Best CRM for PPC Agencies in 2026: Retainers and Scope Creep

What a CRM for PPC agencies is (and what it is not)

A CRM for a PPC or paid ads agency is the business side of the account: who the client is, what monthly management fee you agreed, whether a percentage of ad spend applies, who granted access to which ad account, what extra campaigns were requested and what is still unpaid. It is not a bidding tool, an attribution platform or a reporting dashboard. Ad spend is paid to the ad platform, not to you, so it should never appear on your invoice as revenue. Workspace369 does not connect to ad platforms and does not build ad reports. If a tool stores contacts but leaves the agreement and billing to other apps, a "quick extra campaign" on a Tuesday becomes free work.

How we compared these tools

We compared each tool on the same five points, using only the vendor's own pricing pages as read on October 26, 2026:

1. Entry price and the price of the plan that lists retainer billing, monthly and billed yearly, per user where the vendor prices that way.
2. Retainer and invoice coverage: retainers or recurring invoices, and invoices built from logged time.
3. Onboarding and scope control: forms or request capture for access details, a client portal, and a way to price extra work.
4. Seat limits and minimums that change the price for a team of one to five.
5. Trial terms: length, and whether the vendor says a card is needed.

We did not test speed, support, reliability or mobile apps, did not test any ad-platform integration, and did not use third-party ratings. Order reflects documented fit for a small agency on monthly management retainers.

The best CRM for PPC agencies in 2026

1. Workspace369, best for small agencies selling monthly management retainers

Workspace369 keeps the client record, a proposal the client approves online, a retainer, tasks, time tracking, a client portal and invoices in one place. Cadet is $29 a month for one seat ($23.25 billed yearly) and lists proposals, retainers and payment schedules, recurring invoices, public intake forms, request tracking, a client portal and time tracking on the plan. Retainers hold a balance that draws down as work is billed, which suits fixed monthly management fees. Public forms can collect onboarding details such as the ad account ID and who will grant access, and the answer lands on the client record. The screenshot is a demo record, not a customer result.

Limitations: it does not connect to Google Ads, Meta or any ad platform, pull spend or build ad reports, so a percentage-of-spend fee means you type the month's spend figure onto the invoice yourself. Cadet has one seat and 5 active projects; Voyager ($74 a month, $59.25 billed yearly) gives two seats and unlimited projects, with $10 a month per extra seat. Change orders, which record scope creep beside the signed proposal, start at Specialist ($149 a month, 10 seats); on Cadet and Voyager, send a new proposal for the extra campaign. The 14-day trial covers Cadet through Commander, card required. Moxie Teams lists up to five team members at $40 a month ($32 billed yearly), a lower monthly price than Voyager for a team, with retainers not named on its page.

Best for: agencies of one to ten people on monthly retainers who want the agreement, the approval and the invoice together, and who report from the ad platforms or a separate tool.

2. Productive, best for agencies that need budgets and resourcing

Productive is an agency operations tool built around budgets, time and resource planning. Its pricing page lists Essential at $10 per user a month billed yearly ($12 monthly) and Professional at $25 ($29 monthly), and the FAQ says all plans require at least three seats. Essential already lists invoices, a deals pipeline with proposal export to PDF, budgets, time tracking and reporting. Retainer management (recurring budgets) and retainer invoicing sit on Professional, along with client access to budgets and unlimited forms; Essential allows one form per project, and public forms with access links are listed on Ultimate only. The sign-up block gives a 14-day free trial with no card required. For three people on Professional that is $75 a month billed yearly, or $87 monthly.

Limitations: the three-seat minimum and the Professional requirement for retainers make it dearer than a solo plan for a two-person agency. The pricing page does not list a branded client portal; it says clients can be invited into projects free. The depth in resourcing and revenue forecasting is more than most PPC shops of one to five people use.

Best for: PPC agencies of three or more people that want budgets, profitability and capacity planning, and are fine setting up a heavier tool.

3. Teamwork.com, best for hour-based retainers

Teamwork prices per user. Basics is $13.99 and Accelerate is $29.99 per user a month billed monthly, or $9.99 and $24.99 billed yearly. Basics lists billable time tracking, client users invited into projects and intake request capture. Invoices, time budgets and retainers sit on Accelerate, which lists "Build client invoices from logged time", "Manage time budgets & retainers" and smart forms that route work requests. Quotes need the Optimize plan, which is priced by talking to sales. The free plan covers up to five users and five projects, and the paid trial is 14 days with no card required.

Limitations: a PPC agency that bills a flat management fee rather than hours pays for time-budget tooling it may not use, and the retainers described are time-based; Optimize adds time and cost retainers. Accelerate needs at least five users, so its entry cost is $124.95 a month billed yearly or $149.95 monthly; three users fit Basics at $29.97 a month billed yearly or $41.97 monthly.

Best for: agencies that sell hour packages for account management or creative production and want logged hours to become the invoice.

