The 9 Best CRMs for Marketing and Creative Agencies

Rob Binns

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Our number one pick for the best CRM platform for marketing agencies is HubSpot. It's on the pricier side, but it comes with a load of features, and the platform's scalability is a great fit for growth.

A CRM (customer relationship management) system is key to successfully running a creative agency. CRM systems are designed to increase productivity, efficiency, and collaboration. You can carry out all of your business processes and tasks from one place. 

We’ve utilised our decade-long expertise in the CRM industry to bring you the best CRM system for your agency. Read on for our handpicked choices or you can use our comparison tool, all you have to do is give us some brief details. You’ll be matched with the best CRM systems for your business, and receive no-obligation quotes from trusted suppliers. 

What are the top 3 CRMs for marketing and creative agencies?

These are the providers we recommend based on our research. Clicking on the links will take you to the provider's website.

  1. HubSpot CRM – Best for scalability
  2. monday.com – Best for managing creative projects and teams
  3. Freshsales CRM – Best for customer support

Swipe right to see more
0 out of 0

Sendinblue

Copper

BenchmarkONE

Citrix Podio

Funnel CRM

CompanyHub

Best for

Scalability

Best for

Managing creative projects and teams

Best for

Customer support

Best for

SMS and email marketing

Best for

G Suite compatibility

Best for

Larger teams

Best for

Low-cost pricing plans

Best for

Simplicity of design

Best for

Automation

Starting Price

$25 per user per month

Starting Price

$8 per user per month

Starting Price

$15 per user per month

Starting Price

$22 per user per month

Starting Price

$23 per user per month

Starting Price

$29

Starting Price

$11.20 per user per month

Starting Price

$9.50 per month

Starting Price

$15 per user per month

Free Plan
Free Plan
Free Plan
Free Plan
Free Plan
Free Plan
Free Plan
Free Plan
Free Plan

Prices correct as of February 2023

1. HubSpot

Best for scalability

Suitable for larger marketing agencies

HubSpot logo
HubSpot
4.3
Pricing $25 - $120 per user, per month
Quick overview

Each of HubSpot’s packages for marketing, sales, and service teams start at a relatively budget-friendly $25 per user, per month. We recommend the Growth Suite, though – it includes HubSpot’s Marketing, Sales, and Service ‘Hubs’ in a single package, with a tasty discount to boot. Upgrading any of HubSpot’s plans to the ‘Professional’ tier ($80 per user, per month for the Growth Suite) buys you task automation, as well as three standout features for marketing teams: A/B testing, website traffic analytics, and video hosting.

Strengths

Impressive free version available, along with a 30-day free trial

Offers discounts for startups

Weaknesses

No 24/7 phone or live chat support

It’s expensive!

Pricing
PlanMinimum usersPrice (paid annually)Price (paid monthly)
Starter 2 $15 per user per month $25 per user per month
Professional 5 $320 per user per month $356 per user per month
Enterprise 10 $2,000 per user per month Annual payment only

HubSpot pricing

HubSpot’s pricing plans are complex, so we’re not going to go into too much detail about them here (plus, we do that at length in our comprehensive guide to CRM costs in 2023). Still, this table (with annual prices per user) is a useful indicator as to what your creative agency can expect to pay with HubSpot.

Marketing HubSales HubService HubCRM SuiteAdditional 1,000 contactsTry it now
Starter (1 paid user, 1,000 contacts included)$45 per month$45 per month$45 per month$15 per month$50 per monthTry HubSpot Starter
Professional (5 paid users, 2,000 contacts included)$800 per month$450 per month$450 per month$320 per month$50 per monthTry HubSpot Professional
Enterprise (10 paid users, 10,000 contacts included)$3,600 per month$1,200 per month$1,200 per month$2,000 per month$10 per monthTry HubSpot Enterprise

As you can see, the fairly significant outlay that HubSpot’s more advanced tiers and packages require means it’s unlikely to be popular with your accountant. But, for the finest marketing CRM software in the US, and a system that comes with almost unrivalled pedigree, HubSpot is worth both your money and your time.

