Project Management Software for Creative & Digital Marketing Agencies
Scope work with estimates clients approve online, run campaigns on Kanban and Gantt boards, and capture every billable hour and pass-through cost. Then bill retainers, time and expenses from the same account — nothing re-keyed between tools.
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One Account for the Whole Job, Not Five Tools
Agencies juggle pitches, retainers, campaign deadlines and client feedback across a stack of disconnected apps. Avaza puts estimates, projects, time, expenses, scheduling, invoicing and reporting on one set of clients and projects, so the quote you won becomes the project you deliver and the invoice you send — without re-typing a line.
Why Do Creative & Digital Marketing Agencies Love Avaza?
Because the work and the money live in the same place. Plan a campaign on a board, track the hours against it, pass ad spend through with a markup and bill it all on one branded invoice your client can pay online — then check the margin on the project dashboard before the next status call.
1. Scope Work With Estimates Clients Approve Online
Win the job with a quote that takes minutes to build, then let it become the project.
Quote from your rate card
Pick services from your inventory list — strategy days, design hours, page builds, ad management — set quantities, discounts, taxes and an expiry date, and attach the deck or brief from your computer, Dropbox or Google Drive.
Approval in one click
Clients open the estimate on any device and approve or reject it with comments. You see when it was viewed and can send a reminder from the Actions menu if it stalls.
The quote becomes the project
Convert an accepted estimate into a project — each line item becomes a task and the total becomes the budget — then into an invoice, or link it to several invoices to bill in stages.
2. Run Campaigns and Creative Production on Kanban, Gantt or List
Every campaign, website build and content calendar in the view that suits the work.
Four views of the same tasks
Drag cards across a Kanban board, plan dependencies and deadlines in Gantt view, work a grouped list or check the calendar — and group by section, assignee, priority, status or due date.
Templates for repeat work
Save your campaign launch, SEO, editorial or video production process as a project template so every new job starts with the right tasks, estimates, priorities and assignees.
Feedback where the work is
Comment on tasks with @mentions, reply straight from the email notification, drag files and screenshots into tasks and review attachments with previews.
Deliverables that repeat
Set up monthly reports, newsletters and social calendars as recurring tasks so they land on the board on schedule.
3. Bring Clients Into the Work, at No Extra Cost
Fewer status emails, faster approvals, and nothing on screen you would rather they didn't see.
Unlimited client users, free on every plan
Invite client contacts as project collaborators. They see and comment on the tasks in their projects and get notified by email — but never your rates, timesheets or costs.
You decide what they can touch
Give each client full, comment-only or view-only access to tasks per project, and tick Internal Note to keep team-only comments hidden from them.
Approvals in the customer portal
Clients with the Customer Finances role approve estimates, browse their invoice history and pay online, and Timesheet Approvers can sign off hours before you bill them.
4. Capture Every Billable Hour at the Right Rate
The hours nobody logged are the margin you gave away.
Timers where the work happens
Start a timer from a task on the web or in the iOS and Android apps, stop it on another device, or fill in the week grid and copy last week forward.
Rates per person, category or project
Bill a creative director and a junior designer at different rates, or price by activity — strategy, design, development, account management — and add cost rates to see margin.
Billable and non-billable side by side
Log pitches, internal meetings and rework as non-billable so utilisation and project margins tell the truth.
Approvals and rounding
Route timesheets through an approver, lock approved entries, and round to the increments your contracts specify when you invoice.
5. Bill Retainers, Projects and Recurring Work Without the Admin
Monthly retainers, fixed-price projects and time and materials, all on branded invoices clients can pay online.
Retainer subscriptions
Invoice the retainer in advance on schedule, hold the payment as credit, draw it down against the work you track and send a retainer statement that shows the client exactly how it was used.
Recurring invoices for ongoing services
Website care plans and SEO or social packages bill themselves every month, with smart tags such as ::MonthName(IssueDate):: in the subject and unbilled time pulled in automatically.
Time and expenses on one invoice
Add uninvoiced hours, expenses and fixed amounts to a branded invoice, grouped by project, person, category or task, with rounding applied.
Paid faster
Every invoice carries a Pay Now button for cards, Apple Pay, Google Pay and bank debits through Stripe, plus PayPal and Payoneer. Auto reminders and Auto Charge do the chasing.
6. Pass Through Ad Spend, Stock Media and Freelancer Costs
Every cost on a campaign captured, approved and billed on — with your markup.
Capture every cost
Snap receipts in the mobile app, forward supplier emails to your Avaza expense address or import a CSV of ad-platform charges, in the currency you paid and converted at that day's rate.
Markups per category
Set a fixed or percentage markup on media, stock assets or freelance categories and Avaza applies it when the expense is added to the invoice.
Budgets and approvals
Give each campaign an expense budget by category, route spend through approval with email notifications, and see billable and non-billable amounts on the project dashboard before month end.
Linked to deliverables
Attach expenses to tasks to see the full cost of each deliverable, and group them on the invoice so clients see clear subtotals next to your time.
7. Know Which Clients and Campaigns Actually Make Money
Over-serviced retainers only show up when you measure them.
Project Profitability report
Revenue from billable time and expenses against cost rates, per project and per person, so you can see which accounts earn their keep.
Staff Utilization report
Billable versus non-billable hours against available hours for every designer, developer and account manager, with the detail one click away.
