Creative Agency Project Management Software: 10 Tools Compared for 2026

How we compared the ten tools

We compared the same eight capabilities using each vendors pricing pages, product pages and help documentation, checked on 9 October 2026. A feature is market as "not listed" where we could not find it in those sources. This does not confirm that the feature is unavailable. Ask the vendor to demonstrate any requirement that remains unclear using the plan you are considering.

Magnetic publishes this guide and is included in the comparison. We have identified its plan restrictions and integration requirements on the same basis as the other tools. Our recommendations reflect the vendors documentation and the sections below explain the reasons for each recommendation.

The Digital Project Manager assesses creative agency tools against request intake, proofing, and annotation, approval workflows, version management, resource planning and workflow templates. It discusses time and budget tracking as buying considerations rather than scored criteria. In this guide, delivery and financial management receive equal attention because both affect project profitability. Prices are showing in US dollars per user per month, following each vendors published rates. We include annual and monthly billing where both are available.

The ten tools at a glance

How the ten compare feature by feature

The first table covers how you plan and deliver projects. The second compares estimates, billing and financial reporting, including what you can track against the agreed budget. Where the vendor specifieds a plan requirement it is included in the relevant cell.

Wrike, Screendragon and ClickUp provide creative review features but list limited or no support for invoicing and retainers. Magnetic, Productive, Scoro and Kantata offer more financial functionality, without native proofing. Workamajig and Teamwork.com both include proofing and invoicing. Workamajig's published pricing starts at ten users, while Teamwork.com requires a higher plan to unlock several financial features. Check both requirements before comparing subscription costs.

Platforms for agency operations and financial oversight

1. Magnetic

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Best for:

Agencies that need to manage sales, delivery and finance in one system. Magnetic connects CRM and forecasting with project planning, resourcing, timesheets and billing, so account managers, project leads and finance can work from the same project record.

• Signed opportunities become projects. On Pro, you can turn cost-estimate line items into tasks, keeping delivery tied to the scope you quoted.
• Plan delivery with templates, sub-projects, Kanban and Gantt charts. Keep briefs, files and comments linked to the work and setup recurring tasks and reminders.
• Allocate people by skill and capacity, accounting for leave and likely pipeline demand. Essentials includes resourcing and the capacity dashboard.
• Track billable and non billable time with approvals on every plan. Pro's Outlook and Google Calendar integrations populate timesheet entries from linked calendar events.
• Set budgets alerts and track retainers in monthly sub-projects, so extra revisions show against the month's agree budget
• Pro adds client rate cards, purchases, expenses and multi-currency invoicing for fixed-price, time-based and retainer work with Xero, Quickbooks and Sage Connections
• Monitor profitability, over-servicing and revenue forecasts to see financial performance while work is underway.
• Automate assignments, follow-ups and notifications. Pro includes two automated workflows, while Enterprise includes five.

What to check:

• ‍‍Magnetic has no native proofing, so agencies that require it can connect Ziflow. This integration along with Xero, Quickbooks and Sage require the Pro plan.
• Magnetic gives clients access to selected tasks or jobs as external collaborators rather than through a dedicated portal.

Pricing

Essentials costs $10 per user per month billed annually ($13 monthly), with Pro costing $22 per user per month billed annually ($28 monthly). Paid plans have a five-user minimum and solo is free for a single user.

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2. Productive

Best for:

Agencies wanting budgeting and invoicing on an entry plan. Productive's Essentials Plan includes sales, projects, resource planning and time tracking, making it a useful starting point for managing delivery and finance together.

• Essentials includes tentative bookings, free client access, budgets and invoicing. These are worth comparing with the higher-plan requirements elsewhere in this guide.
• Professional adds resource placeholders, time approvals, recurring retainer budgets and client access to budgets. It also connects Xero, QuickBooks, Sage and other accounting systems.
• Ultimate adds resource requests, where project managers ask for people and resource managers make the assignments. It also includes advanced time tracking, retainer rollover and revenue forecasting.

What to check:

• Productive lists BugHerd for website feedback, but we found no native file proofing. Ask where clients would mark up a PDF and approve final artwork for a branding project.
• Retainers and accounting connections require Professional. Include that upgrade if either is essential.

Pricing: 

Essentials costs $10 per user per month billed annually ($12 monthly) and Professional costs $25 ($29). There is a three-seat minimum, while Ultimate is priced by quote.

See our Magnetic and Productive Comparison for more detail

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3. Scoro

Best for:

‍Agencies choosing apps around their workflow. Scoro's eight core apps cover tasks, projects, time, resources, CRM, estimates, expenses and invoicing. Start with time and billing, then add the planning or quoting apps you need. Ask for a price covering you agency's full app combination, so an entry price doesn't set the wrong expectation.

