10 Best Creative Agency Project Management Software in 2023

monday.com is a work management platform that has dozens of use cases, including creative and design work.

Why I picked monday.com: Easy, visual and intuitive, monday.com is an award-winning software used by over 70,000 teams. In our evaluation criteria, I specify that we are looking for customizable workload management and collaborative feedback, which is something that this platform handles particularly well.

monday.com lets you create shareable forms to customize creative and design approvals. It also has a repository where you can store all files related to your projects and easily collaborate on them. Once a file is uploaded, you can annotate and comment on an asset, and keep a record of the different versions of it. Finally, the boards have the capacity to handle custom workflows where you can keep your team up to date on expectations.

monday.com Standout Features & Integrations

Features include monthly and annual expense tracking, a recruitment tracker for HR, easy editorial and blogging planning, competitor analysis, the management of marketing projects, onboarding processes, and creative requests.

Integrations include DropBox, Excel, Google Calendar, Google Drive, Integromat, Slack, Trello, Pipedrive, Jira, Mailchimp, and even more through Zapier.

ClickUp is a creative project management tool software that offers built-in creative features for every step in the design process.

Why I picked ClickUp: Users can collaborate with their teams on any design project with features for proofing, threaded comments, chat, and easy file sharing. Share files and deliverables with clients and control what they can access with permissions. Collect approval, feedback, or customer information with custom-branded forms. ClickUp also offers multiple views and templates for building and managing your creative workflow or getting projects started.

Task management features include task checklists, subtasks, and task templates, as well as the ability to filter, sort, search for, easily reorder, and view tasks in the manner most convenient for the team. Users can also create Gantt charts, calendars, and timelines to visualize tasks.

ClickUp Standout Features & Integrations

Features include the creation, sharing, and editing of documents and files. Also, users can comment on documents and tasks, assign comments, and chat with other team members for increased communication and collaboration. Reporting features include the ability to create custom dashboards, as well as six built-in report types for team reporting.

Integrations include Slack, G Suite, Dropbox, and many more tools, as well as 1,000+ integrations through Zapier.

ClickUp's free plan is robust and includes all primary features so you can properly test it and discover if it suits your needs.

Paymo is a project management, time tracking, and invoicing software that helps creative agencies streamline the process of managing their projects from start to finish while offering a frictionless experience.

Why I picked Paymo: Paymo’s features cover the whole process, from creating the initial project estimate to adding and assigning tasks, setting up budgets, tracking work time, and generating reports and invoices for clients.

To keep everyone informed and on the same page, Paymo allows real-time commenting at the task and project level along with in-app and email notifications. The interface is modern and easy to navigate through. It looks pretty crowded but you can hide the modules you don’t plan to use.

Lastly, a dedicated account manager will make sure the onboarding process is smooth for everyone. Therefore, it makes learning the tool easier.

Paymo Standout Features & Integrations

Features include time tracking, team scheduling, several ways to view your tasks, file upload to tasks, file proofing, professional estimates, and leave planning.

Integrations include apps like Slack, Adobe Creative Cloud, Google Drive, QuickBooks Online, Xero, JotForm, Shift, to name a few. Other integrations are available through Zapier or by syncing with their fully-documented API.

MeisterTask is a Kanban-inspired software that enables effective, creative project management through stunning design and intuitive user experience.

Why I picked MeisterTask: You can organize and manage tasks in a beautifully designed, customizable environment that perfectly adapts to your needs. MeisterTask also helps you bring all your task-related documents into a centralized location. You can attach files and images up to 250MB directly to tasks and browse through them using the integrated attachment viewer.

With MeisterTask, you can also automate recurring steps in your team’s workflow, ensuring team members work more consistently and get more done together. You can automatically assign tasks, move tasks between projects/sprints when they are moved to a new section, track time, or create recurring tasks that are due weekly or monthly.

MeisterTask Standout Features & Integrations

Features include comments and mentions, assignable checklist items, task and project watch, and advanced permissions settings—to provide teams with a robust platform on which to work together.

Integrations include popular tools such as Slack, Microsoft Teams, GitHub, Zendesk, Harvest, and various email apps. In addition to these native integrations, you can use Zapier or IFTTT to connect your projects with hundreds of other tools.

MeisterTask offers a free plan that you can test to see if you're comfortable with the user interface and its task management features.

Filestage is a review and approval platform used by agencies and in-house creative teams around the world. From sharing files to collecting feedback, it speeds up every step of your creative review process.

Why I picked Filestage: Filestage centralizes your approval workflow into a single dashboard. From there, you can see every review step, file format, version, and reviewer in your project, with status indicators to show who’s approved what. So at any stage in your creative review process, you can see exactly where things are at a glance.

However, feedback management is where Filestage really shines. You can invite reviewers to add comments and discuss ideas right alongside your content and create review steps to group feedback from different types of stakeholders, like Creative, Account management, and Client. Add in automated timecodes, version comparisons, annotations, and attachments, and Filestage is a great feedback platform.