4. Bonsai, best for per-user retainer invoices

Bonsai lists retainer invoices and subscription invoices from Essentials, which is $19 per user a month billed yearly ($25 monthly). Essentials also lists invoices and payments, proposals and contracts, forms and questionnaires, scheduling, a client portal and expense tracking. Basic is $9 billed yearly ($15 monthly) with time tracking and a CRM but no invoices. Premium ($29 billed yearly, $39 monthly) adds a deals pipeline, client tasks and messaging, custom fields and profitability reports. The trial runs 7 days, and the page says you will be asked for card details to continue.

Limitations: pricing is per user, so a team of three on Essentials is $57 a month billed yearly or $75 monthly; Elite has a three-user minimum. Scope-change handling beyond a new proposal is not named on the pricing page, and there is no ad-platform reporting.

Best for: one to three person agencies that want proposals, a portal and retainer invoices on a per-user price they can scale one seat at a time.

5. Moxie, best for a flat team price with a portal

Moxie Starter is $12 a month ($10 billed yearly) and lists client and project management, invoicing and payments, proposals, quotes and contracts, time tracking, a sales pipeline and a custom form builder. Pro is $25 monthly ($20 billed yearly) and adds a white-labeled client portal, support ticketing and client request management, workflow automations and API integrations. Teams is $40 monthly ($32 billed yearly) and includes up to five team members. Moxie's homepage says the 14-day free trial needs no credit card.

Limitations: retainers are not named on its pricing page (Moxie's help center documents recurring invoices), so check how a fixed monthly management fee repeats before you commit. The portal, request management and automations start at Pro, not Starter. Five team members is the stated ceiling on Teams.

Best for: two to five person agencies that want a portal and request management at one flat price and can bill the retainer manually each month.

6. HubSpot, best as a free contact list with a deals pipeline

HubSpot's pricing page lists free tools for up to 2 users with no credit card required, and a Starter tier listed at $20 a month per seat. A limited-time new-customer offer appears beside that list price, and we did not use it. The page lists pipelines, workflows and dashboards among its features. For Starter it does not list proposals, time tracking, a client portal or retainer billing, so the management-fee agreement would live in another tool. HubSpot's help center documents invoices on all plans.

Limitations: a PPC agency would run its agreements, retainer billing and scope control elsewhere. No trial terms are stated for Starter on the page.

Best for: agencies whose main need is a sales pipeline and email history for new business, paired with a billing tool.

Side-by-side comparison

Which tool fits your PPC agency?

Workspace369 in action for a mid-month campaign request

The extra-campaign ask usually arrives as a message, so the Workspace369 side starts in the inbox. The first screenshot is the inbox in a demo workspace with sample data (not an agency). One conversation shows an SMS thread, a call and a menu on a message with Create task, beside the client's contact details and notes. In a PPC account, "Can we add a remarketing campaign before Black Friday?" would land there and become a task on the client with one click. The communications page covers the inbox; SMS and the shared inbox start at Voyager, and Cadet has the email inbox.

The second screenshot is the dashboard from a demo workspace on Commander, with tasks due today, events, upcoming reminders, monthly revenue and expenses. The sample figures belong to a larger demo business; in an agency account, that is where today's tasks, reminders and the month's revenue show up. Workflow Automations can send the approval reminder for you, and the analytics page covers the reports. Expenses on that dashboard start at Specialist.

What it does not do: Workspace369 does not read Google Ads or Meta data, so the dashboard shows your work and billing, not campaign results. A new campaign on Cadet or Voyager goes out as a new proposal, because change orders start at Specialist.

Run a mid-month new-campaign test during the trial

Take one fictional client through a month in each tool you shortlist:

1. Send the onboarding form that asks for the ad account IDs and who will grant access, and check the answers land on the client record.
2. Record the monthly management fee, and any percentage-of-spend rule, in a proposal the client approves.
3. Set up the retainer or recurring invoice for the first month.
4. Have the client request a new holiday campaign mid-month. Price it with the free scope-change request builder, send it for approval and see how the tool records the change.
5. Log time against the new campaign and add its fee to the month's invoice.
6. Export the client record and check what comes out.

The best tool keeps the onboarding answers, the original agreement, the approved extra campaign and the invoice on one client record. If the extra work is only an email thread, that is the leak this test is built to find.

Keep reporting in a reporting tool

Monthly performance reports are a different job from client records. AgencyAnalytics, for example, prices per client rather than per seat: its pricing page lists $20 per client a month billed annually, with unlimited staff accounts, 85+ marketing integrations, automated client reporting and a white-labeled client portal, and a 14-day free trial with no card required. Five clients is $100 a month billed annually. It is a reporting product, not a CRM, and it does not hold your agreement or invoice. Pair it with whichever client-work tool above you choose, and keep ROAS, CPA and spend figures in the ad platforms and the reporting tool, never in the CRM.

When to keep it simple

If you manage two or three accounts, a shared task list, a signed agreement and an invoice template can carry you a long way. Move to a client-work tool when a second person starts taking requests, when you cannot say what scope you agreed three months ago, or when you chase late payments by hand. The PPC and paid ads agencies product page shows how Workspace369 handles proposals, communications, change orders and retainers, and the pricing page has current plans. Workflow Automations can send reminders and follow-ups, with email automations on every plan.

Before importing real clients, run one full month on demo data and check that your records can be exported.