What is the best CRM for a small marketing agency?

The one that sells the next retainer while you deliver the current one: the inquiry gets its reply and a time to talk, the proposal is written from the call, the SOW reaches a signature, the first invoice goes out, and the price does not climb with every account manager who needs to see the deal. By their own pages read October 22, 2026, HubSpot and Pipedrive give a small agency a pipeline with drafting help and seat prices; HighLevel (GoHighLevel) gives an agency a sub-account per client, texting and a chat bot; folk gives a relationship-led agency assistants per member; Zoho gives breadth with a partner's customization. Tommos is made for the agency that sells on inquiries: its agents carry each inquiry to the signed SOW and the paid invoice, for one company price.

Is HubSpot's free CRM enough for a small agency?

For a list of contacts and a pipeline two people type into, yes: it is free for two users with 1,000 contacts, by its pricing page read October 22, 2026. The follow-up, the proposal and the chasing stay yours; the Prospecting agent needs Starter and spends 100 credits a lead. Tommos has no free plan: 14 days of everything without a card, then one plan for the company.

Which of these CRMs handles proposals, contracts and invoices for an agency?

HighLevel has documents and contracts with e-signature and recurring payments; HubSpot has invoices on all plans and quotes with e-signature on Sales Hub Starter and up; Pipedrive's Smart Docs cover quotes, proposals and contracts, free on Professional and up; Zoho has quotes and invoices on Professional, with Zoho Sign apart; folk does not state any, by their pages read October 22, 2026. Tommos writes the proposal from your estimate on Close; on Sign, Tommo Legal drafts the agency's SOW and NDA from your templates, your signature happens in the card, and the invoice goes through Mercury with “Make the invoice” and “Send”.

Does Tommos bill retainers?

Write the retainer into the SOW as monthly amounts: once the deal is closed as won, Tommo Closer reads the signed paper and proposes that schedule, and each invoice then comes up on its day and leaves by two presses. Hourly work is invoiced on the rhythm the SOW sets, from the timesheets your team sent, the same way. An open-ended recurring invoice is not a named feature today. HighLevel names recurring invoices and payments inside contracts, and HubSpot names subscriptions, by their pages read October 22, 2026.

What do three people at an agency pay a year?

On the vendors' annual list prices read October 22, 2026: HubSpot Starter $720 at list ($252 on the offer) plus credits; Zoho Professional $828; folk Standard $864; HighLevel Starter $970 on the annual plan for unlimited users plus $600 for one AI Employee; Pipedrive Growth $1,404. Tommos Book costs the company $2,868 a year ($239 a month) and Close $5,748, agents and model inside, no credits: a seat buys a place to type; the company price buys the inquiry answered, booked, proposed and chased.

Which CRM lets me keep using Claude or ChatGPT?

All six run an MCP server, by their own pages read October 22, 2026: HubSpot on its new developer platform, Pipedrive on every plan, Zoho through Zoho MCP, HighLevel with an integration token, folk's MCP, and Tommos at app.tommos.ai/api/mcp. They differ in what your agent finds inside: in Tommos it finds deals in motion, each with its inquiry, its call and its proposal attached. Our page for agents lists what it can do.

The best CRM for a small marketing agency: 6 CRMs compared

What a small agency needs from a CRM, and what it does not#

At a small marketing agency, the people who deliver the work also sell the next client, in the gaps of the current ones. The inquiry comes in through the site on a Tuesday; the proposal is written on Sunday; the invoice goes out when someone remembers. A CRM sold to sales teams assumes a person in it all day. The agency needs one that works the deal when nobody is.

The agency also has a shape the generic CRM does not: clients, not accounts; retainers and projects, not quotas; a proposal that is a scope, not a price list. The vendors below say different things about agencies on their own pages; the table opens with that row.

Five checks before you pay#

1. Who the vendor’s agency page is for. Some vendors have a page for agencies as buyers; some have a partner program for agencies that resell the CRM to their clients; some have neither. Only the first was written for you.