• Confirms quotes become project budgets. Retainer management tracks hours and budgets for each period.
• The resource app supports fixed and tentative bookings, so you can plan potential work alongside confirmed projects.

What to check:

• The apps determine what you get. Time billing starts at $17; Projects and resources start at $29. Check that your price combination includes the financial apps you need.
• Timesheet approval requires the advance work add-on, so include it when comparing costs
• The customer portal costs extra. Include it in your quote if clients need access, and confirm the user allowance.
• We found no proofing listing. Check how you would manage creative reviews.
• Self-onboarding if free for up to 15 people. Larger teams pay a one-time onboarding fee.

Pricing:

Scoro currently lists Time-billing from $17 per user per month. Projects & Resources and Quote to Cash from $29 and end-to-end from $57. A five-user minimum applies. Confirm the billing period, selected apps, portal and add-ons in the configurator or a written quote.

See our Scoro comparison

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4. Workamajig

Best for:

Agencies wanting accounting and creative review in one system. Workamajig covers all eight requirements, including its own accounting package. It is worth considering if finance wants a new system; check the fit carefully if you intend to keep the current ledger.

• It includes CRM, estimates, resourcing, time tracking and timesheet approval, budgets, retainer billing and proofing.
  
• Its accounting package covers the general ledger, payables and receivables.
• Clients and vendors have free unlimited client portal logins.

What to check:

• Published pricing starts at ten users. Workamajigs FAQ gives suggests two to three months for a traditional implementation.
  
• Have finance review ledger migration, tax setting and reconiliation before treating the accounting package as a replacement for your current setup.
• Proofing does not support MOV files, PSD and AI files allow comments only.
• We found no skills-based planning or tentative bookings listed. Ask for a demonstration if either is essential.

Pricing:

Workamajig costs $49 per user per month for teams of 10 or more, $47 for teams of 25 and above and $45 for teams larger than 50. Annual payment includes on month free. Onboarding, training and support are included.

5. Kantata (OX)

Best for:

Larger agencies assigning people by skill and availability across projects. Kantata OX includes a skills inventory. soft allocations and unnamed resources, giving resource managers more details than a basic workload view. Kantata SX is a separate product built on Salesforce. Include a hard-to-staff project in the demo to check whether the skills matching helps.

• Resource recommendations rank people for a role to help with staffing decisions
• It includes native invoicing and margin reporting. Clients can join projects at no additional cost.

What to check:

• Skills, tentative books, time approvals and margin reports require the Kantata Premier or Enterprise plans. Insights dashboards and available only through Enterprise, with a minimum licence count.
• Kantata OX removed proofing as of 31 December 20254. Ask where creative reviews will happen and how approved files will connect to the project.
• There is no native CRM available. HubSpot or

Pricing:

Kantata provides tailored pricing by quote. Its OX help documentation refers to Professional, Premier and Enterprise entitlements, but its pricing page gives no public seat rates. Confirm the product, plan, minimum seats and connectors in the proposal.

6. Teamwork.com

Best for:

Client services teams wanting project delivery and file feedback together. Teamwork.com lets clients mark up files without joining the site. The Accelerate plan adds retainers and invoicing, making it work considering if you're looking for a tool that combines reviews and billing in one system. More detailed financial controls are available on the Optimise Plan.

• Proofs include five proofs a month on the free plan, 20 on basic and unlimited proofs on the Accelerate plan
• Client users are free from the Basic's plan, so client access does not add another paid seat.
• Accelerate included workload planning, time budgets and retainers. invoices based on logged time, and Xero and QuickBooks connections.

What to check:

• The Optimise plan addes timesheet approval, quotes, skill-based scheduling, tentative projects, financial budgets and profitabililty and is quoted on request.
• Proofs supports PDF, Word, PowerPoint, JPEG, and PNG uploads. Video is not listed.
• Current plans have no CRM. Sales pipelines require HubSpot on Accelerate or Salesfore on Optimise.
• Optional onboarding ranges from free to $7,500. Confirm what your rollout needs.

‍Pricing:

Teamwork.com's basic plan costs $9.99 per user per month billed annually ($13.99 billed monthly), with a three-user minimum. Accelerate costs $24.99 per user per month billed annually ($29.99 monthly), with a five-user minimum. Optimise and Enterprise are priced by quote. There is also a free plan available for up to five users.

See our Teamwork.com comparison

7. ClickUp

Best for:

Agencies with someone to build and maintain their workflows. ClickUp combines tasks, docs, forms and several views. Its flexibility suits teams configuring projects around existing finance tools, provided they allow time for setup.

