10 Creative Agency Project Management Software to Avoid Work Chaos & Run Projects Smarter
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Creative agencies need reliable and flexible tools to work collaboratively from anywhere and make quick changes without hindering their creativity.
Well-chosen creative agency project management software solutions ensure that everyone is on the same page for executing the strategic goals of marketing project management and the entire business. They help teams manage multiple projects, client relationships, and budgets, as well as reach professional results faster.
With so many options available, it can be really hard to choose a tool that will suit specific needs. Especially when you look for a solution that has to keep everything in one place: task scheduling, approvals, time-tracking, centralized team communication, and integrations with other systems. As with marketing project management tools, it’s better to explore several options than to pick something at random.
We’ve compiled a list of the best creative agency project management software with a comprehensive view of their features, pricing, and customer rating.
Contents:
- What is creative agency project management software?
- Why creative agencies need project management software.
- What features to look for in creative agency project management software.
- GanttPRO – best for project planning based on a Gantt chart.
- Monday – best multifunctional tool with a variety of views.
- FunctionFox – best timesheet solution for creative teams.
- ClickUp – best option for creative agencies with a small budget.
- ProofHub – best collaborative workspace for creative teams.
- Podio – best for mobile users in creative agencies.
- nTask – best for event management.
- Zoho Project – best free creative agency project management software.
- Airtable – best project management tool with the extended template library.
- Redbooth – best for creative agencies with distributed workers.
- Bonus: marketing project management templates.
What is creative agency project management software?
Creative agency project management software is a specialized tool that helps creative agencies plan, organize, and manage their projects effectively.
This type of software empowers creative teams to schedule projects, assign tasks, track progress, manage resources and budgets, streamline collaboration, and automate workflows. By using these smart solutions, modern agencies can deliver top-notch creative work on time and within budget.
Why creative agencies need project management software
Falling behind on deadlines, struggling with administrative tasks, internal chaos, and fighting with other creative agencies for prospective clients are signs that you face management problems and need a fresh fix.
The truth is that managing a creative workflow can become overwhelming for anyone to do it manually. However, professional PM tools can help take this burden off.
Let’s define the reasons why creative agencies need such software solutions.
1. Streamline workflows
Project management tools provide agencies with a centralized spot to plan, organize, and track their work. Creative teams can easily assign tasks, set priorities, and track progress, ensuring that work is executed efficiently.
2. Enhance communication
Effective communication is vital for creative agencies. Professional tools for creative project management offer features like file sharing, real-time messaging, and comment threads, enabling team members to collaborate seamlessly.
3. Boost productivity
These software solutions take productivity to a higher level as they help agencies optimize their resource allocation, track progress, and manage deadlines. Teams start to complete projects faster, take on more work, and meet client expectations.
For example, they can combine the functionality needed for effective digital marketing and project management. As a result, marketing teams get a single space with a powerful feature set and great opportunities.
4. Increase efficiency
Modern creative agency project management systems automate repetitive tasks and provide a single place for collaboration. Agencies can operate more efficiently by eliminating manual processes and reducing administrative overhead.
5. Stimulate scalability
All agencies desire to grow. Smart PM tools provide the necessary infrastructure to deal with increased project complexity, larger teams, and a higher volume of work.
6. Keep deadlines under control
Meeting deadlines is crucial in fast-paced industries. Project management tools enable creative agencies to set deadlines, build project timelines, and track progress against those deadlines. They provide reminders and notifications to keep teams informed about approaching deadlines, helping to prioritize work and ensure timely delivery.
7. Accelerate client satisfaction
Effective management software provides agencies with visually appealing timelines, regular progress updates, and transparent communication channels. It assists in creating trust and reaching client expectations.
To better understand the role of professional PM tools for creative agencies, consider the basic functionality they usually contain.
What features to look for in creative agency project management software
Modern creative agency project management software contains a range of features designed to streamline project workflows and enhance collaboration.
While specific opportunities may vary among different platforms, here are some common features you can expect to find in the best project management software for a creative agency.
