Marketing Agency CRM That Stops Scope Creep and Speeds Up Billing
The agency runs great campaigns and forgets its own follow-ups. Smarfle books discovery calls, auto-bills retainers, keeps client reporting on cadence, and chases the stalled pitches. From $19/month.
24
18
$42,000
78%
Bloom Botanicals
Social Media Campaign
TechVault SaaS
PPC Management
Cedar Valley Realty
Brand Identity Redesign
Northwind Logistics
Content Strategy Retainer
Everything a marketing agency business runs on
Smarfle connects everything a successful local business runs on: website, Google Business Profile, call tracking, lead follow-up, CRM, review requests, payments, and recurring orders. One platform. Start with the marketing agency workflows below.
Marketing Agency Scheduling Software
Client check-ins + project kickoffs + creative reviews. Agency scheduling needs all three. Smarfle's recurring + public booking keep retainer + project meetings on cadence.
Learn moreMarketing Agency Billing Software
Marketing agency billing is monthly retainer subscriptions plus project add-ons plus occasional one-off scope. A typical 10-client agency runs $20k-150k in MRR across retainers ($2k-15k/month), then bills another $5k-30k in project add-ons quarterly (campaign launches, branded asset packages, custom landing pages). Smarfle handles all three on one engine: recurring monthly retainer auto-charge, project milestone invoicing, and one-off scope billing without a separate FreshBooks or HoneyBook to reconcile.
Learn moreMarketing Agency Invoicing Software
Monthly retainer auto-invoices. Project fees + change orders auto-generate at milestone completion. All with Pay Now link for fast payment.
Learn moreThe growth side, built in
Agency Call Tracking
You sell call tracking to clients, and your own new-business calls deserve the same. Every inquiry is recorded, attributed, and logged.
Reviews & Google Business Profile
Agencies that rank their own profile prove they can rank a client's. Reviews from retained accounts close skeptical prospects.
Website & Lead Follow-Ups
Audit-request forms are your lead magnet, and automated follow-ups keep pitches warm through the client's budget cycle.
Plans that grow with your marketing agency business
All plans include a 7-day free trial. No credit card required.
Solo
Sole operators getting started
- 1 user
- Up to 100 clients
- 1 GB storage
- Public booking link + calendar
- Client management
- Work orders with photos
- Invoices + Stripe payments
- Activity log, tags, custom fields
- Mobile PWA + CSV import/export
Starter
Small teams adding tools and growth
- Up to 5 users (1 owner + 4 techs)
- Up to 200 clients
- 1 GB storage
- Everything in Solo
- Voice AI receptionist (usage-based)
- GMB rank tracking
- Search Console integration
- API access + webhooks
- Branded client portal
Professional
Growing service businesses
- Up to 10 users
- Up to 500 clients
- 3 branch locations
- 5 GB storage
- Everything in Starter
- AI email & SMS drafts
- AI work order summaries
- GBP Posts + Dashboard
- Workflows automation
- Website builder + AI content
Business
Multi-location operations
- Up to 30 users
- Up to 1,000 clients
- 10 branch locations
- 20 GB storage
- Everything in Professional
- Priority support
- Higher AI credit limits
SMS, email, AI, and voice are billed pay-as-you-go. See full pricing breakdown →
Where marketing agency businesses lose time and money
The day-to-day friction every marketing agency owner recognizes.
Scope Creep Eats Your Retainer Margins
Clients ask for one more revision, one more report, one more strategy call. Without clear tracking of what is included and what is extra, your team delivers work that never gets billed and your retainers become unprofitable.
Deliverable Deadlines Slip Without Warning
Campaign launches, content calendars, and reporting deadlines move targets across multiple clients. When one project runs late, it creates a domino effect that impacts every other client's timeline.
Monthly Reporting Takes Longer Than the Work
Your team spends hours compiling reports for each client, pulling data from multiple sources, formatting slides, and scheduling review calls. The reporting process itself has become a major cost center.
Built for marketing agency businesses
Not a generic CRM. Every feature is tailored to how marketing agency companies actually work.
Campaign and Project Tracking
Create campaigns per client with deliverables, deadlines, and assigned team members. Track progress through phases and see all active projects in one view.
Retainer-Based Invoicing
Generate monthly retainer invoices automatically. Track hours or deliverables against retainer budgets so you know when clients are over or under their allocation.
Client Portal for Approvals and Updates
Clients log in to see campaign progress, approve deliverables, and view their invoices. Fewer email threads, faster approvals, and clearer communication.
Team Assignment and Capacity Planning
Assign designers, strategists, and coordinators to campaigns. See workload across the team and identify who has capacity before taking on new clients.
Revenue and Client Profitability Reports
Track revenue per client, campaign type, and team member. Identify which retainers are profitable and which are costing you money so you can adjust pricing or scope.
Retainer Auto-Billing
Monthly retainers charge automatically with clean invoices, so the agency's own cash flow finally matches its advice.
Every marketing agency call, handled your way
Your business number routes however you decide, and you can mix modes by schedule: forward to your phone during the day, switch to text-back or the AI after hours.