You can try HubSpot free for 30 days.

Customer review

We have used multiple CRMs in our company. We transitioned to HubSpot last year for our marketing team. In the first few months we built out automation workflows for lead routing, we built out automation workflows for nurtures, and automation for the entire marketing pipeline. The company was able to become more of a data driven organization by using custom built HubSpot reports. Since then, we have transitioned our sales development, account executives, manager, and VPs into HubSpot as well.

Jacob Feuerman, HubSpot user
- Source: Trustpilot

2. monday.com

Best for managing creative projects and teams

Suitable for small creative agencies

monday.com Logo
monday.com
4.1
Pricing $8-custom per user, per month
Quick overview

At $8 per user per month, the ‘Basic’ plan offers an app for both iOS and Android, as well as 5GB of storage and whiteboard collaboration. We’d recommend at least going for monday.com’s ‘Standard’ plan, though. It adds timeline and calendar views, advanced search functionality, and up to 250 app integrations – and, at just $10 per user per month all in, the plan’s not that much more expensive than its predecessor.

Strengths

24/7 customer support available, plus daily live webinars and a comprehensive knowledge base

Color-coded boards are refreshingly easy on the eye

Weaknesses

It doesn’t offer the same depth of features as an out-and-out CRM system does

Pricing
TiersPrice (billed annually)Price (billed monthly)
Basic $8 per user/month $10 per user/month
Standard $10 per user/month $12 per user/month
Pro $16 per user/month $20 per user/month
Enterprise Custom Custom
Did You Know?

monday.com doesn’t just count a range of advertising and digital marketing agencies among its glittering client base – it’s also powering the projects of big hitters such as Uber, Universal, and Adobe.

monday.com pricing

Though monday.com’s slick, stylish interface boasts undeniable appeal, there’s no hiding the fact that it’s more limited than many of the other CRMs for marketing agencies here. Happily, though, that’s reflected in a pricing range that should be palatable to even the smallest of businesses

Our advice? Forgo the ‘Basic’ plan ($8 per user, per month), and opt straight for the ‘Standard’ package ($10 per user, per month).

Why? Well for one, the ‘Standard' plan comes with intuitive timeline and calendar views, and Gantt charts for data visualization – plus monday.com’s famed ‘Kanban-style’ workflow display. Your project dashboards will also look better, work better, and integrate with a wider range of the productivity tools your business already relies on.

A 14-day free trial is available across monday.com’s first three plans.

Customer review

Intuitive highly customisable system. We've used it for managing our implementations, internal meetings, High-level Marketing objectives and Weekly marketing activities. […] I really like the ability to track email activities linked to tasks within projects. It helps to show that activities are being followed up on.

Louis T., monday.com user
- Source: Trustpilot

3. Freshsales

Best for customer support

Suitable for creative agencies that are new to CRM

Freshsales Logo
Freshsales
4.4
Pricing From $15/month
Quick overview

If you’re a small business looking for a good, affordable CRM system without all the bells and whistles, Freshsales will be right up your street. Get up and running in next to no time with an easy, useful dashboard, packed full of features you’ll actually use. Freshsales is popular across the board, but it’s the small businesses that sing its praises the loudest. Paid plans start at $15/user/month.

Strengths

Great for automating tasks such as logging phone calls

A simple software that’s easy to pick up, and won’t require much training

Free trial available

24/5 phone and live chat support

Affordable prices and intelligent, feature-rich CRM packages

Premium plans come with Freshworks CRM’s AI-driven analytics and automation bot, ‘Freddy’

Weaknesses

Offers fewer third party integrations than competitors such as Zoho and Salesforce

The range of different pricing packages and tiers makes it difficult to know which one is right for your agency

Freshworks CRM’s package for customer service teams, ‘Freshdesk’, isn't included

Pricing
TiersPrice (paying annually)Price (paying monthly)
Growth $15 per user per month $19 per user per month
Pro $36 per user per month $43 per user per month
Enterprise $67 per user per month $80 per user per month

Freshsales also boasts the finest customer support of all the creative agency CRM systems we looked at. It comes with 24/5 phone and live chat service, plus all the email and social media support you’d demand from any self-respecting CRM.