Filestage Standout Features & Integrations

Features include one-click approvals, unlimited reviewers for your files, annotations on any comment, file attachments, file versioning, and a folder structure so you can organize your different projects.

Integrations include native connections to Slack, Microsoft Teams, Adobe Creative Cloud, and Asana – plus thousands more apps through their integration partners, like Pabbly.

Freedcamp is a free project management tool that helps streamline projects, processes, workflows, track time and issues.

Why I picked Freedcamp: Freedcamp has invoicing tools, project templates, CRM tools, widget and task boards, Gantt charts, Kanban boards, white-label capabilities to use your own URL and logo, file storage, file editing, a social hub (“Wall”), issue tracker, and more. They have iOS, Android, and Desktop applications available.

As far as my evaluation criteria that chart value for cost, Freedcamp is a standout. That makes it perfect for smaller creative teams that do not have the resources for an expensive suite of PM software on top of everything they already use.

Freedcamp Standout Features & Integrations

Features include FileEdit for automatic upload of document changes, tags, mentions, smart quotes, templates, flexible permissions, and email notifications.

Integrations include Google Calendar, Google Drive, Dropbox, and more through Zapier.

While the UX is a bit clunky, you’ll find it perfectly usable. The clutter of items on-screen at any given time can be a distraction but is not a deal-breaker by any means.

Hive is a creative project management and collaboration platform that powers companies like Starbucks, Uber, WeWork and IBM. With AI-based analytics, thousands of integrations, flexible project views, and more, Hive streamlines your work in one centralized platform. Used by teams of varying sizes, from 10 people to 1,000, Hive is a great option for a diverse range of companies and work styles including creative teams.

Hive’s time-tracking, analytics and flexible view capabilities allow for transparent understanding of other team members work and upcoming projects. You can organize your projects in a Gantt chart, Kanban board, calendar and easily switch between each layout. Custom designed automated workflows are also possible, along with resource tracking and team communication and collaboration.

Hive has a proofing and approval feature which simplifies feedback loops and approval cycles with the ability to assign approvals, share proofs and provide feedback. Forms can also be sent outside your organization to gather information about clients and customers.

Hive also has one of the first full email integrations in any project management tool, which allows you to send and receive Gmail and Outlook messages from the app.

Hive costs $12 per user per month when billed annually.

FunctionFox is a timesheet and project management software that is ideal for creative professionals.

Why I picked FunctionFox: It helps streamline time and expense tracking, estimates and budgeting, running reports, schedules and calendars, task and action assignments, and internal communication. as well as other administrative busywork that can bog down your creative team. They also offer a dedicated account rep with paid plans so it is a good option for those unfamiliar with PM software.

The comparably low cost is complemented by a generous feature set, making it a great option for small teams. FunctionFox offers add-ons that allow for mobile app access (Android and iPhone), Flink (file exchange), and invoicing. Reports can be saved as Excel, CSV, PDF, and HTML.

FunctionFox Standout Features & Integrations

Features include time tracking, retainer tracking, editable rates, project templates, to-do lists with email alerts, freelancer access, and email alerts on comments.

Integrations are not available at the moment.

Affordable and easy to use, FunctionFox speaks to our evaluation component that digs into usability and value for your money.

Admation is a project management software made for marketing teams and agencies that want the benefit of multiple features rolled into one comprehensive tool. Combining project, resource and approval workflow management, Admation enables users to manage the full creative production cycle of their campaigns, from project briefs to resourcing to managing the entire approval workflow.

With a user-friendly interface, Admation offers an exceptional range of creative project management software features and tools. A central dashboard enables you to have complete visibility over your projects and resources while offering an intuitive framework from which to manage all facets of your work.

Creative project management features include briefing templates, project resource templates, project timelines, scheduling and assigning tasks, document approval, capacity planning, department dashboard & calendar, resource allocation, timesheets and time tracking, a complete brand archive, permissions & access levels, tags & keywords, a secure digital storage system for your finalized ads, and more.

Integrations include email systems and Mediaocean, formally BCC, which is ad agency finance software.

Admation costs from $30 per user per month and offers a free demo and free trial upon request.

Streamtime is a creative project management tool that allows users to create, plan, and manage projects. The tool’s interactive To Do screen replaces traditional timesheets and allows users to monitor progress and complete work.

Project managers can view and manage team member workloads from the To Do screen and the schedule view. Users can reschedule tasks and jobs using the drag-and-drop functionality, as well as plan tasks and jobs from the schedule view.

Streamtime’s reporting tools include preset segments that allow users to see work in progress, time spent by week or month, items over budget, or expenses for the month. Filters also allow users to create custom reports and export to .csv for further manipulation if needed.

Users can also measure how projects are tracking in terms of budget, manage expenses, keep track of invoicing, and more.

Streamtime includes integrations with Xero and QuickBooks, as well as many more through Zapier.

Pricing starts at $40 per month.