Productive.io alternative for marketing agencies

Built for the agency's own business, not only its projects. CRM, proposals, retainer pacing and client reporting sit beside time and invoicing.

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The short answer

Where Productive.io stops.

The closest thing to a peer: a genuine agency operating system with budgets, time and profitability. It is also priced per seat for every person, and modules arrive whether you use them or not.

Verbial is a Productive.io alternative built only for marketing agencies: retainers paced by department, agreement and first invoice from the proposal, an agency CRM, white-label reports and margin from absorbed cost. Productive.io is the better fit if resource scheduling and project management breadth matter more.

What Productive.io does well

Broad project management: boards, docs, scheduling and workload.
Mature resource planning and forecasting.
A large integration marketplace, plus pipeline, budgeting and invoicing for teams that quote projects.

What changes with Verbial

Retainers behave the way agencies sell them. Overages, carryover, period history.
Win and start the same day. Accepted proposals create the first invoice and budget.
Clients see your brand, not ours. On every report and in the portal.
Your data stays yours. Private database, daily backups, full export any time.

Side by side

Verbial against Productive.io.

Agency workflowWith VerbialWith Productive.io

Retainer modelDrawdown by department, overages, carryover, period historyBudgets per project; departmental drawdown is manual

ProposalsNative: packages, clauses and the invoice on approvalPipeline with budgets; proposals through other tools

CRMPipeline, sequences, forms, booking, leads from other tools (beta)Sales pipeline with deals and contacts

Project managementProjects and tasks sized for time trackingBoards, docs, dependencies, scheduling and workload

Resource planningCapacity against retainer allocations by departmentResource scheduling and forecasting

Client reportingWhite-label reports and portal with fetched metricsInternal reports and dashboards; client sharing is basic

ProfitabilityContracted revenue, absorbed cost, idle time, servicing gapHours times rate, with overhead allocation

Media spendInfluencer and vendor payments per campaign, gross profitExpenses

DataPrivate database per workspace, daily snapshots, full exportShared infrastructure

AI accessClaude works in your workspace, per-person permissions (beta)AI features inside the product

Pricing basisPer full seat, with a three-full-seat minimumPer user per month

The honest comparison. Productive is mature; Verbial is newer, cheaper per person, and modular rather than all-in.

Modules

The parts that take over from Productive.io.

85% of retainerTime trackingKnow which clients are over-serviced while you can still fix it, and invoice from hours you trust.Time tracking software for marketing agencies →38.2% marginProfitabilitySee which clients actually make you money, and price the next renewal from evidence.Profitability software for marketing agencies →Sent to 14 clientsClient reportingCreate beautiful reports in minutes, explain the work clearly and keep every client confidently in the loop.Client reporting software for marketing agencies →Drafted by AIProposalsLet AI draft the proposal from the discovery call and your packages, then turn their yes into revenue.Proposal software for marketing agencies →

Common questions

Is Verbial a Productive.io alternative?

Yes. Verbial covers projects, time, budgets, invoicing and profitability, and adds an agency CRM, native proposals, retainer pacing by department, media spend and white-label reporting.

Can I migrate from Productive.io?

Yes. The migration hub reads Productive.io's export files and imports companies, projects, services and time entries, with a preview first and one-click undo.

How does resource scheduling compare?

Productive.io schedules people hour by hour. Verbial plans capacity around retainer allocations by department, which suits agencies that sell monthly scopes.

How does the price compare?

Compare current agency plans, seats and add-ons on the pricing page.

Try Verbial next to Productive.io for a billing cycle.

Bring your data across, keep the old tool read-only, and compare the numbers on real work.

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