60+ Essential Agency Tools: From Client Acquisition to Delivering Projects

Looking for the ultimate agency tools to optimize your operations?

In this guide, we’ll provide an exhaustive overview of the essential agency tools your agency needs to run a successful business. We’ll cover software for a variety of needs: from comprehensive suites to specialized financial management, sales, marketing software, and more.

Keep reading to find the best options currently available.

The right agency tools can support the totality of your business operations. Although the finer details might vary depending on your industry, whether it’s software development, marketing, design, consulting, or any other service-providing business, the general flow of running an agency is mostly the same.

This includes, in broad strokes, talent hiring and retention, client relationship management, project management, resource capacity planning, and financial management. Most of all, a powerful tool will strengthen your decision-making across the board:

The first challenge you’re likely to come up against is deciding which type of tool you’re looking for: an all-in-one solution that covers elements of all of the above, or a specialized tool that goes in-depth into one aspect of agency management.

As a rule of thumb, niche software will be more suitable for startups and smaller businesses, but any agency looking to scale its operations will need comprehensive support to tackle the growing complexity of its processes.

Now that we’ve got some of the basics down, let’s head into an overview of agency tools that can help you achieve the above. Using the example of Productive, the all-in-one agency management tool, we’ll first discuss how certain features of comprehensive tools can support your agency operations, with excerpts from customer stories for first-hand experience.

Then, we’ll examine other types of agency tools by their categories and list the best and most popular options currently available, with references to reviews from reputable sites such as G2 and Capterra.

Without further ado, here are our categories:

Productive is a comprehensive agency management software, tailored to support agencies of all shapes and sizes in streamlining their daily processes and optimizing financial management.

One unique benefit of Productive is that it allows you to switch from multiple project management software to just one all-in-one platform that supports your entire project life cycle.

From tracking sales leads, and balancing your team’s workload, to budgeting and billing your projects, Productive helps you achieve more successful project delivery.

Let’s explore Productive’s key features and how they work together to support your agency management.

Productive’s Resource Planning feature lets your agency create an accurate working schedule across all projects and resources. Get insights into your team’s capacity and achieve a perfect utilization balance. The system is flexible and dynamic, adapting to project changes to deliver timely project information.

Key Features:

Why It’s Essential: With resource management, an agency can get insights into their macro planning process, helping them get a full picture of their operations before going into the finer details of task management. Overall, this ensures a smoother, more precise management process across the entire agency, minimizing the risk of a resource bottleneck, budget overflow, or unforeseen changes in deadlines.

Make your budgets the center of your project management with Productive’s Budgeting feature. Build budgets no matter your pricing type, whether fixed-price, hourly, or mixed. Budgeting is seamlessly connected to resource scheduling so that changes made to your bookings immediately reflect on budgeting plans.

Key Features:

Why It’s Essential: No matter how well a project might be planned out or scheduled, changes are likely to happen, either due to internal circumstances, or external such as additional client requests. In fact, statistics show that only about 30% of projects are always or mostly completed within budget (Wellingtone). However, what’s important is that project managers and agency owners stay on top of these changes and communicate them to clients on time. Project budgeting software can ensure efficient and accurate data on the fly, significantly improving decision-making and client relationships.

Complement your high-level project planning by handling the finer details of your project execution with the Project Management feature. Create, manage, and finalize deliverables by creating tasks and assigning them to team members. You can create multiple boards within one project to switch between different departments and get a full overview of project teams – or set them up however suits you best.

Key Features:

Why It’s Essential: Efficient task management is key to keeping your projects on the right track. Both your project teams and your clients can benefit from full progress visibility. Getting an overview of the larger picture can help stakeholders re-examine their work in the context of the larger project strategy and goals, keeping everyone aligned and ultimately driving better results.

To learn more about delivering projects with Productive, see the webinar below:

With Productive’s Reporting feature, you can generate analytics with data pulled from all of your platform activities and data sources, including budgeting, resource management, service rates, and tracked time. Get a deeper understanding of your key agency metrics and save time on manually collating and sharing reports.

