OnBrio
Most CRM software was designed for sales teams: track leads, move deals through a pipeline, close revenue. That model works for a SaaS company or a traditional sales organisation. It does not map well to how agencies actually operate.
Agencies manage ongoing client relationships, not one-time deals. They need to track proposals and contracts, manage project deliverables, handle invoicing, and give clients visibility into project progress — all from the same system. A CRM that gives you a contact list and a kanban pipeline, but nothing else, forces you to bolt on four other tools and manually sync them together.
This guide evaluates seven CRM tools through an agency lens: not just "can it manage contacts" but "does it cover the full agency workflow?" Here is the honest breakdown.
What agencies need from a CRM
Before comparing tools, it helps to be specific about what an agency CRM actually needs to do. Based on how agencies operate in 2026, the requirements stack looks like this:
Contact and deal pipeline management
Every CRM handles this. What distinguishes good from bad is the quality of the pipeline view, custom fields, and the transition from "closed deal" to "active client." Generic CRMs stop at the close. Agency CRMs need to seamlessly carry deal context into the project and billing workflow.
Proposals and contracts with e-signature
Proposals are where most agency revenue is won or lost. The CRM should support proposal creation, sending, real-time open/view tracking, e-signature, and automatic follow-up. Many general-purpose CRMs have no proposal tooling at all — you are expected to use a separate tool like PandaDoc or DocuSign.
Project management
Once a deal closes, the real work begins. An agency CRM should provide some form of project management — task boards, milestone tracking, deadline visibility — so that the same system that managed the deal also tracks the delivery. The alternative is exporting a deal to Asana and losing the connection between client history and project state.
Invoicing and billing
Generating invoices from a CRM is table stakes. What separates good tools from great ones is whether invoicing connects to time tracking, whether recurring invoices are automated, and whether the tool charges transaction fees on top of the subscription.
Client portal
Clients do not want to dig through their email to find a contract they signed six months ago. A client portal gives clients a centralised place to view their project status, download invoices, access proposals, and communicate with your team — without requiring them to log into your internal tools.
Team seats at reasonable cost
Per-seat pricing that scales linearly becomes a meaningful budget consideration as agencies grow. Tools that charge $50+/seat/month quickly become expensive for teams of five or more.
Top 7 CRMs for agencies
1. OnBrio — Best all-in-one CRM for agencies
OnBrio is built specifically for the agency workflow described above. Rather than being a general-purpose CRM with some billing features bolted on, OnBrio's architecture connects all five layers — pipeline, proposals, projects, invoicing, and client portal — natively.
What OnBrio does well:
- Pipeline management with custom stages and deal tracking
- Proposal builder with e-signature, open/view tracking, and auto-follow-up
- Native project management with kanban board, timeline view, and team assignment
- Time tracking that converts directly to invoices (no manual reconciliation)
- White-labelled client portal with project progress, document access, and messaging
- AI copilot for proposal drafting based on historical proposals
- No transaction fees. Five team seats on the $29/month Starter plan.
Limitations: Not as deep on outbound sales pipeline management as dedicated sales CRMs like Pipedrive or HubSpot. If your agency runs a high-volume outbound prospecting motion, those tools may suit the top-of-funnel better.
2. HoneyBook — Best for solo creative agencies
HoneyBook positions itself as a "clientflow" platform and has built a strong following among photographers, designers, and event professionals. The all-in-one approach works well for solos who want proposals, contracts, invoicing, and basic client communication in one place.
What HoneyBook does well:
- Fastest setup in the category — you can be functional in under an hour
- Polished, modern UI that clients respond well to
- Smart files that combine proposal, contract, and invoice in a single client-facing document
- Good automations for solo workflows
Limitations: 2.9% + $0.25 transaction fee on all payments, no project management, limited team features, significant price increase in February 2025. See our full comparison at OnBrio vs HoneyBook.
3. Dubsado — Best for freelancers with complex automations
Dubsado's workflow automation engine is the most powerful in the freelancer CRM category. If your business runs on complex, multi-step automation sequences that span proposals, contracts, and invoicing, Dubsado's depth here is hard to match at $20–40/month.
What Dubsado does well:
- Advanced workflow automations with conditional logic
- Highly configurable forms and questionnaires
- No transaction fees on payments
- Strong template library for forms and proposals
Limitations: 2–4 week setup time, dated UI, no project management, $200/month for team access. Full breakdown: OnBrio vs Dubsado.