Budget alerts before the overrun
Set an hours or amount budget per project with a warning threshold, and watch accumulated time and cost against it on the project dashboard.
Reports that run themselves
30+ reports with filters on every one, saved views, scheduled email delivery as PDF or Excel, export to Excel, PDF or Word, and a REST API for your own dashboards.
8. Book Designers and Developers Before the Deadline Books Them
See who has capacity next week before you promise it to a client.
One timeline for the studio
Book people to projects or tasks with hours per day, drag bookings to reschedule or reassign, and flip between team and project views.
Capacity at a glance
Colour-coded availability bars show who is under-booked, fully booked or over-allocated each day, with leave and public holidays already blocked out.
Plan becomes timesheet
Scheduled assignments appear on each person's timesheet day view, where one click on Create Time turns the booking into a time entry.
Forecast the month
Scheduled hours multiplied by billable rates give forward revenue by project and person, and the Schedule vs Timesheets report shows where plans drifted.
More of What Agencies Lean On Every Day
Chat, templates and custom workflows share the same clients, projects and people as everything else in Avaza.
Team and client chat
Direct messages, project channels and task discussions in one inbox on web, Windows, Mac, iOS and Android. Invite client contacts as chat users so feedback stops living in someone's personal messaging app.
Project templates
Turn your campaign launch, editorial or video production process into a template with its tasks, estimates, priorities and assignees, and start the next job in one click. Ready-made marketing campaign, SEO strategy and video production templates are in the public gallery.
Custom task types and statuses
Create task types for briefs, revisions or bugs, each with its own status workflow — Briefed, In Design, Client Review, Approved — and colour-coded tags to match.
What Makes Avaza Different?
Elevate your client collaboration experience: Avaza's pioneering Client Users feature gives you unlimited client access without adding a dime to your costs.
Customer Support You'll Love
Our dedication doesn't stop once you've signed up. The support team is on hand 24 hours a day, Monday to Friday, ready to help with any query, big or small.
Ease Meets Expertise
Basic tools fall short as you grow, and advanced ones feel daunting. Avaza strikes the balance: an intuitive platform that doesn't skimp on powerful, high-level features.
Avaza Mobile Apps
Stay connected in the office or on the go. Track time and expenses and collaborate with your team and clients right from the palm of your hand.
Onboarding
Get up and running faster with personalised onboarding sessions tailored to your team.
“I've tried at least 35 project management programs, and NOTHING works as well as Avaza. You can build task inventory, easily create estimates, easily convert those estimates into tasks, convert the tasks into invoices, which you can then send to clients who can approve them in a second with one click. The navigation is completely intuitive; you never have to guess to get from one function to the other.”
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Encrypted in transit and at restFrequently asked questions
How much does Avaza cost for a small agency?
Avaza is free for one timesheet/expense user with 5 active projects, 10 customers and 5 invoices a month, and no credit card details are required. Paid plans start at $11.95 a month (Startup), with Basic at $23.95 and Business at $47.95; additional timesheet or admin/finance users are $7 per user per month and chat users $2. Client collaborators are unlimited and free on every plan, so you only pay for the people who track time or run the books.
Can our clients see their projects without us paying for a seat?
Yes. Project collaborators are unlimited and free on every plan. Clients see the tasks on the projects you add them to, can comment and receive email notifications, but never see your rates, timesheets or costs, and you can limit them to view-only or comment-only access per project. With the Customer Finances role they can also approve estimates, view their invoice history and pay online.
Can we bill monthly retainers and pass ad spend through to clients?
Yes. Retainer subscriptions invoice clients in advance on a schedule, hold the payment as credit and draw it down against the time, expenses and fixed amounts you track, with a retainer statement for the client. Expenses such as ad spend, stock media or freelancer costs carry a fixed or percentage markup per category and are added to the invoice in a few clicks. On paid plans, Auto Charge can collect retainer and recurring invoices from a saved payment method automatically.
Does Avaza integrate with Xero, QuickBooks and the tools we already use?
Yes. Avaza has native two-way integrations with Xero and QuickBooks Online that sync invoices, payments, contacts and taxes (and supplier bills with Xero), and Google Drive and Dropbox are built in for attachments. Zapier connects thousands more apps, including Slack, Google Workspace, HubSpot, Mailchimp, Trello and Jira, and there is a REST API with webhooks for anything custom.
Can the team track time and expenses from their phones?
Yes. The Avaza apps for iOS and Android cover one-tap timers, timesheets, expenses with receipt photos, tasks and chat. A timer started on a phone can be stopped on a laptop.
How does Avaza handle client data and security?
Avaza is GDPR compliant, and access is governed by role-based permissions: clients and contractors only see the projects they are members of, task-level permissions control what they can create, edit or comment on, and internal notes stay hidden from external contacts. Support is available 24 hours a day, Monday to Friday, by chat and email, with personalised onboarding sessions to help you set up your account.
Can we move our timesheets and expenses across from another tool?
Yes. Import historical timesheets and expenses from CSV files in bulk, or use the REST API and Zapier to bring data across from another system. Project templates then help you rebuild your standard campaign and production workflows in minutes.
Ready to run your agency from brief to invoice?
Scope, deliver and bill your agency's work in one account. Free plan, no credit card required.