1. Project planning
Many online PM tools allow for generating plans and schedules, assigning tasks, and establishing deadlines. Some of them come with a handy Gantt chart that professionally visualizes schedules, task dependencies, and milestones. These obvious benefits of a Gantt chart help get the overview of project progress and identify potential bottlenecks.
2. Task management
After detailed planning, agency specialists often fill their timelines with many tasks and activities. They can break tasks into smaller subtasks, organizing them and considering their hierarchy. Additionally, task management is important as this feature allows teams to assign work to colleagues, set priorities, and track progress.
3. Resource management
Managing resources effectively is what creative projects require as well. PM and resource management software provide visibility into assets availability, allocation, and workload distribution. It ensures that resources are utilized optimally without overloading team members.
For better results in creative marketing, you’ll need professional marketing resource management software or a multifunctional PM solution with such functionality.
4. Time tracking
The time tracking feature allows individuals to log the time spent on tasks or projects. It helps monitor productivity, allocate resources efficiently, and provide accurate billing or invoicing information.
5. File and asset management
Creative agencies constantly work with various files and assets. Appropriate management tools offer centralized repositories to store, organize, and share files such as design drafts, images, videos, and docs.
6. Communication means
These tools often include communication features to facilitate healthy collaboration among colleagues. They may offer messaging and chat functionality, comment sections for task discussions, and notifications to keep everyone informed about project updates and changes.
7. Client collaboration
Sometimes agencies need to involve clients in project workflows. Some tools offer client portals or access levels to share project updates, receive feedback, and facilitate client collaboration without exposing all internal project details.
8. Integration
Many PM systems integrate with popular productivity and creative tools. Integration with tools like design software, time trackers, communication apps, or cloud storage services enhances efficiency and minimizes manual data entry.
9. Reporting
Best creative agency project management software solutions typically provide reporting capabilities. Effective reports help generate insights on project performance, team productivity, task completion rates, and other metrics.
It’s time to move on to specific solutions.
10 best project management software for a creative agency
There are many possible challenges in managing modern creative agencies’ work.
Here’s how Gerry Arcari, the founder and CEO of Vivid Creative, a creative marketing agency, evaluates the biggest challenge his company has ever faced:
“The biggest challenge is keeping our agency relevant and on top of trends and technology. But at the same time not lose touch with our core foundations of what a creative marketing agency is about, our brand strategy and business objectives which modern fledgling agencies don’t have.”
No wonder that one of the ways to stay on trend and avoid such challenges in management is finding a reliable project management tool.
There is no 100% ideal solution. Therefore, managers constantly seek new platforms and better conditions.
By the way, project management tools ranked 5th among the most replaced tools in the survey conducted by MarTech (2022). Roughly 17% of respondents replaced them in 2022.
Below you’ll find some leading project management software for creative agencies that you’ll unlikely replace. They will set your team apart from competitors and will ensure better project coordination and effective client management.
1. GanttPRO – best for project planning based on a Gantt chart
Basic: starts at $7.99 user/month (billed annually).
Pro: starts at $12.99 user/month (billed annually).
Business: starts at $19.99 user/month (billed annually).
Free trial: 14 days.
Most creative agencies care about the detailed visualization of even the craziest ideas and plans. After all, it is difficult to move on without high-quality visualization.
If you need an online marketing Gantt chart or a visually appealing roadmap with a work breakdown structure for your creative projects, GanttPRO is a choice that you won’t have to doubt.
GanttPRO comes with reliable features and professional benefits that make it one of the best marketing project management software.
The online Gantt chart creator helps work with personal and team activities. Thanks to the diagram view, all tasks, campaigns, events, and their dates are clearly visualized on a timeline. You can divide tasks into subtasks, considering a WBS. It is possible to set task dependencies, add deadlines, and define milestones.
Creative teams can easily track the whole project’s progress. They can always be aware of the statuses and avoid risks and fallacies in planning.
It’s rather convenient for everyone in a creative team to apply GanttPRO for daily, weekly, monthly, or yearly planning.