4. HubSpot CRM — Best free CRM for outbound-focused agencies
HubSpot's free CRM is genuinely impressive in scope for a no-cost product. Contact management, deal pipeline, email tracking, meeting scheduling, and a basic live chat widget are all available without a subscription. For agencies that run serious outbound campaigns, HubSpot's free tier is hard to beat as a starting point.
What HubSpot does well:
- Best free CRM tier in the market — generous and capable
- Excellent contact management, deal pipeline, and email integration
- Strong automation when you upgrade to paid tiers
- Comprehensive reporting and analytics
- Massive integration ecosystem
Limitations: No invoicing or billing tools built-in (requires third-party integrations). No proposal or e-signature tooling on free tier. Project management requires a separate tool. Pricing on paid tiers can escalate quickly — HubSpot's Marketing Hub starts at $800/month for full automation.
5. Pipedrive — Best for agencies with a structured sales motion
Pipedrive is a focused sales CRM with an excellent visual pipeline and strong activity-based selling tools. For agencies that run a structured new-business pipeline with BDRs or account executives, Pipedrive's deal management is best-in-class in this price range.
What Pipedrive does well:
- Best-in-class visual pipeline with drag-and-drop deal management
- Strong activity tracking and sales rep accountability tools
- Solid email integration with templates and tracking
- Good automation on mid-tier plans
- Clean, focused UI that sales teams adopt quickly
Limitations: No invoicing, no proposals, no project management, no client portal. It is a pure sales CRM — if you need any of the post-sale workflow, you are connecting separate tools. Starting at $14/seat/month (Essential) but $29–49/seat/month for automation features.
6. Monday CRM — Best for agencies already using Monday.com
Monday CRM is the CRM module built on top of the Monday.com work management platform. If your agency already uses Monday for project management, the CRM module is a natural extension — it shares the same interface, board-based logic, and automations.
What Monday CRM does well:
- Excellent visual, customisable boards for pipeline management
- Strong integration with Monday's project management features
- Flexible data structure — you can build virtually any workflow on top of it
- Good automation and integration ecosystem
Limitations: No invoicing or billing. No proposals or e-signature. Requires combining with other Monday modules (or third-party tools) to cover the full agency stack. Starts at $12/seat/month but you will likely need multiple modules.
7. ClickUp — Best for agencies that want one tool for everything except billing
ClickUp has aggressively expanded from a project management tool into a broader work management platform that includes a CRM view, goals, docs, and whiteboards. For agencies that want maximum consolidation, ClickUp can replace Asana, Notion, and a basic CRM in one subscription.
What ClickUp does well:
- Extremely flexible — can be configured as a CRM, project management tool, or both
- Generous free tier with unlimited tasks
- Strong doc and wiki tooling built-in
- Good automation on paid plans
Limitations: No invoicing, no proposal tooling, no e-signature, no client portal. ClickUp consolidates internal operations well but still requires external tools for client-facing billing and proposals.
Beautiful proposals, built-in e-signature, and automatic contract generation.
Feature comparison
| Feature | OnBrio | HoneyBook | Dubsado | HubSpot | Pipedrive | Monday CRM | ClickUp |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Contact + deal pipeline | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Proposals + e-signature | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✗ | ✗ | ✗ | ✗ |
| Invoicing | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✗ | ✗ | ✗ | ✗ |
| Transaction fees | None | 2.9%+ | None | N/A | N/A | N/A | N/A |
| Project management | ✓ Full | ✗ | ✗ | Basic | ✗ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Client portal | ✓ White-label | Basic | Basic | ✗ | ✗ | ✗ | ✗ |
| Time tracking | ✓ | ✗ | ✗ | ✗ | ✗ | Basic | ✓ |
| AI features | ✓ | ✗ | ✗ | Paid | ✗ | Partial | ✓ |
| Team seats (entry) | 5 | 1 | 1 | Free | 1 | 3 min | 5 free |
Pricing breakdown
Pricing in the CRM category spans from free (HubSpot, ClickUp) to enterprise. Here is what a 5-person agency actually pays at entry-level pricing:
| Tool | 5-seat cost/month | Includes billing? | Includes projects? | Total cost (annual) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| OnBrio | $29 (5 seats included) | ✓ | ✓ | $348/year |
| HoneyBook | $79 (Premium, multi-seat) | ✓ (+ fees) | ✗ | $948/year + fees |
| Dubsado | $200 (3-seat team plan) | ✓ | ✗ | $2,400/year |
| HubSpot | $0–$450 (Starter 5 seats) | ✗ | Basic | $0–$5,400/year |
| Pipedrive | $145 (5 × $29/mo) | ✗ | ✗ | $1,740/year |
| Monday CRM | $180 (5 × $36/mo) | ✗ | ✓ (separate) | $2,160+/year |
| ClickUp | $0–$90 (5 × $18/mo) | ✗ | ✓ | $0–$1,080/year |
The tools that do not include billing (HubSpot, Pipedrive, Monday, ClickUp) require adding a separate invoicing solution — FreshBooks, QuickBooks, or similar — which adds $17–30/month to the effective cost and creates a manual sync burden between systems.