Key Features:

Why It’s Essential: Although it’s possible to deliver successful projects without keeping track of metrics such as profit margins or utilization rates, you’ll lack the insights you need to accomplish long-term agency goals. Additionally, manual data processes such as Excel means more room for error and a lengthier procedure. By automating your client reporting, you can not only free up your time for high-level tasks but also foster more transparent relationships with clients by delivering timely project progress reports.

Productive comes with an integrated Time Tracking feature that gives employees the option of tracking their time however is most convenient: by activating their timer from their tasks or calendar, or inputting information after a task has been completed.

Key Features:

Why It’s Essential: Although time tracking might not be every employee’s favorite feature, it’s essential for powering up advanced features such as utilization tracking and forecasting. By getting a handle on your billable versus non-billable hours, agency owners can get clear estimates of how much work is being done, and how much of this work is profitable. This is why native tracking should be the cornerstone feature of any robust project and agency management tool.

Productive offers a lightweight customer relationship management system with its built-in Sales Pipeline. Bridge the gap between your sales team and project team by keeping all of your potential client contacts and communications on one platform.

Key Features:

Why It’s Essential: Tools with client management features can help you ensure that you never forget to follow up on your leads, decreasing the chance of lost opportunities due to a lack of organization and management. You can also get insights into valuable sales metrics that can impact your agency win rates and that would be much harder to track and interpret from Excel sheets. Additionally, by connecting your agency workflows, you benefit from streamlining your employee’s day-to-day work and boosting knowledge and awareness across teams.

Productive offers a 14-day free trial, so you can check out if it is the right tool for your agency.

Strategic planning tools are used to set outcomes and keep teams aligned on agency-wide goals. An example of a strategic planning feature can be found in Productive’s financial forecasting. This feature allows you to manage your project performance and track goals with regard to not only the assigned budget and overall cost but also the profit that you’ll be making at delivery.

Strategic planning tools can help companies:

Here’s our list of some of the top available tools that can support your agency’s strategic planning efforts.

2. Asana

Asana is a project management software for professional services with time tracking, task management, project views, and resource management capabilities.

Best for: Due to its focus on collaborative features, Asana is a good pick for creative types of agencies, such as marketing, advertising, and consulting companies. As a downside, users on Capterra comment that the data visualization and analytics side of the platform could be more exhaustive.

3. Trello

Trello is a collaboration tool that helps teams organize their agency workflows through various types of project boards. Trello offers various professional and community-powered templates that support project teams.

Best for: Trello is an excellent tool for a small to medium-sized agency of any type looking for a task management solution. Known for its simple yet intuitive dashboard, this tool is best suited for companies that are not looking for a robust, comprehensive solution.

4. Notion

Notion is a virtual workspace for agency teams with an internal wiki and documentation-creating and sharing functionality (comparable to Obsidian). Users on G2 praise Notion for its customizable templates that support workflow organization.

Best for: Notion is a good pick for design, product, and development teams that could benefit from a single platform for progress and project documentation management. However, as Notion is focused more on workflow management, it’s somewhat less suitable for wide-scale agency operations support.

5. Anaplan

Anaplan is a business performance platform that offers predictive insights and real-time data with scenario planning and analysis.

Best for: As users on G2 report that the price of the platform can be inaccessible to smaller teams and that the learning curve can be steep, Anaplan should be considered by companies that are ready to invest time and resources to get the most out of the robust planning solution.

6. Lucidchart

Lucidchart is a diagramming and process mapping tool that helps teams work out complex processes, visualize ideas, and bring their plans to life.

Best for: With its collaborative features for creating business process models, data flow diagrams, organizational charts, architecture diagrams, and other flowcharts, Lucidchart is a fine specialized solution for teams that want to simplify technical systems and improve their processes through visualizations.

7. MindMeister

MindMeister is an online tool that promotes discussion and idea-sharing with highly visualized, color-code mind mapping.

Best for: MindMeister is a great specialized pick for creative and design agencies that are looking to promote creativity during the project planning process.

