Replicon Alternatives & Competitors: Top Picks for Agencies

Lucija Bakić

February 28, 2024

Screenshot of Productive, one of top Replicon alternatives, showing tasks, statuses, and due dates.

You’ll find the best Replicon alternatives here.

Research on tools can be time-consuming.

This is why we’re here to explore the best alternatives to Replicon, a popular solution for agency time tracking software and human resources management.

You’ll find various useful solutions with their key features, benefits, and downsides explored.

Why Consider Replicon Alternatives?

Replicon is described as a knowledge workforce management platform with solutions for time management, attendance tracking, resource scheduling, and PSA.

It’s a suitable tool for businesses across all industries, including manufacturing, construction, nonprofits, as well as IT and professional services. 

Resource allocation chart with names and percentages representing individual workload over a timeline


SOURCE: REPLICON

Replicon has a 4.3-star rating on G2 and a 4.5 rating on Capterra. Some of the downsides of the tool include:

  • The implementation process can be lengthy and complex, especially when customization is needed
  • Replicon is sold in separate modules, which can be advantageous, but can also make decision-making more difficult
  • As it’s not designed to be a PSA tool, Replicon can include features not compatible or not needed for agency workflows
  • Certain users report some minor difficulties with certain features, such as reporting and time tracking

Regarding the benefits of Replicon, multiple reviews underline that customer service is very responsive and helpful. Additionally, users report that they enjoy the robust feature set and that performance is, for the most part, reliable, even when taking on complex actions.

Our List of The Top 14 Replicon Alternatives

1. Productive – The Top Replicon Alternative for All-in-One Agency Management

Productive is an all-in-one agency management software solution. It’s designed to support the business performance and daily workflows of agencies of all shapes and sizes.

The biggest difference between Productive and Replicon is in their comprehensiveness. Though both tools have advanced features, Productive offers this all in a single platform, while Replicon approaches this with separate modules for time tracking, PSA, and more.

According to research, more than 50% of agencies don’t use integrated platforms that enable real-time or detailed business health insights (SoDa & Productive).

However, centralizing your workstreams in one place can bring many benefits, like standardization across your project portfolio, streamlined daily workflows, and potentially reduced tech stack costs.

We used to have a project management tool, a time tracking tool, a support tool, a way we handled opportunities and sales-driven processes. Those were all separate tools that we had, and it wasn’t good. It also meant that all that data was being lost every time we switched between tools, or we had to find a way to normalize the data between them. And now, the fact that it’s all in one, it’s really a game changer.

Bryan Casler,
Vice President of Digital Strategy at 4Site Interactive Studios

Let’s explore some of Productive’s key features for a more in-depth comparison.

Time Tracking

Productive’s Time Tracking feature aims to simplify billable and non-billable hours management for employees and project managers.

A time tracking interface from Productive, one of the top Replicon alternatives, depicting time entries with descriptions, services, and total time tracked.


STREAMLINE HOW YOUR TEAMS TRACK TIME

This includes:

  • Multiple ways to create a time entry (timer or manual)
  • Automatic time tracking with Resource Planning
  • Timer widget for desktop
  • Sync with Google and Outlook Calendar
  • Bulk editing and approving
  • Time-off requests management

Resource Planning

Productive’s Resource Planning feature helps you get the most out of your agency’s resources. First, create a responsive resource plan. The way you create bookings is highly flexible, so you can choose to allocate hours across percentages or specific amounts.

The interface of Productive, on of the top Replicon alternatives, depicting a resource plan with color-coded bookings allocated per employee across different projects.


filter your view by people or projects

You can account for external staff with placeholders. If you’re unsure of how to allocate resources best, or you have unconfirmed projects or tasks, use tentative bookings. Tentative bookings can also be used as filters in your KPI reports to check the impact certain changes have on your current project performance, such as profitability. When you’re happy with your allocation, you can easily convert them into confirmed bookings.

A chart created in Productive, one of the top Replicon alternatives, with insights into remaining time, budgets, and invoicing amounts on a client project.


make informed project decisions

Productive also lets you visualize and forecast your utilization, one of the key metrics of successful capacity planning. Use these insights to guide your business decisions and balance workloads across your agency.

