Marketing agency billing software
Your retainer bills on time and the extra work you absorbed does not. Smarfle runs the retainer on its own cadence and raises approved extra scope as its own charge, so the monthly number stays the number you agreed.
7 days free · No credit card · Built in Florida
$8,420
47
Acme Office Park
Monthly maintenance
$485
Riverside Apartments
Quarterly service
$1,200
Downtown Plaza
Monthly recurring
$320
West End Hotel
Bi-weekly contract
$680
Real Smarfle UI · Live data from your marketing agency CRM
Why generic billing software fails marketing agency owners
Generic billing tools weren’t built for marketing agency. Smarfle was.
Generic billing software
What everyone else gives you
- The retainer slips in a busy month and nobody notices
- Project fees and change orders are not billed separately
- Ad-spend pass-through is invoiced by hand, so the month drags
Smarfle for marketing agency
Built for your actual workflow
- The retainer bills on its agreed date and extra scope is raised separately
- Each milestone and each change order is its own document against the same account
- Spend is added as its own line on the monthly document and charged with it
How marketing agency billing works in Smarfle
From the first touch to the closed loop. No missing pieces.
- 1
The retainer is an agreement, not an invoice
The monthly amount, the start date and what it covers sit on the account, so the figure is settled once and quoted never again.
- 2
The first month sets the card
Everything after it charges on the same date each month, which is what turns a retainer into revenue you can plan around.
- 3
Extra scope is raised as it is approved
Work outside the agreement becomes its own charge at the point the client says yes, rather than being absorbed and resented.
- 4
Media spend passes through separately
What you place on a client's behalf never touches the retainer figure, so nobody confuses your fee with their budget.
- 5
A renewal starts from the record
Twelve months of charges, extras and spend sit in one place, so the case for a rate increase is evidence rather than nerve.
Where marketing agency billing breaks down
The friction every marketing agency owner recognizes.
Retainer, project and scope-creep billing live in three different tools
Retainers in FreshBooks, project invoicing in HoneyBook, scope creep tracked in a spreadsheet. At month end you reconcile three systems to work out what one client owes. Slow, easy to get wrong, and it always ends with money left on the table.
Failed retainer charges get discovered weeks later
A client's card expired in October and November's retainer never went through. Nobody noticed until the AR report in December. That is an awkward call and usually a couple of months of work already given away for free.
Scope creep does not get billed because tracking is manual
The client asked for four ad creatives and got seven. The extra three were real work nobody invoiced, because the change lived in a doc the account manager stopped updating in week two. A tenth of revenue disappears this way without anyone deciding it should.
216 charges, plus the extras
Eighteen retainer clients billed monthly is 216 charges a year that run on time. The work outside the retainer has no such schedule, which is exactly why it gets absorbed. Raised as its own charge at the point it is approved, the extra is visible and the monthly figure stays the one you negotiated.
18
Retainer clients
12
Months a year
~216
Charges a year
Based on typical marketing agency operations. Your numbers may vary.
Features powering marketing agency billing
Each one a deep-dive in its own right.
Retainers as recurring arrangements
A monthly agreement charges the card on file and writes its own document each cycle, and the client changes the card from their own portal.
Learn moreHours behind the fee
Account managers and designers log time per client at their own rate, so you know which retainer is quietly consuming two people.
Learn moreDirectors look it up themselves
Whoever approves the retainer can check the position themselves rather than emailing an account manager and waiting until Thursday.
Learn morePer-client revenue on one screen
Retainer, project and extra scope for a month, a quarter or a year sit together, so a renewal conversation has numbers behind it.
Learn moreMarketing agency billing software questions
Moving your marketing agency billing software off another tool?
Most marketing agency businesses arrive at Smarfle from one of the tools below. See a side-by-side comparison.
Other marketing agency tools
Smarfle ships billing software alongside the rest of your CRM.
Billing software for other industries
Same billing engine, tuned for each vertical.
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