Financial management tools are designed to help project managers and finance professionals manage their project budgets, implement a RevOps framework, and streamline a range of administrative tasks, such as billing, compliance management, payrolls, and more.

An example of a feature that provides financial management is Productive’s Budgeting. By building your project budgets on the platform, you can get profit forecasting, streamlined invoicing, and purchase order issuing, with integrations with Xero and QuickBooks for further administrative support.

Now, let’s check out other popular types of solutions for budget management and project accounting.

Interested in learning more about agency financial management? Check out our webinar:

8. QuickBooks

QuickBooks is a specialized online project accounting software solution for smaller businesses and accountants, with features such as invoicing, expense tracking, bank feeds, and inventory management.

Best for: QuickBooks is a great tool for agencies that are looking for specialized accounting support. For more robust financial management combined with other essential agency operations features, businesses might want to consider an all-in-one solution.

QuickBooks is also a Time Doctor competitor — head over to our article to learn more.

9. Expensify

Expensify is an expense management app that helps agencies track receipts, send invoices, and pay bills.

Best for: Because of its travel management support, Expensify can be a good fit for travel and event management agencies that can take full advantage of the tool’s more specialized features.

10. FreshBooks

FreshBooks is a financial management tool with accounting and bookkeeping solutions, with additional time tracking and reporting features.

Best for: FreshBooks is a tool designed for freelancers and self-employed professionals, though it can also be used in smaller companies. Due to its simplicity and user-friendly features, FreshBooks is a good lightweight accounting software.

11. Xero

Xero is an online accounting software for small businesses, finance professionals, and bookkeepers: pay bills, claim expenses, accept payments, and more.

Best for: Users enjoy Xero for its simplicity and comparatively low learning curve that lets users without a strong financial background use it efficiently (Source: G2). It’s a good choice for small-scale financial management and automation.

12. Wave

Wave is a platform for small business accounting that offers a suite of financial management solutions, including accounting software, invoicing software, and US-only banking software.

Best for: As Wave offers its essential services with a free basic plan, it can be a good choice for smaller to medium-sized agencies with limited spending and simple needs. However, for advanced financial management, more robust tools might be a better pick.

13. Sage Intacct

Sage Intacct is a cloud-based financial management platform from the lead provider of ERP software solutions, Sage Group.

Best for: Users frequently highlight that Sage Intacct takes some time to get used to and that the pricing plans might not be suitable for smaller companies. Therefore, Sage Intacct is a good fit for agencies that are ready to put in the time and money to get the most out of it.

Head over to our article on the best BigTime alternatives to learn more about Sage Intacct and other similar solutions.

14. Zoho Books

Zoho Books is a cost management software with time tracking, reporting, inventory management, and essential bookkeeping features, such as invoicing and purchase orders.

Best for: Zoho Books is best for handling basic accounting tasks, with the added benefit of financial support. It’s a good low-cost, essential software to get started with.

Project and agency management tools offer a wide range of features that help managers get a granular and large-picture overview of their projects and overall operations. These types of software can:

An example of a project management feature is Productive’s Task Management, which lets you organize your tasks into project boards, manage deadlines and dependencies, and share your progress with clients.

Here are some of the other best agency tools for project and operations management.

15. Jira

Jira is a tool tailored to agile project management, with features including Scrum and Kanban boards, sprint reports, burndown and velocity charts, and integrations with development platforms such as GitHub.

Best for: Jira is the most recommended solution for project management for website development. Software and web development agencies that work in agile teams will be able to take full advantage of Jira’s DevOps and development integrations.

16. Smartsheet

Smartsheet is an enterprise work management platform for tracking project plans, resources, and schedules, with solutions for a variety of industries.

Best for: As Smartsheet’s user interface has some similarities with Excel spreadsheets, it’s a good choice to consider for agencies making a switch from one to the other. However, in comparison to some competitors in the market, certain users remark that some features such as view customization and automation could be improved (Source: Capterra).

Learn more about Smartsheet in our list of Bitrix24 alternatives.

17. Wrike

Wrike is a project management software with client portal features and other capabilities, including Kanban boards, project resource planning, and agency workflow automation.