There’s also an impressively extensive knowledge base available online, where you can watch tutorials, read articles, and participate in tutorials to make sure you're getting the most out of Freshsales' system.

Customer review

My experience with Freshworks has been great for what I need. We have email campaigns set up to reach back to clients who are interested in working with us at a later date and Freshsales allows us to easily set up a monthly campaign and send it out to 100+ people within a day. Definitely a great service for what I need.

Sam Ressler, Freshsales user
- Source: Trustpilot

4. Sendinblue

Best for SMS and email marketing

Suitable for growing marketing agencies

Sendinblue logo
Sendinblue
Pricing From $0/month
Quick overview

Sendinblue does to direct marketing what microwaves did to cooking TV dinners – it just makes it easier. We’ll level with you – as a single platform for orchestrating your email, SMS, and Facebook ad campaigns, Sendinblue is difficult to top. It also comes with smart segmentation features for grouping your lists, plus all the tools you’d expect for crafting and customizing clever communications… that convert!

Strengths

Highly rated online, with its customer service getting plenty of plaudits

Generous free plan

Boasts above-average automation capacities

Weaknesses

Landing pages are only included with the ‘Premium’ plan and above

Lacks functionality for sales and service teams

Cheap to begin with, but various add-ons for email sends and extra features means that costs can balloon quickly

Pricing
PlanPrice (billed annually)Price (billed monthly)
Free Free Free
Starter $22 per user/month $25 per user, per month
Premium $58 per user/month $65 per user, per month
Enterprise Custom Custom

Sendinblue pricing

Sendinblue provides a basic version that’s completely free, and supports unlimited contacts. However, this plan restricts you to just 300 email sends a day, so it offers nowhere near the kind of scale you’ll need as a growing creative or marketing agency.

That’s why we’d recommend upgrading to at least Sendinblue’s ‘Starter’ plan ($22 per user, per month, 20,000 sends included). It strips away the free plan’s stringent daily send restrictions, and introduces email support. Better still, you can add features for A/B testing, and easily increase the amount of email sends you’re allowed.

Sendinblue’s ‘Premium’ CRM tier nets your agency multi-user access and telephone support – and you’ll be able to send up to one million emails per month, too. You’ll certainly want to be on this plan if Facebook ads and retargeting are part of your agency’s strategy, though at $58 per user, per month, it is a little pricey.

The ‘Enterprise’ plan will get you 20+ landing pages and superlative customer support, but is really only for larger digital marketing agencies, or those that require a more technical (and highly customizable!) CRM solution. You’ll need to head to Sendinblue’s website to request an accurate quote for this plan.

Customer review

Sendinblue is a great service, I began using it around 2018. The best feature is the “Unlimited Contacts” that they offer, and that was the main appeal for us because we had a very large database and we were able to store it free of charge on Sendinblue. Compared to MailChimp, we would have needed to pay hundreds of dollars monthly to just keep that database on there. And in time we built loyalty and upgraded to paid plans on sendinblue and integrated. […] Now we are working on integrating the email automation feature, and it seems their new email block building is incredible quality, a truly incredible product all around.

Rex W., Sendinblue user
- Source: Trustpilot

You're halfway through our list of the top 9 CRM systems for advertising agencies in the US.  If you'd like to start comparing providers already, simply hit one of the buttons below to use our free quote comparison tool.

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5. Copper

Best for G Suite compatibility

Suitable for agencies that already rely on Google applications

Copper Logo
Copper
Pricing From $23/month
Quick overview

Copper is another slightly under-the-radar, but well-regarded CRM system. Copper users love the sleek interface, and generally seem to find it easy to use. The downside is that it only integrates with Google programs, including Gmail. It’s also quite sales-focused, so might not be the right choice for businesses looking for more marketing capabilities. Plans start at $23/user/month.