Budgeting

Productive’s Budgeting feature lets you build and manage your project budgets for various types of engagements. This includes fixed-price and hourly projects. For retainers, you can automate budget creation, while complex projects can be segmented into multiple budgets for easier money management.

Set up your cost rates, manage overhead costs, and get automated warnings to prevent budget overruns with Productive.

A chart created in Productive, one of the top Replicon alternatives, depicting revenue and margin insights grouped by company.


manage budgets across projects

Other essential features include:

  • Billing: Pull data from your time tracking, whether it’s uninvoiced amounts or billable hours, and create brand-friendly invoices. You can connect Productive with project accounting apps such as Xero, QuickBooks, and Exact, and take it from there.
  • Purchase Orders: Manage your external expenses by sending purchase orders directly from the platform, tracking payments, and keeping a close eye on delivery dates.
Simplified digital purchase order template created in Productive, one of the top Replicon alternatives, displaying service category, expense details, and total amount.


AUTOMATE ADMINISTRATIVE TASKS

Project Management

Productive’s Project Management provides full visibility into project progress. Utilize multiple project views, including Kanban and Gantt. Manage hierarchies easily through milestones, to-dos, subtasks, and dependencies. Project updates are streamlined with customizable notifications and custom fields for statuses.

Additionally, you can invite your clients to project boards free of charge to speed up the feedback process and drive transparency across stakeholders.

Having a complete overview of projects, open tasks, team occupancy, and profitability—it makes project management so much easier.

Nika Serdoner,
Project Manager at ENKI

Reporting

According to Capterra, one of the biggest issues of Replicon is that:

All the project management modules that don’t talk to each other cause problems in data analysis and management.

In Productive, Reporting pulls and combines information from all your platform activities, including time tracking, resource planning, budgeting, invoicing, sales, and much more. Use more than 50 agency-focused templates and add custom fields for agency-specific parameters.

You can create visualizations, arrange them on a dashboard, and share them with relevant team members, or have them scheduled to email.

A project report created in Productive, one of the top Replicon alternatives, showing the percentage of billable hours vs hours worked per department and employee.


OPTIMIZE YOUR COMPANY PERFORMANCE WITH REAL-TIME DATA

Additional features include: Sales, Docs, Automations.

Integrations include: Xero, QuickBooks, HubSpot, BambooHR, Zapier, Slack, Jira, and more.

Pricing

  • Plans start with the Essential plan at $9 per user per month, which includes essential features such as budgeting, project & task management, docs, time tracking, expense management, reporting, and time off management.
  • The Professional plan includes custom fields, recurring budgets, advanced reports, billable time approvals, and many more for $24 per user per month.
  • The Ultimate plan has everything that the Essential plan and Professional plan offer, along with the HubSpot integration, advanced forecasting, advanced custom fields, overhead calculations, and more for $32 per user per month.

Productive offers a 14-day free trial, so you can try it out before committing to a paid plan.

Choose the Best Replicon Alternative

Unlock your agency’s potential with an all-in-one tool that supports your key business processes.

Book a demo

2. Wrike – A Good Alternative for Resource Planning 

Wrike is a work management software designed to support agency project management for professional services.

Key features:

  • Workspace management
  • Integrated time tracking
  • Resource bookings
  • Essential budgeting & invoicing
Screenshot from one of the top Replicon alternatives, depicting a Gantt chart with color coded tasks, start and due dates.


SOurce: wrike

Wrike can be a good Replicon alternative for professionals who are looking for a tool designed for agencies. It offers essential support with project views, resource planning, and basic budgeting and invoicing. However, if you’re looking for advanced financial management, remember that Wrike doesn’t offer it in its basic pricing plans — you can check comparisons with other competitors, such as Wrike vs Asana, to learn more.

3. Timesheets.com – A Good Option for Time Tracking Tools

Timesheets.com is a billable hours tracker software for freelancers, non-profits, and other organizations.

