The right CRM for agencies: sales, delivery and client reports in one view

What should a CRM for agencies do?

Agencies need a CRM that follows the whole client life. Start with this list.

• Lead and deal pipeline: Track each lead from first call to signed proposal, with the value of each deal.
• Proposals and scopes: Send a proposal, get it signed and keep the agreed scope on file. Scope creep starts when nobody can find the original scope.
• Retainers and renewals: Record each client's monthly fee, contract end date and renewal status.
• Projects and tasks: Turn a signed deal into a project without retyping the details.
• Time and profit: Log hours against each client and compare them with the fee. This shows which clients cost more than they pay.
• Client reports: Share results such as ad spend, leads and rankings in a format clients understand.
• Client portal: Give clients one place to see work, approve drafts and pay invoices.

Which CRMs and agency tools lead, and what do they cost?

I took these prices from each vendor's pricing page in October 2026. Offers change often, so check again before you buy.

HubSpot

HubSpot Sales Hub has a free plan for up to 2 users. Starter is listed at $7 or $20 a seat a month, depending on how you pay. Professional is listed at $90 or $100 a seat a month, plus a one-time $1,500 onboarding fee. Confirm which price applies to you at checkout. HubSpot suits agencies that also want email marketing and service tools in the same place. Its report limits for client work are in HubSpot reporting for agencies. My guide to HubSpot alternatives covers options if the higher plans cost too much.

Pipedrive

Pipedrive is a sales pipeline CRM. Billed yearly, Lite is $14 a seat a month, Growth is $39, Premium is $59 and Ultimate is $79. It is built around tracking deals. For time tracking and retainer billing, plan to pair it with a project tool.

Teamwork.com

Teamwork is built for client work. Basics is $9.99 a user a month billed yearly, with a 3-user minimum. Accelerate is $24.99 a user a month billed yearly, with a 5-user minimum. Accelerate adds invoices built from logged time, retainers, capacity planning and connections to HubSpot and QuickBooks. Quotes and a CRM pipeline that turns deals into projects sit in the Optimize plan, which needs a sales call. See my Teamwork alternatives guide for other options.

Scoro

Scoro combines sales, quotes, projects and billing. Its End-to-end plan includes its Sell CRM and Estimate quotes, and it is listed at $57 a user a month with a 5-user minimum. Lower plans cover time billing or projects but leave out the CRM. Scoro says yearly billing takes 13% to 17% off. My Scoro alternatives guide compares similar tools.

Tool	Starting price shown (Oct 2026)	What it covers	Best fit
HubSpot	Free for 2 users, Starter from $7 a seat	CRM, email marketing	Agencies that sell and market from one tool
Pipedrive	$14 a seat a month billed yearly	Sales pipeline	Agencies focused on new business
Teamwork	$9.99 a user a month billed yearly	Projects, time, billing	Agencies with many retainers
Scoro	$57 a user a month for the plan with CRM	Sales, quotes, projects, billing	Agencies that want one system for all of it
AgencyAnalytics	$20 per client a month billed yearly	Client reporting	Agencies sending monthly results to clients

Is AgencyAnalytics a CRM, and what are the alternatives?

AgencyAnalytics is a client reporting tool. Its pricing page lists no CRM or sales pipeline features. It costs $20 per client a month billed yearly, with unlimited staff and client users. It includes white-label reports, dashboards, a client portal and over 85 marketing connections.

People looking for an AgencyAnalytics alternative usually want one of three things.

• Lower cost for many small clients: Per-client pricing adds up when you have dozens of small accounts. Google's Data Studio is free for creators and viewers, and its Pro tier is listed at $9 a user per project a month. It takes more setup, and you build the reports yourself.
• Reports and CRM in one place: Some agencies want account managers to see results next to the contract value and renewal date. The products in this guide each focus on one side of that.
• Reports that match their own service: Agencies with a set method often want reports laid out in their own steps and terms.

For the last two, a custom client portal is often the cleaner answer. It pulls results from ad and analytics accounts and shows them beside CRM data. My guide to client portals explains what that build involves.

How should an agency pick a CRM?

Pick the tool that matches where your agency loses time or money today.

• If new business is the gap: Start with a sales CRM such as Pipedrive or HubSpot.
• If margins are the gap: Start with a tool that tracks time against retainers, such as Teamwork or Scoro.
• Test with real clients: Load three current clients with their real scope, hours and fees. See if the reports match what you know.
• Count every seat: Freelancers and part-time staff often need logins. Price the plan at your real head count, plus the minimum seats.
• Check the handoff: Watch what happens when a deal is won. If someone has to retype the client into a second tool, errors follow.
• Plan your exit: Ask how you export contacts, deals, time logs and files.

For a wider view of small business options, see my guide to CRM for small business. For the other tools an agency stacks around the CRM, see marketing agency software for 5 to 30 people.

What mistakes do agencies make choosing a CRM?

• Picking a sales CRM and trying to force delivery work into it. A tool built for closing deals rarely handles ongoing retainers, scope changes and recurring reports well. Check whether the CRM actually models an agency's full lifecycle, not just the sale.
• Building reports around what's easy to pull, not what the client actually wants to see. The report that takes you an hour to assemble and the report your client actually reads are often different documents. Ask what decision the client makes from the report before you build it.
• No visibility into team capacity. An agency that tracks sales pipeline closely but has no idea which account managers are overloaded will keep overselling delivery capacity, the same mistake a sales-only CRM quietly encourages.
• Letting client data live in five different tools. Proposals in one tool, projects in another, invoices in a third. Every gap between them is a place data goes stale or someone has to retype it.

Which AI features help agencies most?

Agencies sell time, so AI pays off where it cuts hours from account work. These uses are practical now.

Call notes that update the CRM

AI listens to a client call, writes the summary and lists the action items. It then updates the deal or client record and creates tasks for the team. Account managers no longer write notes from memory hours after the call.

Monthly report drafts

AI reads the month's numbers from your reporting tool and writes a plain summary for the client. It explains what went up, what went down and what the team will do next. An account manager checks it before it goes out.

Scope and profit alerts

AI compares hours logged on each retainer with the agreed scope. It flags a client when hours run high early in the month. That gives you time to talk to the client before the overage becomes a write-off. My guide to AI for marketing agencies covers more ideas.

When does a custom agency CRM make sense?

Most agencies with fewer than 20 staff should buy. A sales CRM plus a project tool covers most needs, and both are ready today.

A custom CRM starts to make sense in these cases.

• Seat fees at scale: You have many staff and contractors, and per-seat fees across several tools have become a large monthly bill.
• Too many tools: Sales lives in one tool, delivery in another and reports in a third. Nobody trusts the numbers.
• A set service model: You sell productized services, such as fixed monthly packages, and want the system built around them.
• Client-facing data: You want clients to log in and see results, approvals and invoices under your brand.

Many agencies keep their reporting tool and build a custom layer on top. That layer joins CRM data, time and results into one view for the team and one portal for clients.

How would Blur Studio approach an agency CRM?

I start with your last three won clients. I trace each one from first contact to the latest monthly report. I look for retyped data, lost scope details and reports that take hours to build. If a product fixes those, I will name it and tell you to buy it. When no product fits, I build what is missing. That might be a CRM shaped around your service packages, a client portal with live results, or AI that writes call notes and report drafts. Your agency holds the code and every account, so client data never sits in a system you cannot leave. I also keep the system running and up to date after launch.