• The Unlimited plan includes native time tracking and the Figma integration embeds prototypes in tasks.
• Business included unlimited Workload use, and image/PDF proofing. Daily capacity customisation is documented for Business Plan and Enterprise, so test the scheduling controls you need.
  
• Paid plans include guest access with configurable permissions.

What to check:

• The pricing page lists no budgets, retainers, invoicing or profitability reporting. Agency pages describe configuring them with custom fields, time tracking and dashboards, plus integrations such as Harvest for invoicing. Someone will need to maintain that setup.
• The time tracking help pages lists 100 timesheet approval uses on Business and ongoing access on Business Plus/Enterprise. A temporary trial run is available across plans.
• ClickUp is testing different plans and prices. Use the offer show to you when calculating the costs.

Pricing:

At the time of writing, Unlimited costs $7 per user per month billed annually ($10 monthly), and business costs $12 per user per month billed annually ($19 monthly). Enterprise is priced by quote and a free plan is available. Every workspace member must be on the paid plan.

See our ClickUp comparison for configuration considerations

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Tools with a creative workflow and review focus

8. Wrike

Best for:

Agencies with a formal intake process and several review stages. Wrike's Business plan includes request forms, approval workflows and proofing for images, video, PDFs and office files. Version comparison lets reviewers check what changes since the last round, which is usefull when feedback needs to be check against the revised artwork. If you also need invoicing, include a separate billing system in the cost comparison.

• The Adobe creative cloud extension brings review comments into Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign and Premier Pro.
• Custom request forms collect the details needed before starting work.
• Accounts opened since January 2025 received free viewer licenses on every plan.

What to check:

• Timesheet approvals, billable time, budgeting, bookings by role and QuickBooks export require the Pinnacle plan, priced by quote.
• We found no native invoicing or retainers. Ask about tentative planning and connections to your billing tools.
• Business and higher plans require annual subscriptions
• Wrike recommends a paid deployment consultant for new teams and requires guided deployment for 20 users or more.

Pricing:

Wrike's Team plan costs $10 per user per month and Business costs $25, both billed annually. Pinnacle and Apex are priced by quote and a free plan is available.

See the Wrike comparison to compare Wrike with Magnetic

9. monday.com

Best for:

Organisations that want flexible boards across creative, operations and other teams. monday work management lets you configure those workflows with time tracking and workload views on Pro. It is worth considering when shared project processes are a priority. For agency financial reporting, check what you will need to build of connect.

• Creative teams can annotate images. PDFs and video and use file versioning. Automation and ingtegrations are available on the Standard plan, with high usage limits on Pro.
• monday.com list PageProof app for dedicated proofing. Check its cost if annotations are not enough
• Viewers are free from Basic, guest can access shared boards from Standard.

What to check:

• Time tracking and workload views require the Pro plan. Skills, placeholders and resource planning require the Enterprise plan.
• Quotes and invoices are available in monday CRM, a separate product from work management.
• We found no timesheet approval, retainers or profitability reporting in work management. File annotation is still labelled as a trial feature.
• For utilisation and margin reporting, ask what you would need to configure or run in another system and who would maintain it.

Pricing:

monday's basic plan costs $9 per seat per month billed annually ($12 monthly), Standard costs $12 per seat per month billed annually ($14 monthly) and Pro costs $19 per seat per month billed annually ($24 monthly). There is a three-seat minimum, plus a free plan for up to two seats. Pricing varies by billing country. so confirm the rates for your location.

10. Screendragon

Best for:

Enterprise marketing teams and agencies with several approval routes. Screendragon combines creative review with rate-card estimates, project budgets, resource planning and timesheets. It is worth considering when the process needs to to change by client, market or asset type and a standard project workflow would be too restiritive Bring examples of different routes to the demo and check how each would be configured.

• Natvie proofing covers static assets, video and rich media.
• Financial reporting shows margins by project, client or team.
• Workflows can be configured around the organisation's requirements.

What to check:

• Screendragon describes estimates with external finance systems, but we found no invoicing documented. Check the process with your accounting setup.
• It lists HubSpot connector rather than native CRM. Retainer budgets are not listed
• The deployment is configured for each customer. Confirm exactly which capabilities your proposal includes.

Pricing:

Screendragon quotes a monthly charge per user plus a one-off setup and training fee. Its pricing form starts with a band of 30 to 100 users.

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What to look for in project management software

Choose around the work your agency does. A branding project needs clear artwork approvals; a website build needs dependencies and change control. A monthly retainer needs an allowance you can track through to billing. A tool that handles on well may need extra setup for the others.