Best for: Marketing and creative teams might enjoy Wrike’s variety of pre-built templates, such as sheets for creative briefs, competitor analysis, content calendars, marketing campaign management, and more. As a downside, users mostly note that Wrike is somewhat complex to use at first (Source: G2).


18. Basecamp

Basecamp is an online platform that helps smaller teams organize their projects and communicate more effectively.

Best for: Basecamp is a good fit for smaller to medium-sized agencies that provide essential project and operations features, such as tasks, time tracking, and resource planning. However, for more in-depth financial management, a more robust all-in-one solution might work better.

Basecamp can also be a good Workflow max replacement; head over to our article to learn more.

19. ClickUp

ClickUp is a project management tool that helps teams achieve their goals with task and time tracking, collaborative documentation, and dashboard visualizations.

Best for: Due to its collaborative features, ClickUp is a fine choice for teams that work remotely. On Capterra, the most frequently mentioned downside of the tool is the learning curve – some users also feel that the platform can be somewhat difficult to navigate.

20. Monday.com

Monday.com is a comprehensive platform for project management, business operations, and goal tracking.

Best for: Monday.com is a good choice for essential project and operations management, though the platform lacks depth when it comes to advanced financial insights that can help your agency get ahead of the curve, such as profit forecasting and agency utilization rates. There are also more robust resource scheduling tool alternatives available.

21. Toggl

Toggl is a project management platform that offers three distinct types of tools: Toggl Track for time tracking, Toggl Plan for work planning, and Toggl Hire for hiring.

Best for: Using one of Toggl’s tools might be advantageous for agencies that are looking to satisfy a niche, specialized need with a more limited, affordable tool. Toggl will usually be a good complement to another type of project management tool.

Client relationship management (CRM) tools help agencies optimize the process of acquiring and retaining clients. With an agency CRM tool, you can store your prospects and all associated communications in one place, track your progress and manage stages of the sales pipeline, manage marketing campaigns, and get actionable reports on your performance. Some general benefits of good CRM tools are better knowledge-sharing between team members and teams, transparent business practices and timely communications, and ultimately improved client communications and retention.

For example, Productive offers a lightweight CRM feature: you can set and manage your sales pipeline with boards, track reasons for lost leads, and get insights into your sales performance, such as forecasted revenue, statistics per sales representative, and more.

For more robust solutions, check out our list of the best CRM for project management below:

22. Salesforce

Salesforce is an online platform that offers a variety of solutions for businesses, including a CRM tool, Sales Cloud. The Sales Cloud helps guide sellers through the sales cycle, delivers analytics and revenue intelligence, and provides sales performance management support.

Best for: The Salesforce Sales Cloud is a robust CRM and revenue intelligence software that can be a good pick for larger agencies that need to organize complex sales cycles.

23. HubSpot CRM

HubSpot CRM supports sales and marketing teams with two distinct solutions: Hubspot Marketing Hub and HubSpot Sales Hub. The software offers features such as contact and pipeline management, as well as ad management, lead generation, email marketing, and landing page building.

Best for: If you’re running or working in a marketing or advertising agency, HubSpot CRM is a popular choice, with a variety of useful features to optimize your marketing strategy. As the main downside, users note that the pricing plans can be on the higher side, so this tool is best suited to agencies that are ready to invest in a robust solution for client management.

We also covered HubSpot in our list of the top Accelo competitors, so you can head over to that article to learn more.

24. Pipedrive

Pipedrive is a CRM platform that takes a visual approach to sales and email marketing strategies. Set up your pipeline, track progress, and automate growth with Pipedrive.

Best for: Pipedrive is a cost-friendly solution for sales-focused agencies. Smaller agencies can benefit from the affordable, basic pricing plan, and upgrade to more marketing and sale features if necessary.

25. Zoho CRM

Zoho CRM is an extensive consulting CRM for businesses that require multichannel marketing support, workflow automation, and advanced analytics.

Best for: Zoho CRM is a good option for an agency with service lines across multiple social media platforms. One of Zoho CRM’s biggest advantages is its wide range of integrations, though users on G2 equally note that implementation of the same can prove challenging.

