10 Best Project Management Tools for Agencies (2026)

Agency project management is fundamentally different from product team project management. I've worked with both, and the gap is wider than most tool reviews acknowledge.

Product teams have a roadmap. They ship features to their own users. The stakeholders are internal. Agencies juggle 15 clients simultaneously, each with different workflows, approval chains, and definitions of "done." You need to track billable hours against budgets, show clients progress without exposing internal conversations, and know in real time whether a project is profitable or bleeding money.

Most PM tools were built for product teams. Here are the ones that actually work for agencies -- plus a few general-purpose tools that agencies have adopted with the right configuration.

Quick comparison

1. Teamwork

Teamwork is the most agency-focused tool on this list. Built by an agency founder, it includes time tracking, budgets, invoicing, client access portals, and profitability reporting natively. You don't need a separate tool for billing.

Free for up to 5 users. Deliver ($13.99/user/mo) adds milestones, time budgets, and client users (unlimited, free). Grow ($25.99/user/mo) adds workload management, resource scheduling, and advanced reporting.

The client access feature is well-designed. You can invite clients to specific projects where they see tasks, files, and messages -- but only what you choose to share. Internal notes and time logs stay hidden. This eliminates the "create a separate view for the client" overhead that plagues tools like Asana or Monday.

Teamwork released an MCP (Model Context Protocol) server in 2025, allowing AI assistants to interact with projects directly. In practical terms, a project manager can ask an AI to summarize project status, check budget utilization, or create tasks -- pulling live data from Teamwork.

The downside: Teamwork's interface is functional but not beautiful. Compared to Monday's polish or ClickUp's density, it looks dated. Some users also report the mobile app lags behind the web version in features.

2. Monday.com

Monday isn't agency-specific, but it's the most popular PM tool among agencies for a simple reason: clients love the visual dashboards. The colorful board interface, status columns, and timeline views make it easy to share progress without explanation.

Pricing starts at $9/seat/month (Basic) for 3+ seats. Standard ($12/seat/mo) adds automations and integrations. Pro ($19/seat/mo) adds time tracking, formula columns, and workload management.

Monday's guest access (available on Standard and above) lets you invite clients as viewers or editors on specific boards. The dashboard feature aggregates data across multiple boards, so you can create a client-facing portfolio view showing all their projects in one place.

For agencies, the key limitation is billing. Monday doesn't have built-in time tracking against budgets, invoicing, or profitability reporting. You need Monday + Harvest (or Monday + Toggl) + a separate invoicing tool. That's three subscriptions where Teamwork or Productive.io handles it in one.

3. ClickUp

ClickUp at $7/member/month is the price leader for full-featured PM. It includes time tracking, docs, goals, dashboards, and custom views -- features that competitors charge $15-25/user for.

The free plan is generous for small agencies: unlimited tasks, unlimited members, and most core features. The paid Unlimited plan adds unlimited storage, integrations, and advanced features.

Agencies use ClickUp's Spaces to separate clients, with Folders for projects and Lists for task groups. The "Everything" view aggregates all work across clients, while filtered views show individual client projects. Templates let you clone project structures for repeatable work.

ClickUp's weakness for agencies is the same as for everyone: complexity. The number of features, customization options, and settings can overwhelm new team members. Onboarding takes longer than with simpler tools. Also, ClickUp lacks built-in invoicing and client-facing portals that don't require sharing your full workspace.

4. Productive.io

Productive.io was built specifically for agencies and it shows. The platform combines project management, resource planning, budgeting, time tracking, invoicing, and profitability reporting in one integrated system.

Pricing starts at $11/user/month (Essential) with project management, time tracking, and basic reporting. Professional ($28/user/mo) adds resource planning, detailed profitability reports, and purchase orders.

The standout feature is real-time profitability tracking. As your team logs hours against budgeted time, Productive.io shows whether each project (and each client) is profitable right now, not after the invoice goes out. The resource planning view shows team utilization across all projects, making it easy to spot over-allocation before it causes burnout.

The limitation: Productive.io is less flexible than Monday or ClickUp for task management. If your agency does complex creative workflows with multiple approval stages, Productive.io's project views feel basic. It's strongest as an operations/financial tool with PM bolted on, rather than a PM tool with operations bolted on.

5. Scoro

Scoro is the most comprehensive tool on this list. It includes project management, CRM, quoting, time tracking, invoicing, budgets, and financial reporting. If you want to run your entire agency from one platform, Scoro is the closest thing to that ideal.

Pricing is $26/user/month (Essential) minimum. Standard ($37/user/mo) adds purchase orders, project templates, and Gantt charts. Pro ($63/user/mo) adds resource planning, budgeting, and advanced reporting.

Scoro also released an MCP server in 2025, joining Teamwork in enabling AI assistant integration. The financial reporting goes deep -- profit margins by client, by project, by team member. For agency owners who want to know exactly where money is made and lost, Scoro delivers.

The tradeoff is price and complexity. At $26/user/month minimum, a 20-person agency pays $520/month before adding more capable tiers. The interface is dense -- it takes weeks to learn. Scoro is best for established agencies (20+ people) that have outgrown patching together multiple tools and want one source of truth.

6. Wrike

Wrike's proofing and approval features make it a strong choice for creative agencies. You can mark up images, videos, and PDFs directly within tasks, route assets through approval workflows, and maintain version history on every file.