Strengths

Good scope for customization

Great features for sales-focused use

Free trial available

The ‘Basic’ plan is budget-friendly

Easy to use

Integrations galore

Weaknesses

Only works with Google programs, including Gmail

Several online reviews take issue with Copper’s customer support

It’s tough to share views and reports with individuals that don’t also have a Copper account

Cheap to begin with, but various add-ons for email sends and extra features means that costs can balloon quickly

Pricing
PlanPrice (paying annually)Price (paying monthly)
Basic $23 per user per month $29 per user per month
Professional $49 per user per month $49 per user per month
Business $99 per user per month $134 per user per month
Did You Know?

Copper’s CRM software claims to save digital marketing agencies 13 hours per week on manual data entry, and increase reporting accuracy by 50%.

Copper pricing

While Copper does offer a more budget-friendly pricing tier (‘Basic’, at $23 per user, per month), we’d recommend that ambitious advertising or creative agencies steer clear – that plan supports a maximum of just three users.

Your best bet is Copper’s in-demand ‘Professional’ plan. At $49 per user, per month, it’s affordable – and you’ll unlock unlimited bulk email sends, workflow automation, and activity reporting to boot. Your agency will also need this particular plan to benefit from Copper’s integrations with several key tools, including Slack, Zapier, MailChimp, DocuSign, and QuickBooks.

The ‘Business’ plan ($99 per user, per month) adds a leaderboard and goal tracking, and allows you to build your own embedded integrations.

Customer review

This app helps me to sort out my work week and plan my days as well as log all my activities for each of my clients and making sure I can stay on top of my work. It gives me instant access to all of the work we’ve done with each client where I can keep track of the last date of contact and also had reminders I can set up to email someone if they haven’t responded back to an email I’ve sent out.

Valerie Samano, Copper user
- Source: Trustpilot
Millennials working at a digital marketing agency

6. BenchmarkONE

Best for larger teams

Suitable for agency teams of 10+

BenchmarkONE (formerly Hatchbuck) logo
BenchmarkONE
Pricing From $0/month
Quick overview

This CRM software nevertheless shares some of its former namesake’s (it used to be called Hatchbuck) features. Quick, compact, and sure to increase your team’s mobility, BenchmarkONE is a CRM that’s tailor-made for modern agencies. Its pricing structure is very compartimentalised, which means you're less likely to pay for more features than you actually need.

Strengths

Um… it gets cheaper with the more features you add! Cheaper!

‘Nuff said

Weaknesses

BenchmarkONE's reporting features leave a lot to be desired...

...as do its email templates!

BenchmarkONE pricing

In keeping with its CRM competitors, BenchmarkONE's pricing tiers do take the number of contacts you're allowed to store in your system into consideration. However, it does take things up a notch by using this number as the primary base of its prices instead of the number of features you're allowed access.

From a set of fixed number of prices, you can then choose to use its Lite or Pro tier. The former allows for basic contact management and marketing automation while the latter is a full CRM system and integration with Gmail and Outlook.

No. of contactsPlanPrice (paying annually)Price (paying monthly)
250LiteFreeFree
ProFreeFree
500Lite$29/month$49/month
Pro$179/month$219/month
1,000Lite$49/month$69/month
Pro$209/month$269/month
2,500Lite$89/month$109/month
Pro$229/month$289/month
5,000Lite$109/month$139/month
Pro$249/month$309/month
10,000Lite$119/month$159/month
Pro$269/month$329/month
25,000Lite$159/month$199/month
Pro$359/month$439/month
50,000Lite$219/month$259/month
Pro$439/month$559/month
75,000Lite$269/month$329/month
Pro$539/month$669/month
100,000Lite$319/month$339/month
Pro$619/month$779/month

BenchmarkONE also offers another tier, Agency, which packs all of its features, including CRM and marketing dashboards, which are exclusive to it. It allows you to store and manage more than 100,000 contacts, but regardless of the number of contacts you're keen on having, BenchmarkONE's pricing for this tier is custom.

Customer review

“I've been using Hatchbuck since the middle of last year, and it’s literally been a game changer for me. Hatchbuck has enabled me to automate a lot of my recruiting, which has saved me a great deal of time, and made for a much more efficient and effective operation.