26. Freshsales

Freshsales is a CRM tool from the Freshworks platform. It provides agencies with an in-depth view of customer information, email and chat campaign support, various sales automation, deal management, and more. Freshworks also offers a chatbot solution, Freshchat.

Best for: Freshsales is a streamlined choice for small to medium-sized agencies, with a user-friendly interface and easy-to-understand navigation.

27. Nimble

Nimble is a social CRM that focuses on data enrichment and contact management, with additional features such as outreach marketing and sales reporting.

Best for: Users on G2 praise Nimble for allowing them to effortlessly keep in touch with key contacts. This is why Nimble is recommended for smaller agencies of all types, but especially those with contact management pain points, such as social media or PR agencies.

28. Insightly

Insightly is a platform that provides multiple types of agency-focused solutions. Insightly CRM is an affordable CRM solution designed for fast-growing agencies.

Best for: Capterra reviewers that switch to Insightly from other CRM platforms mostly underline the platform’s affordability and ease of use, making it a good choice for businesses on a tighter budget or implementation schedule.

In short, tools for marketing agencies are designed to help agency teams effectively execute their marketing strategy. They can provide support with a variety of marketing-related tasks, including online advertising, social, marketing SEO, content management, event marketing, lead generation, marketing automation, email sequences and email campaigns, and more.

Best tools for digital marketing agencies can help you standardize and streamline your marketing agency operations, enhance your agency’s online presence, and optimize your messaging to better connect with your target audience.

See also: Choosing the Best Marketing Agency Software for Managing Your Agency

29. Mailchimp

Mailchimp is an email marketing software and automation platform with robust email templates and personalization, as well as campaign monitoring capabilities.

Best for: Mailchimp is a formidable tool for agencies that are looking to optimize their email marketing strategies, with a drag-and-drop editor that is simple to use and customize, as well as in-depth reporting capabilities.

30. Google Ads

Google Ads is Google’s pay-per-click (PPC) platform, frequently utilized for search engine results page (SERP) ads, but also YouTube ads, shopping ads, and others.

Best for: Google Ads is a powerful platform for gaining agency visibility across Google’s properties and can be a valuable asset for any digital marketing and advertising agency.

31. SEMrush

SEMrush is an online marketing platform that offers a full suite of functionalities, including SEO, content marketing, PPC, link building, and social media marketing.

Best for: Users recommend SEMrush for its powerful SEO and competitor tracking functionalities, so this tool is suitable for any agency looking to resolve associated challenges.

32. Moz

Moz is a marketing tool tailored for SEO management and optimization, with site audits, rank tracking, backlink analysis, and other essential search engine optimization features.

Best for: G2 reviewers consider Moz a somewhat expensive solution that can be overwhelming for inexperienced users; therefore, Moz is the best choice for large professional agencies, or smaller companies that are willing to invest time and money to scale their SEO.

33. Sprout Social

Sprout Social is a social media management tool that helps digital marketing agencies scale their engagement and optimize their social media content and campaigns.

Best for: Sprout Social caters to agencies of all sizes, however, due to its comparatively higher pricing points, it might be best suited to larger companies that do a lot of social scheduling and manage large amounts of social media posts.

34. ActiveCampaign

ActiveCampaign for Marketing provides businesses with email personalization and workflow automation aimed at increasing engagement and consolidating data.

Best for: As ActiveCampaign offers its marketing software and sales CRM both separately and as a bundle, it can be a good deal for agencies that are looking to combine the two.

35. Marketo

Marketo Engage is Adobe’s marketing automation platform that helps attract, segment, and nurture customers across all channels.

Best for: Marketo Engage is a robust and complex software best suited to large marketing agencies with diverse needs, including automation, lead management, email marketing, and more.

36. Hootsuite

Hootsuite is a social media management platform that helps agencies schedule and generate ideas for social media posts, engage with customers across multiple networks, monitor activity, and optimize advertising strategies.

Best for: Users usually switch to Hootsuite from other social media management tools due to more affordable pricing. As such, it can be a good alternative for smaller creative teams in digital marketing or other creative agencies for managing creative projects.

