what projects are at-risk
- Media department support with flow charts, templates, and authorization forms
- An agency owner dashboard with views of cash balance, fees, and forecasting
28. Deltek WorkBook
WorkBook is a project management software that allows agencies to customize the platform based on their specific needs. You start with a basic plan and add features, such as invoicing and billing, purchase orders, accounting, or a CRM.
Key features:
- The ability to upload briefings and ensure that all team members know their duties
- Expense tracking for every project
- Extensive financial reporting systems with 300 built-in reports
- Inter-company transaction capabilities and automatic billing features
- Weighted pipeline to reveal the potential cash flow of an agency
- The ability to convert a prospect from the CRM into a project
- Beautiful invoices and price quotes that can be emailed to the client
- Integration with Gmail and Outlook
Price: $19 per user a month, plus modular pricing options.
29. Hive
Hive is the project management tool behind the rockstar teams at Uber, Google, Starbucks, Essence, and more. Hive is dedicated to connecting all aspects of your work and helping teams move faster.
Key features:
- Flexible project layouts
- Native email
- Resourcing
- Group messaging
- File sharing
- Proofing and approvals
Price: Hive starts at $12 per user a month when billed annually.
Want more project management tips? Check out these basic principles of agile project management.
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