Key features:

The interface of one of the top Replicon alternatives, depicting a time and expense dashboard which shows clock in times and hours worked by employee.


Source: timesheets.com

Timesheets can be a handy alternative to Replicon, especially for non-profits, who can get it for a discounted price. Users enjoy it as a specialized tool for time tracking with additional payroll and HR management features. However, consider that you’ll need another tool for more robust project management and resource planning.

4. Planview AdaptiveWork – A Complex Alternative for Agencies

Planview AdaptiveWork, previously known as Clarizen, is a project portfolio management software.

Key features:

Interface of one of the top Replicon alternatives, displaying team member profiles and a list of tasks with due dates.


source: planview adaptivework

Planview AdaptiveWork can be a good Replicon alternative for agency professionals who want to invest more in resource management. However, it’s notable that Planview AdaptiveWork is a complex solution that can be difficult and expensive to implement. If you don’t have enough resources to get the most out of the platform, consider a simpler, more intuitive solution instead.

5. UKG Pro – A Billing and HR Software Alternative

UKG Pro is a workforce management platform tailored to organizations that want employee management and payroll features.

Key features:

  • Online timesheets
  • Human resource management
  • Automated payrolls
  • People & time analytics
A screenshot of one of top Replicon Alternatives, depicting an interface for managing payrolls by pay group, type, pay period, and payroll status.


source: ukg pro

Agencies that are looking mainly to manage their talent and workforce productivity can consider UKG Pro as their solution. However, it should be noted that the tool has some negative reviews on Capterra, with the main downside being outdated UI/UX and insufficient documentation.

6. Journyx – A Good Time Tracking Software

Journyx is a scheduling software for mid-sized to large organizations that need to manage in-house or remote teams.

Key features:

  • Employee time clocks
  • Time off management
  • Powerful reports & templates
  • Resource management
Two graphs created in one of the top Replicon alternatives, displaying late timesheets by user and billable utilization percentages.


source: journyx

Journyx is another good pick for time tracking software with human resource management features. Regarding pricing, Journyx offers a custom price for every agency, which can complicate and prolong the decision-making process. As a benefit, users like the fact that Journyx can be easily customized.

7. Monday.com – One of the Best Replicon Competitors for Project Management

Monday.com is a work management platform for teams in businesses across various industries.

Key features:

  • Workflow automations
  • Customizable dashboards
  • Project performance management
  • Time tracker
Task tracking chart from one of the top Replicon alternatives, depicting columns for task names, owners, and status indicators.


source: monday.com

If you’re looking for a more integrated tool, Monday.com can be a good alternative to Replicon. It provides the essential features needed to manage employee productivity and get accurate insights into project performance. However, consider that some advanced features, such as financial management and forecasting, are limited.

8. BigTime – A Productivity and Time-Based Tool

BigTime is a professional services automation (PSA) software with a wide range of features for productivity tracking.

Key features:

  • Accurate timesheets
  • Client billing
  • Employee scheduling
  • Project planning
Dashboard from one of the top Replicon alternatives, displaying billability percentage chart and workforce utilization with total staff numbers.


source: bigtime

Users usually enjoy BigTime as a software platform for professional services agencies. Although they find it easy to use for the most part, some most frequently mentioned downsides include issues with the billing and reporting capabilities.

You can also check out some of the top BigTime alternatives to learn more. BigTime is also an Accelo alternative, so you can also head over to that article.

9. Parallax – An Advanced Capacity Planning Option

Parallax is a capacity planning software solution that provides real-time insights into agency resources.

Key features:

  • Resource allocation
  • Project expenses
  • Sales pipeline
  • Financial forecasting
Schedule table created in one of the top Replicon alternatives, displaying team members' roles and allocated hours for work tasks.


source: parallax

Parallax can be a good choice for agencies who need to improve their capacity management and forecasting. Though users mainly enjoy Parallax, the most frequently mentioned downside is that the tool can be hard to get used to, especially for ground-level team members. This is worth considering, as usability can significantly impact adoption.

10. BQE CORE – A Top Alternative for Architects

BQE CORE is an architecture project management software solution with in-depth features for cost tracking and client billing.