See how a digital agency with globally recognized clients gets full control of its funnel:

Reporting tools for data analysis are used in order to process large amounts of data and translate complex insights into more easily understood reports and visualizations. These types of tools help agencies iterate and optimize their operations on the basis of sound, accurate data, supporting decision-making at all organizational levels.

37. Google Analytics

Google Analytics is Google’s service for tracking websites and generating reports. It offers a free and paid plan that provides advanced web analytics features.

Best for: Google Analytics is one of the most powerful tools for website analytics but requires some knowledge to properly configure to agency needs. It can be an asset to a wide variety of digital agencies.

38. Tableau

Tableau is a business development and analytics software from Salesforce that helps agencies become more data-driven with visual analytics and data storytelling.

Best for: Tableau is a versatile data analytics solution that can be used across a variety of industries, including financial services, healthcare, public sector, retail and consumer goods, and industrial products.

39. Sisense

Sisense is an AI-powered analytics platform that offers embedding, Git integrations, scalability, and analytics across all skill levels, including no or low code.

Best for: Capterra reviewers praise Sisense as a value-for-money solution for agencies that are looking to upgrade their business intelligence or data analytics.

40. Looker

Looker is a business intelligence and data visualization platform that is part of the Google Cloud Platform. It offers essential analytical features, including data organization, embedded analytics applications, and data modeling.

Best for: Reviewers on G2 praise Looker for being a user-friendly solution for data-driven agencies of all levels of coding skills. As its main cons, some highlight that loading and refreshing can be slow at times, especially with large amounts of data.

41. Mixpanel

Mixpanel is an analytics solution that helps agencies get real-time user insights and break it down by their behavior, demographics, or account.

Best for: With its functionality to embed reports into design tools such as Figma or Coda and focus on creative expression, Mixpanel is a good analytics option for design teams and creative agencies.

42. Kissmetrics

Kissmetrics is a streamlined platform for tracking user behavior and engagement, designed to help reduce churns and increase revenue.

Best for: G2 reviewers recommend the analytics platform for companies that have a dedicated IT department to help implement and maintain it.

43. Heap

Heap is a digital insights platform where agencies gain a full understanding of customer journeys in order to improve retention and customer satisfaction.

Best for: Users on G2 comment that Heap can be somewhat difficult to use at first. As such, it’s best suited to companies with previous experience with analytics tools, or patience and time to get the most out of the tool.

The tools in this category are most often used by UI/UX professionals and design teams in creative companies. They’re aimed at streamlining design processes and team collaborations in order to facilitate the creation of visually appealing digital products that satisfy client requirements.

Designer project management software are most often used by UI/UX professionals and design teams in creative companies. They’re aimed at streamlining design processes and team collaborations in order to facilitate the creation of visually appealing digital products that satisfy client requirements.

Though these tools are more focused on supporting design and development, you can also consider our list of the best project management software for creative agency workflows.

44. Adobe Creative Suite

The Adobe Creative Suite offers a variety of products for illustration, design, social media, video editing, and more, including Photoshop, Illustrator, Premiere Pro, Adobe Express, and more.

Best for: The Adobe Creative Suite offers an essential array of features that can be an invaluable addition to any creative or design agency.

45. Canva

Canva is a free-to-use tool with premium features that offers streamlined graphic design with customizable templates.

Best for: Canva is best suited to marketing teams within small agencies and startups that need to make simplified designs for social media, presentations, or similar promotional material.

46. Figma

Figma is a collaborative tool that helps designers create and share custom prototypes and designs for businesses of all sizes.

Best for: Figma is an essential tool for design and UX agencies of all sizes, with a free plan for individuals and smaller businesses.

47. InVision

InVision is an online whiteboard and productivity platform that helps designers create prototypes and collaborate more efficiently.

Best for: Users on Capterra comment that InVision lacks some features, so they frequently create designs in Figma, and then transfer them to Invision to make them interactive. It can be a good complement to a more robust UI/UX design tool for creative agencies.

