Web development agency billing software
You bill the build on milestones and the hosting whenever somebody notices it. Smarfle puts maintenance and hosting on their own cadence, so the recurring line exists whether or not anyone is looking at the account.
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 web development agency CRM
Why generic billing software fails web development agency owners
Generic billing tools weren’t built for web development agency. Smarfle was.
Generic billing software
What everyone else gives you
- Hosting and maintenance are billed whenever someone remembers them
- Project deposits and milestones are tracked on a spreadsheet
- A client's renewal date lives in one developer's head
Smarfle for web development agency
Built for your actual workflow
- Maintenance runs on its own cadence, so the recurring line exists without supervision
- Each milestone is its own document against the project, with reporting behind it
- Renewal dates sit as fields on the account with a reminder attached to them
How web development agency billing works in Smarfle
From the first touch to the closed loop. No missing pieces.
- 1
Maintenance starts the day the site launches
The monthly amount and what it covers are agreed with the build, so the recurring line begins rather than being proposed later.
- 2
One checkout sets the arrangement running
The client passes through payment once and the card behind it carries every cycle afterwards.
- 3
Hosting passes through at cost
What you buy on the client's behalf is charged separately from your own fee, so nobody reads a markup into a server bill.
- 4
Retainer hours are reported, not argued
What was spent against the agreement is visible each cycle, so a conversation about scope has numbers behind it.
- 5
A failed charge does not end the site quietly
The retry and the request reach the client while the service is live, which is far better than discovering it at a renewal.
Where web development agency billing breaks down
The friction every web development agency owner recognizes.
Maintenance is proposed after launch and never sold
The moment to agree ongoing support is the week the site goes live. Raised a month later it reads as an upsell on something the client believed was already finished.
Hosting is resold at a loss nobody notices
Servers, certificates and plugin licenses go on the agency card and get billed at a figure set two years ago. Nobody sits down and compares the two.
The recurring book is too small to chase and too big to lose
Each maintenance client pays too little to be worth chasing individually, yet collectively they are the revenue that arrives whether or not you win anything new.
480 small charges a year
Forty clients on maintenance billed monthly is 480 charges a year, none of them large enough to be anybody's priority. That is precisely why they get postponed and then forgotten. On a cadence of their own, the recurring line becomes the part of an agency that does not depend on winning new work.
40
Clients on maintenance
12
Charges a year
~480
Charges to run
Based on typical web development agency operations. Your numbers may vary.
Features powering web development agency billing
Each one a deep-dive in its own right.
Clients read their own account
A client opens invoices, receipts and what is outstanding without an email, which is the difference between a supplier and an agency somebody has to chase.
Learn moreDomains and licenses as fields
Registrar, renewal date and plan sit as named fields on the account, so the thing you resell is documented rather than living in one person's password manager.
Learn moreRenewal dates prompt themselves
A certificate or a license coming up for renewal produces its own message, so the recurring line is protected before it lapses rather than after a client notices.
Learn moreAccounts segmented by plan
Build, retainer and maintenance-only are labels you filter on, so a price change or a policy note reaches the right group and nobody else.
Learn moreWeb development agency billing software questions
Moving your web development agency billing software off another tool?
Most web development agency businesses arrive at Smarfle from one of the tools below. See a side-by-side comparison.
Other web development 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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