Our Agency Benchmarking Survey of 104 agencies found a median of five revisions rounds per email. We ran the survey in 2019 and 2020, so use these figures as context for the workflow problems, rather than a current industry benchmark. Once you have a shortlist. test these six requirements with work your team recognises.

Scope control and change requests

Add two page templates to a fixed-price website project. Can you still see the original estimate? Check who approves the change and what happens to the schedule and budget. Everyone should be able to tell approved work from a request that has not been approved. Our guide to spotting and stopping scope creep explains the process.

Briefs, feedback and approvals

Check how the brief and feedback reach the people doing the work. If comments arrive through email, Slack and marked-up PDFs, someone has to consolidate them. A task approval may not include visual markup, version comparison or client review. Ask to see the files types and review process your team uses.

Resource and capacity planning

A useful resource view should show availability a across client projects, including leave. Test two jobs, that need the same designer in the same week. Can you see the the conflict and find someone else with the right skills? Include an unconfirmed project to check how provisional work impacts capacity.

Time, delivery costs and budgets

Check how recorded hours compare with the estimate, and where freelance costs and production expenses go. Only a third of agencies in our survey logged hours as they worked, so time-entry process matters. For retainers, test what happens when work exceeds the monthly allowance and needs an extra charge.

Margin reporting and billing

Have finance follow approved timesheets through to an invoice. Does the margin report include staff, freelancer and production costs? Check what needs to be entered again and whether finance can explain how the figures were calculated. Our guide to project profitability strategies for agencies, covers what to monitor.

Client access, reporting and integrations

Check what clients and freelancers can see and do. Clients may need progress updates and a way to review work, while internal costs and margins should stay private. For integrations, establish which records pass between the systems, how they are updated and whether the connection costs extra.

How to choose agency management software by the kind of agency you run

Your main operational problem is the best place to start.

For project profitability

Compare Magnetic, Productive, Scoro, Workamajig, Kantata OX and teamwork.com on Optimise. These connect delivery with financial management, making them more relevant if you cannot easily establish what a completed job cost. Our free overservicing calculator can help estimate the cost of hours worked beyond the initial quote.

For creative review

Look at native proofing in Workamajig, Teamwork.com, Wrike, Screendragon and ClickUp on Business. A PSA platform with dedicated proofing software is another option if you need more detailed review features alongside project finance. Compare the actual review process and the combined cost before choosing.

Fore retainer-heavy agencies

The billing details matter. Have each vendor demonstrate your monthly allowance, an extra request and work carried into the next period. Follow the hours through to the invoice, A feature called "retainers" may not handle the rollover or additional charges your contracts require.

For resource planning

Compare Magnetic, Productive, and Scoro for confirmed and tentative work. Magnetic includes pipeline opportunities in capacity planning, alongside booked work and leave. Kantata OX, Screendragon and Teamwork.com Optimise also support provisional planning. Test skills matching, availability, and changes to project dates before work is signed. If availability is your only problem, a standalone schedules such as Resource Guru may be enough. Our guide to resource management for agencies explains the decisions involved. Use the results to decide whether to reassign work, adjust deadlines or add capacity.

Team size also changes the calculation. A studio of 15 people may find one system easier to maintain than several specialist tools. Productive, Teamwork.com, Basics and monday.com start at three seats. Magnetic, Scoro and Teamwork,com Accelerate at five; Workamajigs published pricing starts at ten. Agencies with 20 or more people and several retainers look closely at margin reporting. With multiple offices, test shared resources, currencies, permissions and reporting across locations. A workflow that works for one office may need a difference setup across the business.

If your business extends beyond creative and marketing services, read our guide to business management tools for professional services firms which also covers consultancies and other services businesses.

Put one real project through every tool on your shortlist

Pick a recent project with a known budget, several contributors and a review round. Ask each vendor to demonstrate the same six steps using your details. This is a more useful comparison than watching different demos built around each tools strongest features. Include the people who will use it every day, especially those who manage schedules and those who prepare invoices from the teams recorded time.

1. Create a project from the approved scope and estimate. Not anything you have to enter twice during that process.
2. Assign the team and check their remaining availability across other client projects
3. Record time, a freelance costs and production expenses. Check how they affect budget.
4. Add a client revision and review the impact on the schedule, cost and approval record.
5. Prepare an invoice using your billing arrangement. Check what makes it to the accounting system.
6. Give a client or freelancers access, then check what they have access to see and edit.

Keep a record of the steps that worked, the configuration needed and any extra products required to make this a seamless process. Ask who will maintain the setup. Then, compare the full cost, including seats, integrations, migration, training and support. The most useful tool is one you can keep using after the demo is over.