Free for up to 5 users. Team ($10/user/mo) adds Gantt charts, custom workflows, and dashboards. Business ($24.80/user/mo) adds resource management, time tracking, and custom request forms.

The request forms feature deserves special mention for agencies. You can create intake forms for different work types (blog post request, design request, campaign brief) that automatically create tasks with the right assignments, deadlines, and custom fields. This standardizes how work enters your queue.

Wrike's agent-based AI features (launched 2025) include project risk analysis and automated task routing. For agencies doing high-volume creative work (100+ deliverables per month), these automation features save significant coordination time.

7. Asana

Asana's cross-team collaboration features work well for agencies where different departments (strategy, creative, media, analytics) contribute to the same client projects. The Goals and Portfolios features give account managers a high-level view across all client work.

Free for up to 10 users. Starter ($10.99/user/mo) adds timeline, workflow builder, and forms. Advanced ($24.99/user/mo) adds custom fields, approvals, and advanced reporting.

For agencies, Asana's guest access lets clients view project progress and provide feedback through comments and approvals. The workflow builder automates handoffs between departments -- when strategy approves a brief, it automatically creates tasks for the creative team.

The gap: Asana lacks built-in time tracking and invoicing. You'll need Harvest or Everhour integrated alongside it. For agencies tracking billable hours and project profitability, this adds friction and cost. Asana is strongest for agencies that bill on retainer (fixed monthly fee) rather than by the hour.

8. Kantata (formerly Mavenlink)

Kantata is the enterprise option for professional services firms (consulting, IT services, large agencies). It combines project management, resource management, financial tracking, and business intelligence in a platform designed for 100+ person organizations.

Pricing is custom and not published -- expect $30-50+/user/month based on modules selected. Implementation typically involves a consulting engagement.

Kantata's "Expertise Engine" AI analyzes team skills, utilization patterns, and project requirements to suggest optimal resource allocation. For agencies with deep specialization (specific industries, technologies, or disciplines), this matching capability reduces the account manager's work of manually staffing projects.

Kantata is overkill for agencies under 50 people. The implementation cost, learning curve, and monthly expense only make sense when you're managing dozens of concurrent projects with strict profitability targets.

9. Hive

Hive is the most flexible tool on this list in terms of view options: Gantt, kanban, table, calendar, portfolio, and summary views are all available. It also includes built-in email (within the app), chat, forms, and proofing.

The free plan covers basic features. Teams starts at $5/user/month with all views, automations, and integrations. Enterprise (custom pricing) adds advanced permissions and dedicated support.

Hive's "AI Assist" can generate project plans, write task descriptions, and summarize project status. The time tracking and resourcing features are built in, not bolted on. At $5/user/month, it's one of the cheapest options that includes both PM and time tracking.

The limitation is market presence. Hive has fewer integrations than Monday or Asana, a smaller community, and less polished documentation. Support is responsive but the knowledge base is thin. For price-sensitive agencies that need a competent all-in-one tool, Hive is worth evaluating. But the ecosystem around Monday, Asana, or ClickUp is significantly richer.

10. Float

Float isn't a project management tool. It's a resource scheduling tool, and I'm including it because resource management is the #1 pain point agencies mention after "tracking hours."

Float shows who's working on what, when they're available, and how to staff upcoming projects. The visual schedule makes it immediately clear if someone is over-allocated or if a project needs more capacity. It integrates with Asana, Teamwork, Jira, and others for task-level detail.

Pricing starts at $6/person/month (Starter) for scheduling and time tracking. Pro ($10/person/mo) adds detailed reporting, roles, and departments.

Many agencies pair Float with a PM tool: Monday + Float, Asana + Float, or ClickUp + Float. The PM tool handles task execution; Float handles the staffing question of "who should do this work, and do they have capacity?"

How to choose

Small agency (under 10 people): Teamwork for built-in billing, or ClickUp if budget is the priority. Both handle the core workflow without additional tools.

Mid-size agency (10-50 people): Productive.io for financial visibility, or Monday + Harvest for visual project management with time tracking.

Creative/marketing agency: Wrike for proofing and approval workflows, or Asana for cross-department collaboration.

Large agency / professional services (50+): Scoro for comprehensive business management, or Kantata for enterprise resource planning.

Resource planning specifically: Float, paired with whatever PM tool you already use.

FAQ

Do I need an agency-specific tool or will a general PM tool work?
General PM tools (Monday, Asana, ClickUp) work well for task management but require bolt-on tools for time tracking, billing, and profitability. Agency-specific tools (Teamwork, Productive.io, Scoro) include these natively, trading flexibility for integration.

How do I handle client access without exposing internal conversations?
Teamwork and Monday both have robust guest access controls. Teamwork's is the most granular -- you control exactly which project areas clients can see. With ClickUp, you'll need to use guest permissions carefully, as the default sharing can be overly broad.

What's the most important metric for agency project management?
Profitability per project. Hours logged against budgeted hours, multiplied by effective rate, minus overhead. If your PM tool can't show this in real time, you're flying blind. Productive.io, Scoro, and Teamwork's Grow plan all track this natively.

Should agencies track time?
Yes, even for fixed-fee projects. Time tracking isn't about billing the client by the hour -- it's about understanding your true cost per project. An agency that doesn't track time can't calculate profitability, and unprofitable clients will quietly drain the business.

The right agency PM tool balances project execution with financial visibility. Tasks and deadlines matter, but knowing whether a project is making or losing money matters more. Start with that requirement and everything else follows.