Key features:

  • Track employee hours
  • Financial reporting
  • Employee scheduling
  • Manage labor costs
Comparative donut charts created in one of the top Replicon alternatives, showing income and expenses for the last 12 months in various categories.


source: bqe core

BQE CORE can be a great Replicon alternative for businesses within the A&E sector. As a specialized tool, it’s a top choice for architecture firms. However, agencies from different industries might find that some features don’t align perfectly with their unique workflow requirements or needs.

11. Paychex Flex – A Good Accounting and HR Alternative

Paychex Flex is an HR platform with tax compliance, automated payroll and other project based accounting capabilities.

Key features:

  • Expense tracking
  • Manage billable rates
  • Attendance tracking
  • Detailed reports
Human resources dashboard of one of the top Replicon alternatives, showing current payroll information, recent payroll details, employee registration stats, and task reminders.


source: paychex flex

While users find the platform easy to use and navigate, a notable downside is the customer service. Multiple reviews mention that their representative is not easy to get a hold of and that resolving issues can be a lengthy process.

12. Toggl Track – A User-Friendly Time Tracking Option

Toggl Track is a time tracking app known for its user-friendly and intuitive interface.

Key features:

  • Accurate time tracking
  • Time analytics
  • Hourly rate management
  • Client billing
The interface of one of top Replicon alternatives, depicting a dhasboard with billable vs clocked hours and hourly charts per day of the week.


source: toggl track

You can’t go wrong using Toggl Track as your professional services time tracking software. For essential project budget and cost tracking features, Toggl Track can be a great Replicon alternative. However, for more robust project management and resource planning features, a more comprehensive tool might be better.

13. Projector PSA – A Comprehensive Solution for Agencies

Projector PSA is a software solution from BigTime that provides detailed insights into agency operations.

Key features:

  • Utilization insights
  • Revenue forecasting
  • Project management
  • Advanced analytics with Projector BI
Bar graph created in one of the top Replicon alternatives, displaying various projects with corresponding profit values.


source: projector psa

Projector PSA is well-reviewed overall and considered a good solution for professional services agencies. Some users mention that the UX has room to improve. The pricing is fully custom, which can prolong the decision-making process, as it requires contacting the sales team.

14. Smartsheet – A Management Tool With Spreadsheets Features

Smartsheet is a project management tool that helps cross-functional and individual teams manage their work.

Key features:

  • Project planning
  • Task management
  • Resource Planning
  • Custom reports
A screenshot of one of top Replicon alternatives, depicting a Gantt chart with estimated vs actual expenses for labor and materials.


source: smartsheet

Although Smartsheet has some powerful features for agencies, it might not be the best solution for users looking for a modernized user experience. The app is designed specifically to appeal to users of spreadsheets, and some reviews have called it outdated compared to similar tools (learn more in our list to the top Adobe Workfont competitors).

Takeaway: Finding the Best Replicon Alternatives

We’ve explored a variety of potential options to use as a Replicon alternative, some that are more complex, some that specialize in a certain functionality, and others that are suited for specific industries.

There is often no single best choice for agencies, as your ideal tool depends significantly on your agency’s needs and circumstances. However, consider three additional criteria: user-friendliness, scalability, and comprehensiveness. An all-in-one tool with a modern interface can go a long way toward helping you achieve your agency’s full potential.

To find out more about the benefits of comprehensive agency management tools, book a demo with Productive.

FAQ

Is Replicon cloud based?

Yes, Replicon is a cloud-based software solution, which means that it can be accessed online and implemented more conveniently than enterprise alternatives. Cloud-based tools are slightly less secure but offer more flexibility and ease of use.

What is the Replicon tool?

Replicon is a knowledge workforce management platform that offers modules suitable for various industries. This includes time tracking and attendance management tools, human resources management, and PSA and project portfolio management (PPM) software. It’s a popular software choice for business performance management in manufacturing, construction, non-profit, IT, and professional services industries. It’s also a well-known Harvest alternative.

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Lucija Bakić

Content Specialist

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