What three agencies changed after switching to Magnetic

These three customers show what swiching to Magnetic in different agencies. The results below are reported by customers and published by Magnetic rather than independent research.

SuperHeros

SuperHeros is an independent creative advertising agencies with more than 40 people across Amsterdam, New York and Singapore. Before Magnetic, it operated using seperate tools for project management, forecasting, invoicing and resource planning. The agency brought those functions into Magnetic and later reported 40% less administrative work.

Read the SuperHeros case study

Happy Friday Creative

Happy Friday Creative, a full-service agency in Cape Town was duplicating tasks and reconciling time manually. Team availability was also difficult to see. It set up billing rates and resource profiles in Magnetic, then trained staff on tasks, timesheets and the scheduler. The agency reported a 30% reduction in admin across task creation, time reconciliation and coordination.

Read the Happy Friday Case study

Hoorah Digital

Hoorah Digital is a full-service marketing agency with more than 50 people, headquartered in South Africa. It used WorkBook during its earlier growth then added service lines, a second city and teams working inside client's businesses. The agency migrated historical data to Magnetic and ran both systems in parallel during a phases rollout. Both offices and the teams in clients' businesses now use one platform, with project setups for creative production and media.

Read the Hoorah Digital case study

How to roll out agency project management software without disrupting live work

A new tool needs agreed working routines. These six practices help your team adopt it while client projects continue.

1. Map the workflow before configuring the software. Write down how work is approved, scheduled, delivered and billed. Involve project managers, operations, finance and timesheet users, then decide what to migrate and what to archive.
2. Assign an owner and a backup. Give one person the authority to make configuration decisions with a colleague to cover their absence. Agree who looks after project data, billing settings and permissions so routine questions reach someone who can resolve them/
3. Document the everyday rules. Agree when people create tasks, update statuses, record changes and log time. Set up the software around those routines.
4. Pilot with one team or client group. Run the full process, including invoice before expanding. Ask for a timesheet based on your team and setup. SuperHeros adopted Magnetic across three offices within two weeks, while Hoorah digital ran systems in parallel while implementing Magnetic.Workamajigs FAQ suggest two to three months for traditional implementation.
5. Train people on the tasks they perform. Finance staff, project managers and timesheet users need different guidance. Keep it available for new starters. Magnetic users can join a free training session, usually held in the first week of each month.
6. Measure the project you chose to address. Select two or three figures before launch, such as timesheet completeness, fix-price budget variance or invoice preparation time. Check then after the pilot and one the team is using the system regularly.

Choose Software fits how your agency works

For agencies managing retainers and shared teams, resourcing, project delivery, time and billing need to work together. Magnetic is a strong fit for these agencies, with sales and forecasting in the same system. If artwork approval is your priority, compare native proofing or include a dedicated integration in your budget.

Magnetic brings sales, project delivery, resourcing and finance into one system. You can plan confirmed and tentative work, manage tasks and timesheets, track project profitability and prepare invoices from the same project data. Get started with a free 14-day trial or book a demo to get a guided Magnetic walkthrough.

References

Vendor sources reviewed on 9 October 2026. Feature access and prices can change; check the linked plan pages when buying.

Magnetic: Pricing and plan comparison; Project management; Resource planning; Timesheets; Automations; Signed opportunities; Estimate-to-tasks; Team Scheduler; Resource capacity dashboard; Timesheet approvals; Google Calendar integration; Outlook Calendar integration; Over-servicing dashboard; Ziflow integration.

Productive: Pricing; Billing and seat minimums; Placeholders; Tentative bookings; Resource requests.

Scoro: Pricing; Modular pricing model; Pricing configurator; Project management.

Workamajig: Pricing and implementation; Deliverables and supported file types; Resource management.

Kantata OX: Request pricing; Product choice; Skills overview; Managing allocations; Time and expense; Proofing removal; Staffing & Capacity dashboard.

Teamwork.com: Pricing and feature comparison; Proofs; Create a proof; Client user licenses.

ClickUp: Pricing; Time-tracking limits; Workload limits; Using Workload view.

Wrike: Pricing; Proofing; Approvals; Pinnacle features.

monday.com: Pricing; Plan types; File annotations; Enterprise resource management.

Screendragon: Pricing; Creative workflow; Estimates and scopes; Financial Reporting Dashboard.

Magnetic research: Agency Best Practices Guide, based on 104 agencies surveyed in 2019 and 2020.

Magnetic customer case studies: SuperHeroes; Happy Friday Creative; Hoorah Digital.

Resource Guru: Pricing.