This is confirmed by Łukasz Wielądek, project manager at GonnaBe, the marketing and advertising agency:
When I have to plan work for a team for the whole week, it’s really easy with GanttPRO.
Collaboration opportunities in GanttPRO are also powerful. Creative teams can collaborate in real time using comments, attachments, or task descriptions. They can export their timelines in pdf, png, xml, or Excel and share them with a public url. With handy notifications, all project participants will be aware of any changes.
The platform provides possibilities to work with resources, costs, and calendars that makes it a highly competitive tool.
Multifunctional creative agency project management tool
Visualize your creative projects on an online Gantt chart.
Sign up for freeA point that also deserves attention is that creative agency managers can provide their colleagues with special rights to view data. They can work with different account roles and project rights.
What features make GanttPRO powerful creative agency project management software:
- Gantt chart project planning.
- Task management.
- Resource management.
- Deadline management.
- Time tracking.
- Budget management.
- Notifications.
- History of changes.
- Baselines.
- Project export.
- Import from Excel, MS Project, and JIRA Cloud.
- Reporting.
Rating as of July 2023: Capterra – 4.8/5, G2 – 4.8/5.
Quick review:
2. Monday – best multifunctional tool with a variety of views
Basic: starts at $8 user/month (billed annually).
Standard: starts at $10 user/month (billed annually).
Pro: starts at $16 user/month (billed annually).
Free version and free trial: available.
Creative agencies employ creative people. Their workflows, approaches, and technologies they use often vary according to their individual preferences. Someone likes to visualize projects on a Gantt chart, someone prefers working with boards, and someone is fond of simple to-do lists.
Many project management tools offer various project views, however, Monday looks the most profitable and suitable for creative teams.
The platform allows agencies to plan, organize, and professionally track project items.
Creative teams can easily customize their workflows or processes, as well as take advantage of professional time tracking and convenient reporting. Monday can be integrated with platforms like Google Calendars, Slack, Zoom, Dropbox, and more.
The software is a frequent choice among creative teams, digital agencies, freelancing marketers, and companies of different sizes.
What features make Monday powerful creative agency project management software:
- Project planning.
- The variety of project views.
- Time tracking.
- Professional analytics.
- Reporting.
- Real-time notifications.
- Handy templates.
- Integrations.
Rating as of July 2023: Capterra – 4.6/5, G2 – 4.7/5.
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3. FunctionFox – best timesheet solution for creative teams
Classic: starts at $5 user/month (billed annually).
Premier: starts at $10 user/month (billed annually).
In-house: starts at $20 user/month (billed annually).
Free trial: available.
Creative teams don’t always keep track of time responsibly and sometimes break deadlines simply because they prefer a creative spirit and free approach to work.
However, tools like FunctionFox help them consider time and visualize their tasks anytime and anywhere without losing sight of anything.
FunctionFox is geared towards creative teams as it provides simple but effective project management features, an intuitive interface, and wide integration capabilities.
It allows for generating project schedules, allocating resources, tracking time spent on projects, and managing budgets. Interactive real-time reporting is also available there.
What features make FunctionFox powerful creative agency project management software:
- Project planning.
- To-do lists.
- Professional timesheets.
- Resource management.
- Notifications.
- Budget management.
- Comprehensive reports.
Rating as of July 2023: Capterra – 4.5/5, G2 – 4.3/5.
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4. ClickUp – best option for creative agencies with a small budget
Unlimited: starts at $5 user/month (billed annually).
Business: starts at $12 user/month (billed annually).
Business Plus: starts at $19 user/month (billed annually).
Free trial and free version: available.
ClickUp looks like a pretty attractive platform for many creative agencies as it comes with affordable plans and advanced features.
Like many popular ClickUp alternatives, this cheap yet powerful platform provides multiple ways to visualize work. Creative teams can plan their project schedules using a handy timeline and a calendar view or collaborate with convenient boards and simple to-do lists.
The straightforward interface and short learning curve are also positive factors to choose this project management software for creative agencies.