2. The verbs on a new inquiry. “Drafts a reply you copy into your mail” and “replies, offers times and books the call” are two products with the same name on the pricing page. Read the verbs, and read which plan carries them.

3. Where the deal goes after “won”. For an agency a deal is done when the SOW carries a signature and the first invoice is paid. Find where the proposal, the signature and the invoice live, and what each costs on top of the seat.

4. Who approves an outward email. A review of every message, an autopilot you switch on, or silence on the point. An agency sells its name; the rule decides whose words leave under it.

5. What one more person costs. A seat price climbs with every account manager who needs to see the deal; a per-client platform climbs with every client; a company price is one number. Then add the AI’s credits, sessions or employees.

Six CRMs compared for a small marketing agency#

Every cell comes from the vendor’s own page, read on October 22, 2026, and the small number after it names the source. Pipedrive’s pricing page refused our reader that day; its prices are from Pipedrive’s blog of September 22, 2026. Where a cell says “not stated”, the page we read is silent, and the vendor may still do it. Prices are list prices of that day. Tommos’s cells come from its plans and documentation.

What	Tommos	HubSpot Starter	Pipedrive	Zoho CRM	HighLevel	folk
What the vendor says about agencies	Made for agencies and other founder-led B2B service firms of 1 to 50 whose new business arrives as inquiries. One record per client; each engagement is a deal on it, from the inquiry to the paid invoice; no sub-accounts and no retainer object	No agency buyer page; a partner program “for customer-centric service firms, consultancies, and agencies”³	“CRM for digital marketing agencies”: “simplify client management and strengthen collaboration”¹⁰	An agency page: proposals, invoices and contracts per account, “the result of extensive customization” by users or a Zoho partner²⁰	“The Agency CRM built to scale every client you serve”; one sub-account per client³¹	“The #1 CRM for Agencies”, “designed for agencies that need flexibility”⁴²
What the AI does by itself on a new inquiry	Tommo SDR answers the form, offers two or three times, books the call and chases on your schedule (Book); Tommo Closer writes the recap and the proposal (Close)	The Prospecting agent finds contacts, “generating personalized outreach” and “sends personalized emails”, on credits; a Data agent answers questions⁵²	Drafts emails and suggested replies (beta) on Premium and Ultimate; recommends next actions; no reply, booking or follow-up by itself stated¹²¹³	Zia predicts and “recommends what to do next”; drafts and summaries; on Professional, agents that “execute tasks on your behalf”²¹¹⁹	Conversation AI “replies automatically” on text, chat and social and books appointments when configured; Voice AI takes calls³²³¹	Follow-up Assistant suggests a personalized follow-up; Research Assistant enriches; Workflow Assistant can “automatically send a personalized email”; booking: not stated⁴³
After the deal is won: proposal, signature, invoice, retainer	The proposal from your estimate (Close); on Sign, your SOW and NDA from your templates, your signature inside the card, and the invoice through Mercury by two presses, each one proposed on its day	Invoices on all plans; quotes with e-signature on Sales Hub Starter and up (10 a user a month, pooled); subscriptions for recurring billing⁸⁷	Smart Docs: trackable quotes, proposals and contracts with e-signature, free on Professional and up, an add-on below; invoices through QuickBooks or Xero apps¹¹¹⁷	CPQ quotes, invoices and orders on Professional; e-signature through Zoho Sign, a separate product¹⁹²³	Documents and Contracts: proposals, estimates and contracts with e-signature; one-time or recurring payments inside the contract; recurring invoices³³³⁴	Proposals, contracts, e-signature, invoices: not stated⁴⁴
Who approves what the AI sends	A person presses “Send” or “Skip” on every card; after 12 clean approvals on a form, that person may switch on “Let Tommo send here”; a proposal never leaves alone	Your choice: “Review emails” or “Send without review”⁵	Drafts only: “Copy into message” and customize¹²	Not stated; admins “control how much autonomy each agent gets”²¹	Three modes: Off, Suggestive (drafts, does not send), Autopilot (replies automatically)³²	You “can preview emails before sending”; follow-ups are suggestions⁴³
Price, its unit, the free plan, the trial	$299 a month for the company (Book), $599 (Close), $899 (Sign); no seats, the AI model inside; 14 days, no card	Free for 2 users; Starter $20 a seat a month list, $7 as a limited offer for new customers; 500 credits a month, then $10 per 1,000; credits expire monthly¹⁴	Lite $14, Growth $39, Ultimate $79 a seat a month on an annual plan, by its own blog of Sep 22, 2026; its pricing page blocked our reader; no free plan; 14 days, no card¹⁴	Standard $14, Professional $23, Enterprise $40 a user a month on an annual plan; free for 3 users; 15 days, no card²²¹⁹²⁷	Starter $97 a month or $970 a year, unlimited users, 3 sub-accounts; AI Employee $50 or $97 a month per sub-account; 14 days, card required³⁵³⁶	Standard $24 a member a month on an annual plan, $30 monthly; Premium $48; 2-week trial, no card⁴⁴
The agency’s other tools	Google Workspace (Gmail, Calendar, Drive) and Mercury for the money; Slack, QuickBooks and Zapier: not today	Gmail; Zapier, Slack and QuickBooks Online apps by HubSpot⁹	Google Contacts, Calendar and Drive native; Slack, Zapier, QuickBooks, Xero through the marketplace¹⁷	Google Workspace, QuickBooks and Zoho Books on Bigin; Zapier; Slack: not stated²³	Gmail sync per sub-account; QuickBooks two-way; Zapier through LeadConnector; Stripe, PayPal, Square³⁷³⁸³⁹³⁵	Gmail, Google Calendar, Outlook, Slack, Zapier, Make; QuickBooks and Stripe: not named⁴⁵
Your own AI gets in	An MCP server in the CRM: Claude, ChatGPT or Cursor reads and writes your records with your rights	An MCP server with read and write access, on the new developer platform⁶	A native MCP server, “all Pipedrive customers, on every plan”¹⁶	Zoho MCP, “compatible with Claude, GPT, and other AI agents”, CRM included²⁹	An MCP server with a private integration token and a location id⁴⁰	folk MCP: AI tools “read and write to your folk workspace just like you can”⁴⁶

