PLYNT for marketing agencies on retainer

The contract says a monthly fee for an agreed scope. Then a client adds a channel. Someone asks for a weekly report instead of a monthly one. A campaign launch moves and two people spend a Saturday on it. None of that is refused, and none of it changes the invoice.

By the fourth month the retainer covers about half the hours it did in the first, but the invoice is identical, and the only person who suspects it is the account manager who keeps working late.

Retainers do not fail loudly. They erode, and the erosion is only visible if hours are attached to the client every week rather than remembered at renewal.

1. Hours per client per month, against the hours the fee assumed.
2. Who the hours belong to. Two junior hours and two director hours cost different amounts; a headline total hides that.
3. Recurring invoices that issue themselves, so billing is not a monthly memory test.
4. Media and tool costs passed through, on the same client as the work.
5. The renewal date, with the year of hours behind it, ready before the conversation and not after.

Each client is a record with its projects, hours and money attached. Time goes to a task, the task to a project and client, so a monthly figure per client needs no re-entry. Recurring invoices issue on schedule and sit next to the expenses for that client.

Because loaded hourly cost is calculated per person, the report distinguishes a month of junior production from a month of senior strategy. The client report shows the hours behind the margin, which is what a renewal conversation actually needs.

Agencies that run two brands, or a separate legal entity for media buying, get a workspace per company under one login.

It does not connect to ad platforms, schedule posts or report on campaign performance. Ad spend enters as an expense; it is not pulled from Meta or Google. There is no sales CRM yet — a pipeline for new business is in development, so today a deal lives elsewhere until it becomes a client.

It is not accounting software, and it submits nothing to a tax authority.

Can it tell me whether a retainer is profitable?

It shows the approved hours and direct costs against what the client was invoiced, per month and per project. It does not decide what “profitable enough” is — the margin target is yours.

We bill some clients hourly and some on retainer.

Both sit on the same client record. The difference is in how the invoice is raised, not in how the hours are captured.

How many clients can one workspace hold?

Client and project allowances differ by plan; the current limits are on the pricing page. The member count is what the price is based on, not the client count.

Still choosing between tools? The 2026 comparison guide reads fourteen of them on their own published prices, and the comparison pages go tool by tool.