Vendor and supply chain management tools are aimed at helping businesses manage supplier relationships and optimize their supply chain efficiency. Some features of these types of tools are: purchase order management, inventory management, customer demand planning, and transportation and logistics optimization.

48. SAP

SAP is a platform that offers a variety of business modules for procurement and supply chain management. This includes the SAP Business Network, previously known as Ariba Network, which helps buyers and suppliers collaborate and discover new opportunities.

Best for: SAP solutions are best suited to large agencies and enterprises with complex supply chain and vendor management needs.

49. Coupa

Coupa is cloud-based business spend management software that supports businesses with procurement, supply chain planning and management, spend analysis, and more.

Best for: Users on G2 praise Coupa for being a user-friendly, easily accessible business management application for agencies with multiple vendors.

Risk management software supports project managers in assessing and addressing potential project risks. These types of tools help identify risks, assign probability and severity ratings, develop strategies to reduce them, and assist in documenting and managing compliance.

50. Spiceworks

Spiceworks is a free IT tool for sysadmins, network engineers, and technicians, that provides support with managing users and setting up and troubleshooting networks.

Best for: Spiceworks can be a great asset for IT management and risk assessment in agencies with in-house IT teams.

51. LogicGate

LogicGate is an integrated platform for governance and compliance management, risk assessment automation, and data-driven insights.

Best for: With its large suite of enterprise and cloud risk solutions for various risk factors, LogicGate is a good pick for larger agencies from various industries with compliance needs.

Broadly speaking, under leadership and culture tools we understand tools that improve team collaboration and communication or help agencies keep track of their employee’s progress and wellbeing. Some features of such tools are real-time knowledge-sharing, survey questionnaires for feedback gathering, as well as reporting and action planning.

52. Slack

Slack is a cloud-based platform for team communication and collaboration, with document sharing, chat group creation, audio and video calling functionalities, and a variety of integrations.

Best for: Slack is a suitable communication tool for all agency types, with a free and premium service model depending on how complex your needs are.

53. 15Five

15Five is a performance management company that aims to improve manager effectiveness and increase employee engagement and retention, with weekly check-ins, feedback scheduling, and an employee recognition system.

Best for: 15Five is a good option for mid-sized agencies that want to help managers monitor employee well-being more closely.

54. Zendesk

Zendesk offers a customer service solution for agencies of all sizes. Zendesk supports meaningful connections with customers through messaging, Help Center, ticketing, and other customer-facing features.

Best for: Agencies that have customer support teams may enjoy Zendesk for its user-friendly, intuitive approach.

55. SurveyMonkey

SurveyMonkey offers online surveys and form-building features that can be used for employee and event feedback and customer satisfaction.

Best for: SurveyMonkey can be useful for any client-facing agencies, as well as specialized marketing agencies that frequently perform market research.

56. GitHub

GitHub is a development platform for building and delivering software, with code repository and version control features.

Best for: GitHub is an essential tool for software development agencies, or any other type of agency with an internal development team.

57. Docker

Docker is a platform tailored to support developers in the containerization and deployment of secure applications.

Best for: Docker is a reliable software for setting up development environments and streamlining team collaboration with DevOps or software development agencies.

58. Evernote

Evernote is a note-taking and information organization tool with smart search, web page annotation, task creation, and calendar scheduling.

Best for: Evernote can be a handy addition to agencies that put an emphasis on collaboration and brainstorming, such as creative, consulting, or research agencies, though it can also be of use within specialized teams or projects.

Learn more about the best software for consultants.

59. Dropbox

Dropbox is a secure file storage and sharing platform. Dropbox also offers additional services, such as eSigning, collaborative documentation, and password storing and syncing.

Best for: Dropbox is a suitable platform for middle-sized to large agencies that need to manage large amounts of data and sync and share files between in-house or remote teams.

60. LastPass

LastPass is a password management solution for the secure storage of passwords and sharing across agency teams.

Best for: LastPass is a good tool for agencies that are using a variety of tools and want to safely manage and share their passwords across employees.