“I'm now able to communicate relevant content to my stakeholders on a regular basis, while eliminating certain prospects from falling through the cracks. I also know precisely how many prospects I have in my sales funnel, and exactly what stage they are at in the process. Night and day from my previous CRM!”

Donald, BenchmarkONE user
-
Millennials working at an advertising agency

7. Citrix Podio

Best for low-cost pricing plans

Suitable for agencies on a shoestring budget

Citrix Podio logo
Citrix Podio
Pricing From $0/month
Quick overview

Sporting a polished, professional display that also somehow manages to be no frills, Citrix Podio’s CRM interface is reminiscent of Microsoft’s best work. Offering tools for social collaboration and task and project management – plus automated workflows – Citrix Podio will help your marketing agency spend less time on the admin, and focus more energy (and money!) on the stuff that matters.

Strengths

Good social media integration capacities

Strong reporting capabilities

Weaknesses

Not as feature-rich as many of the other CRM systems for agencies on this list

Can be difficult to set up

Pricing
PlanPrice (billed annually)Price (billed monthly)
Free Free Free
Plus $11.20 per user/month $14 per user/month
Premium $19.20 per user/month $24 per user/month
Citrix Podio interface on desktop and smartphone

See what we mean about that interface?


And we haven’t even got to the best bit yet – that Citrix Podio is one of the most affordable CRM systems going. So how much will it cost you?

Citrix Podio pricing

As well as a free plan for up to five team members, Citrix Podio offers your agency the flexibility of two paid tiers.

The ‘Plus’ plan ($11.20 per user, per month). It adds more diverse user roles and read-only access – ideal for collaborating with freelancers and agencies outside your own. You’ll also score automated workflows, which streamline your workload and make hitting deadlines a cinch.

Finally, the ‘Premium’ plan ($19.20 per user, per month) offers serious value (if you need further proof, just check out how much most of the other ‘premium’ plans on this list are billing!). Feature-wise, this particular premium plan benefits from visual reporting tools and interactive sales dashboards, plus advanced workflow automation capabilities. Very nice!

8. Funnel CRM

Best for simplicity of design

Suitable for aesthetically-conscious marketing agencies

Funnel CRM logo
Funnel CRM
Pricing From $10/month
Quick overview

Built for creative agencies, and with simplicity in mind, Funnel is a refreshing spin on head-scratching traditional CRM software. Its vibrant interface visualizes everything your team is working on in a series of intuitive dashboards. Impress clients with beautifully formatted proposals, close deals with speed and aplomb, and do it all without spending too much – Funnel’s pricing plans are not only transparent, but highly affordable, too.

Strengths

Funnel’s simple interface is easy to get the hang of

It’s cheap!

Weaknesses

Some reviews suggest Funnel’s interface can be a little buggy

It’s missing key integrations, such as Zapier

Pricing
PlanPrice (billed annually)Price (billed monthly)
Standard $9.50 per month $10 per month
Pro $37.05 per month $39 per month

Funnel CRM pricing

Funnel CRM is priced slightly differently to many of the other CRM systems for marketing agencies here. Rather than paying per user, per month, you’ll pay just a flat monthly fee.

With Funnel’s ‘Standard’ plan, that’s just $10 per month. Your creative agency will benefit from Gmail integration and an unlimited number of contacts and deals, plus email templates – though you’re restricted to just a single user.

For this reason, we’d recommend the ‘Pro’ plan. Priced at an affordable $39 per month, it costs just $20 per month to add each new team member to the system.

If you choose to pay annually, the ‘Pro' plan itself will cost you $37.50 per month. Admittedly, that's not much of a difference, but the price to add new team members drops to just $2 per month. That makes Funnel a seriously cheap CRM system – especially if you’ve got one eye on your agency’s pursestrings, and another eye on scaling up.

9. CompanyHub

Best for automation

Suitable for fast-paced advertising agencies

CompanyHub logo
CompanyHub
Pricing From $15/month
Quick overview

CompanyHub is a CRM system highly focused on automation. With it, you can set up reminders to follow up with a client, alerts to salespeople, and notifications for managers. It also packs data deduplication and cleansing as well as information import/export and any other bulk changes, such as lead transfers. Furthermore, CompanyHub’s email templates make it easy to personalize emails, then send them en masse, massively streamlining your prospecting process.