The platform allows for choosing an automation template or creating your own automation from scratch.
What features make ClickUp powerful creative agency project management software:
- Project planning.
- Task management.
- Task prioritization.
- Calendars.
- Billing & invoicing.
- Handy templates.
- Risk management.
- Budget management.
- Recurring tasks.
- Time tracking.
- Reporting.
Rating as of July 2023: Capterra – 4.7/5, G2 – 4.7/5.
Quick review:
5. ProofHub – best collaborative workspace for creative teams
Essential: starts at $45 unlimited users/month for managing up to 40 projects (billed annually).
Unlimited control: starts at $89 unlimited users/month for managing unlimited projects (billed annually).
Free trial: available.
Chaos and creative clutter often haunt creative agencies. To prevent them, it is crucial to keep everything in its place and collaborate effectively.
ProofHub professionally assists in keeping communication organized and allows for initiating conversations in a couple of steps. With its help, agencies can see all work updates in one place and clearly understand where their projects move.
The platform facilitates communication through discussion threads and comments on tasks. It keeps collaboration accessible, reducing the need for scattered conversations through emails or messaging apps.
ProofHub enables easy file sharing and allows users to create notes. They can jot down ideas, meeting minutes, or important information related to projects.
Like many ProofHub alternatives, the tool offers versatile project management features. Affordable pricing, an intuitive interface, and exceptional customer support also make ProofHub a good choice for managers and creative teams.
It also helps to remove communication barriers as it’s available in many languages. You can personalize your account by customizing its look with white labeling.
What features make ProofHub powerful creative agency project management software:
- Project planning.
- Various project views.
- Advanced collaboration.
- Time management.
- Document management.
- Task prioritization.
- Timesheets exporting.
- Customizable templates.
- Reporting.
Rating as of July 2023: Capterra – 4.6/5, G2 – 4.5/5.
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6. Podio – best for mobile users in creative agencies
Plus: starts at $11.20 user/month (billed annually).
Premium: starts at $19.20 user/month (billed annually).
Free trial: 14 days.
Podio is known as a solid system that professionally assists in managing both creative projects and complex routine campaigns. It doesn’t require switching between various tools or available Podio alternatives for different functionalities, as you can find anything you need there.
This is a popular tool with a nice balance of features and simplicity. It’s best used for organizing and tracking project processes as well as discussing any work issues. With its intuitive interface and handy mobile apps, Podio seamlessly adapts to the way you want your creative team to perform.
You can create task automation to keep team members and projects connected with a Podio workflow. Visual reports that help track team efficiency and provide an insightful overview of how your projects are progressing are also available.
What features make Podio powerful creative agency project management software:
- Project planning.
- Task management.
- Helpful mobile apps.
- To-do lists.
- Calendars.
- Task prioritization.
- Alerts/notifications.
- Email management.
- Document management.
- File sharing.
- Reporting.
Rating as of July 2023: Capterra – 4.3/5, G2 – 4.2/5.
Quick review:
7. nTask – best for event management
Premium: starts at $3 user/month (billed annually).
Business: starts at $8 user/month (billed annually).
Free trial: 14 days.
This is another project management software for creative agencies that if used to its full potential can make the job of creative managers and event coordinators much easier.
nTask helps see the bigger picture of any project, and make plans that can be tracked with ease.
It goes beyond typical task management software by offering simple yet powerful to-do lists and checklists with convenient settings for organizing any workflow of creative agencies.
With this tool, you can manage organizational hierarchy, real-life activities, virtual events, and meetings with important agenda. Resource planning, budgeting, analytics, and pre-built templates are also available here.
Besides, nTask comes with features like event calendar integration, notifications, and alerts so that you can stay informed at all times.
What features make nTask powerful creative agency project management software:
- Project planning.
- Task management.
- Event management.
- Time tracking.
- File sharing.
- Risk management.
- Meeting management.
- Notifications and reminders.
- Reporting.
Rating as of July 2023: Capterra – 4.2/5, G2 – 4.4/5.