61. Zoom

Zoom Meetings is a video, audio, and content-sharing platform for mobile and desktop devices.

Best for: Zoom is especially suitable for agencies with teams that do a lot of remote work, or those working with international clients that have an increased need for reliable video conferencing.

62. WordPress
WordPress is a widely-used content management system (CMS) that enables agencies to create and manage websites with ease. It offers extensive customization options through themes and plugins, making it highly versatile for various business needs.

Best for: WordPress is ideal for digital marketing, design, and content-focused agencies that require a flexible platform to build websites tailored to client needs, offering scalability for projects of any size.

63. Webflow
Webflow is a visual web design platform that empowers agencies to create professional, fully-responsive websites without extensive coding knowledge. Its drag-and-drop interface, integrated CMS, and hosting solutions streamline the website development process, making it faster and more accessible.

Best for: Webflow is a great WordPress alternative perfect for creative and design agencies looking to deliver high-quality websites quickly.

Specialized agency tools can help you tackle the following essential challenges of agency project management:

Additionally, some generalized benefits of using software instead of manual processes are: saving time and maximizing productivity by cutting repetitive busywork, minimizing the potential for human error, improving visibility and client communications, and standardized team processes that make onboarding and resource reallocation more efficient.

As we’ve seen throughout the article, nowadays there are as many solutions as there are challenges in day-to-day agency operations. Finding the best agency software for your needs isn’t easy, but it can be simplified with proper research and user testimonials. Although we can’t provide you with a one-for-all hack that is foolproof for all agency types, we can give you some general advice.

First, make sure your vendor is dedicated to improving their products and connecting with their customers. You can gauge this by their social media presence, or check their blogs for roadmaps or feature updates. Additionally, keep an eye on the website design, and whether users describe the platform as user-friendly or simple to navigate. Even though a platform has complex features, it should make them as simple as possible to use, or provide enough materials to streamline user onboarding.

Keeping an eye out for these two things will make your life easier by helping you implement the new tool into your processes more efficiently, and lessen the chance of your business outgrowing your software.

For an intuitive, all-in-one agency management software, book a demo with Productive and start optimizing your agency operations today.

Agency tools target different needs and challenges depending on your industry, agency, or client type. Though categorizations of these tools might differ, we can roughly classify them into the following main types:

Before you implement an agency tool into your organization, make sure that your agency teams are aligned with this change in processes. User resistance is one of the main reasons for failure in software implementation, so keep your teams educated on the benefits certain agency tools can bring to their daily workflows. The next step is identifying the main point of contact: who will be in charge of making sure the implementation is successful, and who will collaborate with the vendor?

The implementation process itself often includes configuration, data migration, testing, and user training. As with any project, set deadlines for your implementation and track progress to avoid the implementation stretching out necessarily and becoming a drain on your time and resources.

First, before you make any kinds of training plans, assess your team’s skills. Is it their first time using similar tools, are are you switching between different solutions? This will tell you how in-depth onboarding needs to be for them to learn the basic and advanced features of the new agency tool. Then, make sure to use all vendor-provided resources. This will vary from company to company, but most software will have some or all forms of learning materials, including articles, tutorials, webinars, or personalized demos with customer success representatives. Finally, the best way to get teams used to new software is to encourage use and feedback.

Implementation isn’t a one-and-done process, so configuring and tweaking your software with regard to feedback is a great way of making sure that you’re getting the most out of your software solution.

Measuring the return on investment (ROI) of a software implementation can be tricky, as software can bring many intangible benefits that can nevertheless bring very real results to your agency’s success, such as employee or customer satisfaction. However, if you want to measure the quantifiable benefits, you can do this by subtracting the implementation costs, which would include subscription, migration, training, operational, and any other fees, from the value of your investment. Quantifiable benefits of agency tools might include revenue growth from more successful project delivery, cost savings by switching to a more affordable solution, or improved productivity and efficiency by cutting down non-billable hours.

Marketing agencies use a variety of software solutions. Some examples of popular solutions include Productive for project management, HubSpot for deals and marketing automation, Semrush for SEO, Looker Studio and Google Analytics for data.