Strengths

Affordable

Provides unlimited email tracking – including Gmail

Weaknesses

CompanyHub’s cheapest plan lacks adequate reporting features

No social media integration

Pricing
PlanPrice (billed annually)Price (billed monthly)
Productivity $15 per user/month $21 per user/month
Automation $24 per user/month $36 per user/month
Accelerate $42 per user/month $64 per user/month

CompanyHub pricing

CompanyHub's cheapest plan, ‘Productivity’ ($15 per user, per month), is surprisingly feature-rich – email templates and scheduling are among the highlights, while its web-to-lead capture capabilities are some of the most capable we’ve seen.

As is always the case with CRM, though, your agency will want to be on a minimum of CompanyHub’s ‘Automation’ plan ($24 per user, per month). It introduces custom reporting and logic, with more advanced tools and technology for structuring your business’ contacts and deals.

At $42 per user, per month, CompanyHub’s high-end pricing plan, ‘Accelerate’, represents the pinnacle of customization. However, if dynamic webforms, territory management, and one-click quote proposals don’t appeal to you, you can probably skip this one.

Unfortunately, Company Hub doesn't offer a free plan like some of its competitors. However, it does offer a 14-day free trial for you to see if it's a good fit for your business.

Customer review

Customization is very useful and easy with CompanyHub. I don't need any technical knowledge or IT person to modify things. CompanyHub easily adapted our requirements and overcome all the flaws of our earlier system.

David John, CompanyHub user
- Source: Trustpilot
Verdict

For its scalability and wide integration, HubSpot is our top pick for your marketing and creative agency.

HubSpot's free version packs a punch and is worth using if you run a small agency, though monday.com or Freshsales are also solid choices for agencies this size. If you’re a growing team with big-league scalability on the brain, Sendinblue and CompanyHub are both great options. And, if you’re already a well-established agency, BenchmarkONE is likely to fit the bill.

That being said, the best way to find the best fit for your agency is to compare quotes and we can help with that. Just use our free quote comparison tool and we'll match you with trusted providers in no time. They'll then get back to you with custom, no-obligation quotes!

Compare Quotes from Leading Agency CRM Software Suppliers and Save
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FAQs

What is a cloud-based CRM?
Cloud-based CRM means that the software is accessible to anyone in your team, at any time – and from anywhere in the world (with an internet connection).

Rather than having to be downloaded and stored on computers, your data is kept ‘in the cloud’. It’s a more modern, more convenient, and more secure way of doing things. Most CRM software these days is cloud-based.

Is there any free CRM software?
Yes – several providers offer free CRM software. However, free CRM comes with several key limitations on data and contact storage, features, and the number of users that you’re allowed.

If you'd like to bypass these limitation while still keeping costs low, check our top CRM systems for small businesses. These systems are cost-effective, scalable, and come with excellent customer support. Plus, we’ve researched, rated, and ranked them for your convenience!

Can you recommend any good CRM software for other industries?
We sure can! For more industry-specific CRM solutions, check out our guides to the best of CRM systems for real estateCRM for constructionhealthcare CRMs, and (of course!) the best CRM software for sales. And, if we haven’t yet covered your line of work, drop us a line at info@expertmarket.com and we’ll see what we can do!
Written by:
Rob Binns
Rob Binns Services Expert

Rob writes mainly about the payments industry, but also brings to the table industry-specific knowledge of CRM software, business loans, fulfilment, and invoice finance. When not exasperating his editor with bad puns, he can be found relaxing in a sunny (socially-distanced) corner, with a beer and a battered copy of Dostoevsky.

Reviewed by:
James Macey Senior Business Software Researcher

James thinks all businesses can improve if they use the right technology. At Expert Market, he utilises his 4+ years experience as a researcher to offer specialised advice on a wide range of categories from CRM to Fleet Management.