Quick review:
8. Zoho Projects – best free creative agency project management software
Premium: starts at €4 user/month (billed annually).
Enterprise: starts at €9 user/month (billed annually).
Free trial and free version: available.
Zoho Projects is one of the solutions from the Zoho suite. You can use it for free or try its advanced paid plans.
It is known as an easy-to-use project management tool that helps project teams from various spheres and industries organize and control their work. Creative agencies are not excluded.
The platform comes with a full stack of office and productivity tools. It offers collaboration, observability, and productivity capabilities to upgrade project management workflows.
Using this powerful PM tool, you can plan different work processes, track them efficiently, and collaborate with your team members even remotely.
Additionally, Zoho Projects includes analytics so that you can assess your tasks and make improvements.
What features make Zoho Projects powerful creative agency project management software:
- Planning.
- Customizable Gantt charts.
- To-do lists.
- Task prioritization.
- Timesheet module.
- Issue tracker.
- Document management.
- Google integration.
- Calendar view.
- Effective reporting.
Rating as of July 2023: Capterra – 4.3/5, G2 – 4.3/5.
Quick review:
9. Airtable – best project management tool with the extended template library
Plus: starts at $10 user/month (billed annually).
Pro: starts at $20 user/month (billed annually).
Free version and free trial: available.
Airtable has evolved beyond its initial spreadsheet format and now the platform offers a comprehensive project management functionality suitable for any creative agency.
The tool facilitates seamless connectivity between data and teams. With Airtable, creative teams can effortlessly construct databases and convert data into visual representations.
Users particularly value the ability to arrange work in a personalized manner, along with the inclusion of robust filtering, sorting capabilities, and powerful templates.
What features make Airtable powerful creative agency project management software:
- Project planning.
- Task management.
- Handy spreadsheets.
- Portfolio management.
- Calendar management.
- Notifications.
- Email integration.
- Automatic backup.
- Pre-made templates.
- Reporting.
Rating as of July 2023: Capterra – 4.7/5, G2 – 4.6/5.
Quick review:
10. Redbooth – best for creative agencies with distributed workers
Pro: starts at $9 user/month (billed annually).
Business: starts at $15 user/month (billed annually).
Free trial: 14 days.
Remote team management can be challenging and risky. However, the work of many modern creative agencies requires the attraction of distributed workers.
If your remote colleagues are spread across the globe, Redbooth helps everyone stay in sync and on track with your deadline-driven tasks. When managed correctly, allowing agency team members to work remotely can benefit both individuals and the entire team.
The tool features planning, task management, time tracking, collaboration, reporting, and real-time communication. It provides a single place for team collaboration, allowing users to make tasks, discuss issues, share files, and use video conferencing.
What features make Redbooth powerful creative agency project management software:
- Project planning.
- Task management.
- Portfolio management.
- Document management.
- Automatic time tracking.
- File sharing.
- Analytics.
- Reporting.
- Advanced video conferencing.
Rating as of July 2023: Capterra – 4.4/5, G2 – 4.4/5.
Quick review:
Bonus: marketing project management templates
Creative agencies may face challenges during their work processes. This often happens at the beginning of their professional journey.
Luckily, there are comprehensive marketing project management templates designed by GanttPRO. They simplify the efforts of managers and creative specialists.
These templates save time by providing ready-made schedules for planning, executing, and controlling various types of project activities.
You can select the option that best aligns with your specific project requirements:
- Marketing campaign.
- Social media marketing.
- Digital marketing plan.
- Marketing strategy plan.
- Marketing budget.
- SEO marketing plan, and more.
How to choose the right project management software for your creative agency?
After exploring the top project management software for creative agencies, you can narrow your own list down based on your organization’s requirements and personal needs.
Consider the following criteria when choosing a creative agency project management software:
- Ease of use.
- Key features.
- Pricing.
- Customer rating, and other essential factors to find the best fit.
Remember that it’s rather important to pick up the software that will let your colleagues focus on creativity while considering essential management principles and rules.
