Project Management for Agencies: Why You're Overpaying

Your agency has 12 employees. But your project management bill covers 35 seats because every client, contractor, and freelancer needs access too. That's the agency tax, and it's costing you thousands per year.

Agencies have a unique problem with per-user pricing. Unlike product companies where the team is mostly internal, agencies constantly rotate external people in and out. A new client engagement means new seats. A freelance designer for one project means another seat. A client's marketing director who just needs to check status updates? Another seat.

The math gets ugly fast. Here's what it actually looks like, and what you can do about it.

The Agency Seat Problem

A typical 10-person agency might have 20 to 40 total users in their PM tool at any given time. Here's how that breaks down:

• 10 internal staff (account managers, designers, developers, strategists)
• 5 to 10 active clients with 1 to 3 contacts each
• 3 to 5 freelancers rotating through projects
• 1 to 2 contractors on retainer

On a per-user tool, you're paying for every one of those people. Even the client contact who logs in twice a month to check a status update. Even the freelancer who's only on a two-week project.

Some tools offer "guest" or "viewer" tiers at reduced prices, but they come with restrictions. Guests on Asana can't create tasks or use most features. Monday.com's viewers can only see boards they're invited to. These half-measures create a two-tier experience where clients feel like second-class users.

The Real Cost at Agency Scale

Here's what popular PM tools cost at typical agency sizes. These are annual billing rates for the mid-tier plans agencies actually need (not the stripped-down starter plans).

Monthly Cost at 10 Total Users

(Small agency: 5 staff + 5 client/contractor seats)

Monthly Cost at 20 Total Users

(Mid-size agency: 10 staff + 10 client/contractor seats)

Monthly Cost at 50 Total Users

(Growing agency: 15 staff + 35 client/contractor seats)

At 50 users, Monday.com costs over $7,000/year. Asana is close behind at $6,594. Even ClickUp, the cheapest per-user option, runs $4,200. Meanwhile, Thicket stays at $348/year regardless.

Annual Savings for Agencies

Here's what switching to Thicket saves an agency per year at each size:

A 20-person agency saves over $2,500/year switching from Monday.com to Thicket. At 50 users, you're saving close to $7,000. That's a junior designer's monthly salary.

Why Per-User Pricing Hits Agencies Hardest

Product companies have relatively stable team sizes. They hire someone, add a seat, and that person stays for months or years. The per-user cost is predictable.

Agencies don't work like that. Client engagements start and end. Freelancers come and go. A new project might need 5 client contacts with access, and that project wraps in 8 weeks. Do you add seats and remove them? Do you keep paying for inactive seats? Do you just not give clients access?

Most agencies pick the worst option: they limit who gets access. Clients email for updates instead of checking the tool. Account managers become human bridges, copying information from the PM tool into emails and Slack messages. That defeats the entire purpose of having a PM tool.

The alternative is worse. Some agencies share login credentials. Multiple people use one account. This creates security issues, eliminates accountability (who changed what?), and violates the terms of service of every PM tool on the market.

Flat-rate pricing solves all of this. Add everyone. Give every client full access. Invite the freelancer for two weeks. The cost doesn't change. You can read more about the broader issue in our post on why flat-rate project management makes sense.

What Agencies Actually Need in a PM Tool

Agency workflows are different from internal product teams. Here's what actually matters when you're managing multiple clients simultaneously.

Client Access Without the Tax

Clients need to see project progress, leave feedback, and approve deliverables. They don't need admin controls or access to your internal discussions. The ideal setup lets you invite clients to specific projects with appropriate visibility, without paying extra per person.

Basecamp does this well but at $299/mo. Thicket does it at $29/mo. Per-user tools charge you for every client contact regardless of how much they use it.

Project Templates

If your agency runs similar engagements repeatedly (website builds, branding projects, marketing campaigns), you need templates. Setting up the same task structure, milestones, and phases from scratch every time is wasted effort.

Monday.com is strong here. Their board templates and automations let you spin up a new client engagement quickly. Asana's project templates work well too. This is a genuine advantage these tools have over simpler alternatives.

File Sharing and Proofing

Creative agencies share a lot of files. Design comps, copy drafts, video edits, brand assets. The PM tool should handle file attachments natively, not force you into a separate Dropbox or Google Drive link for every deliverable.

Some tools handle this better than others. Wrike has dedicated proofing tools for creative teams. Most other tools treat file management as an afterthought. If proofing workflows are critical to your agency, that's worth evaluating separately.

Clean Client-Facing Views

Your internal project board has notes like "client keeps changing scope" and "need to push back on timeline." Clients shouldn't see those. A good agency PM tool lets you control what's visible to external collaborators without maintaining two separate project spaces.

Messaging Tied to Work

Email threads about project work are where context goes to die. When someone asks "what was the feedback on the homepage mockup?" the answer should live in the project, attached to the specific task, not buried in someone's inbox. Task-level comments and project messaging keep everything connected.

How Each Tool Handles Agency Needs

*Monday.com offers free viewer seats with limited access on some plans.

Evaluation Framework: Picking the Right Tool for Your Agency

Here's how to think about the decision based on your agency's specific situation:

The Hidden Cost of Not Giving Clients Access

Some agencies solve the pricing problem by keeping clients out of the PM tool entirely. Clients get email updates, PDF reports, and scheduled calls. The PM tool is internal only.

This saves money on seats but creates a different kind of cost. Account managers spend hours each week reformatting project data into client-friendly updates. Status meetings exist solely to communicate information that could be self-service. Clients feel out of the loop and request more frequent check-ins, which eats more billable time.

One agency owner told us they calculated 6 hours per week per account manager spent on manual client reporting. With 4 account managers, that's 24 hours per week of non-billable work. At an average billing rate of $125/hour, that's $3,000/week in opportunity cost.

Compared to that, even the most expensive PM tool is cheap. But you don't have to choose between expensive seats and no client access. Flat-rate tools let you give everyone access without doing the math.

If You're a Freelancer, Not an Agency

This guide is focused on teams. If you're a solo freelancer or a team of 2 to 3, the math is different. Per-user tools can actually be cheaper at that scale. We wrote a separate guide on project management for freelancers that covers the solo and micro-team use case.

Our Recommendation

If your agency has more than 4 people total (staff plus regular client contacts), flat-rate pricing saves money. Period. The only question is which flat-rate tool fits your workflow.

Thicket is $29/mo for unlimited everything. Basecamp is $299/mo for unlimited everything. Both eliminate the seat tax. Thicket costs 90% less.

If you genuinely need Monday.com's automation builder or Asana's enterprise reporting, those tools earn their per-seat premium for some agencies. But be honest about whether you actually use those features. Most agencies we talk to are paying for capabilities they set up once and forgot about.

Try the free trial. Add your real team. Add a couple of clients. See if it covers what you need. If it does, you just saved your agency thousands per year.

One more thing agencies often overlook: consistent team headshots. When your team page shows a mix of selfies and outdated photos, it undermines the polished brand you work so hard to build. LensCherry lets every team member generate professional AI headshots independently, with consistent quality across the board.

Frequently Asked Questions