Plain forwarding
$0.04/min
Just rings your phone. Every call logged as answered or missed.
Forward with call tracking
$0.10/min
Rings your phone. Recorded, transcribed, summarized, and logged to the customer record.
Busy message + text-back
~$0.05/call
Plays your message, hangs up, and texts the caller. Replies land in your Inbox as leads.
AI receptionist
$0.25/min
The AI answers, qualifies the caller, and books the job. Great after hours if you want it.
Curious how the AI option sounds? Call (866) 355-9645 and try booking a consultation with it.
How a marketing engagement flows through Smarfle
From first pitch to monthly retainer — campaigns and creative tracked end-to-end.
- 1
Lead from referral or content
Web form, AI receptionist, or inbound from your own marketing. Each becomes a client record with industry, budget, and goals.
- 2
Discovery + proposal
Calendar slot for discovery. Proposal built from line items (strategy, creative, ad spend, retainer). Custom fields track scope and team allocation.
- 3
Retainer signed + onboarding
MSA via e-sign, first month invoice via Stripe payment link, project kickoff scheduled, recurring monthly retainer becomes a work order.
- 4
Campaigns + creative work logged
Time tracking per client against billable hours, expenses for ad spend, deliverables attached to the client record. Job checklist for monthly QBR prep.
- 5
Monthly bill + report + renewal
Stripe Connect for recurring monthly retainer. Workflow automation sends the monthly report email. Maintenance reminders for the renewal conversation.
Same flow for every marketing agency business, only the terminology and details change.
Is Smarfle the right fit for your marketing agency business?
We built this for a specific type of business owner. Tap each one that sounds like you.
We built this for you if...
Tap the ones that resonate
This probably isn't for you if...
And that's okay
Retainer Budget Tracking That Prevents Margin Erosion
Every deliverable and hour logged against a retainer is tracked in real time. You see at a glance which clients are within budget and which are consuming more than their allocation. This data lets you have proactive conversations about scope instead of discovering overruns at month end.
The full marketing agency toolkit, in detail
Three ways Smarfle transforms how you operate, get paid, and grow.
Campaign Dashboard
See every active campaign with client, phase, deadlines, and assigned team. Filter by account manager, campaign type, or status to focus your attention.
Deliverable Tracking
Track every deliverable from brief through creation, review, and approval. Know exactly where each piece of work stands without asking your team.
Team Capacity View
See workload distribution across designers, strategists, and coordinators. Identify who has bandwidth before assigning new work or onboarding new clients.
Retainer Budget Monitor
Track hours and deliverables against each client's retainer allocation in real time. Flag overruns before they happen and have scope conversations proactively.
A CRM for Marketing Agency Operations, Not Just Sales
Most CRMs were built to sell software, so they optimize for the sales pipeline. A marketing agency runs the opposite mode, sales is 10% of the work, the other 90% is delivering retainers, managing project deliverables, tracking ad spend across clients, and billing for changes when the scope creeps. Smarfle's CRM for marketing agency operations puts the client retainer at the center: monthly recurring billing, project deliverables per channel (SEO, paid, social, email), time-tracked hours against the retainer cap, and a client portal where the client can see what they're getting for their money.
A marketing agency CRM built for the post-sale 90%, retainers, deliverables, ad spend, scope creep, is what lets your agency grow past the founder's personal hours.
Retainer billing with scope tracking
Monthly retainer auto-bills the client's saved card. Time-tracked hours roll up against the retainer cap so you see overage before it happens, not at month-end when it's already lost margin.
Project deliverables per channel
SEO retainer has its own deliverables (audit, on-page edits, link building); paid retainer has its own (campaign setup, weekly reports). Smarfle keeps both organized under the same client without confusing the team.
Ad spend tracked per client
If you bill ad spend pass-through, Smarfle tracks the spend and adds the markup automatically. No more end-of-month spreadsheet rituals or 'did we forget to bill the agency fee on this one' scrambles.
Client portal that shows real progress
Clients log in, see what was delivered last month, what's in flight, what's coming. Reduces 'what are you actually doing?' emails by 80% and surfaces value before the renewal conversation.
Marketing Agency CRM questions
Related industries
Other trades using Smarfle to run their book of business.
Event Planning CRM
Corporate event planners often partner with marketing agencies on launches + brand activations.
ExploreCoworking CRM
Many agency members work from coworking spaces; partner referrals flow both ways.
ExploreWeb Design & Dev CRM
Adjacent creative services that often white-label each other.
ExploreSwitching to Marketing Agency CRM from another tool?
Most marketing agency businesses arrive at Smarfle from one of the tools below. See a side-by-side comparison.
Why businesses stay
A Florida company that treats you like a partner
We answer requests the same day. If your business needs a new feature, or an existing one changed, it gets built fast, often by the next day. Ihor Lavrenenko puts his name on this product: he has helped hundreds of local businesses grow, and Smarfle is how that experience shows up in your operation every morning.
Ready to run your marketing agency business from one place?
Join service businesses that book more jobs, get paid faster, and grow their reputation with Smarfle.
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