Best CRM by agency type
- Marketing and design agencies (2–15 people): OnBrio. The combination of pipeline, proposals, project management, and billing in one tool at $29/month (annual) is the strongest value proposition for this segment. The AI copilot for proposals is a meaningful differentiator for agencies that pitch regularly.
- Solo freelancers and 1-person creative agencies: HoneyBook. Fastest setup, best client experience, and the all-in-one convenience works well when you are the only user. Factor in transaction fees against your billing volume.
- Agencies with heavy outbound sales pipelines: HubSpot free tier + OnBrio for client management. HubSpot's free CRM handles top-of-funnel prospecting; OnBrio handles the closed-client workflow. The two tools complement each other well and the free HubSpot tier adds meaningful cost to neither budget.
- Large agencies (20+ people) with complex sales motions: HubSpot Sales Hub or Pipedrive for the sales pipeline, with OnBrio or a custom implementation for client delivery management.
- Agencies heavily invested in project management: Monday CRM or ClickUp (for internal workflows) + OnBrio for client-facing billing and proposals.
Our recommendation
For the majority of agencies — marketing agencies, design studios, development shops, and creative agencies with 2 to 20 people — OnBrio is the CRM we recommend in 2026.
The reason is simple: agencies have a workflow that spans five layers — leads, proposals, projects, invoicing, and client communication. The tools that cover only one or two of those layers force you to build a patchwork of integrations and manually maintain context across systems. The tools that try to cover all five but were not designed for agencies (generic CRMs bolting on billing features) do it poorly.
OnBrio was designed around the agency workflow from the start. The five team seats on the entry plan mean you do not face a steep per-seat pricing wall as you grow. The lack of transaction fees means your effective cost does not scale with revenue. And the AI copilot for proposals means the tool gets smarter about your business over time.
If you are currently running a fragmented stack — CRM in HubSpot, projects in Asana, invoicing in FreshBooks, proposals in PandaDoc — OnBrio is the consolidation play that makes that entire stack redundant.
See the full comparisons: OnBrio vs HoneyBook · OnBrio vs Dubsado · or read our broader best agency management software roundup.
Common questions
What is the best CRM for a small marketing or design agency?
OnBrio, for agencies of 2–15 people — it combines pipeline, proposals, project management, and billing in one tool at $29/month with 5 seats included, the strongest value proposition in the category.
What is the best free CRM for agencies?
HubSpot's free tier, particularly for agencies running outbound prospecting. It has no invoicing, proposal, or project management tooling, so most agencies pair it with a dedicated agency tool for the post-sale workflow.
Do generic CRMs like Pipedrive or HubSpot work for agencies?
They handle the sales pipeline well but have no invoicing, proposals, project management, or client portal. Agencies using them typically bolt on two or three additional tools to cover the rest of the workflow.
Which CRM has the lowest cost for a 5-person team?
OnBrio, at $29/month with 5 seats included ($348/year total) — compared to $948–2,400/year for tools like HoneyBook or Dubsado at similar team sizes.
Which CRM is best for solo freelancers rather than agencies?
HoneyBook. Its all-in-one convenience and fast setup work well for a single user, though its 2.9%+ transaction fees add up as billing volume grows.
Send proposals that close in minutes, not weeks.
Beautiful proposals, built-in e-signature, and automatic contract generation.