How new business runs in Tommos for an agency#

Tommos (tommos.ai) is the CRM where the AI agents, the tommos, work each inquiry of a services firm up to the signed contract. The company pays one price; the agents and the AI model are inside it. The plans; the agency page.

The inquiry gets its reply while you are in the workshop. A prospect fills the new-business form on your site. Tommo SDR reads the submission, the agency’s “Playbook” and the record, writes the first reply in your voice with two or three times to talk, and books the call on the Google Calendar you connected. When the prospect goes quiet, it chases on the schedule you set: the first follow-up after 4 days by default, the next 7 days later, three in all. Every reply stops on a card first: “Send”, “Skip”, or edit it.

The proposal is written the day of the call. On Close, Tommo Closer writes the recap of the meeting on the record, asks you for the estimate and turns it into the proposal as a letter; it chases the proposal and reports where the deal stands. No proposal leaves without your press.

The SOW, the signature and the first invoice follow on the same record. On Sign, Tommo Legal drafts the agency’s SOW and NDA from the templates in the “Templates” folder of the company’s folder Tommos shares with you, and reads a client’s paper against the contract positions you set once at the start; your signature happens inside the card, through the e-signature service that the Sign price covers, and a paper the client sent in their own envelope is signed in that envelope. Once the deal is closed as won, Tommo Closer reads the signed SOW and puts the payment schedule on a card, each amount with its date or milestone, for you to accept or change. Each invoice is then proposed on its day and goes with “Make the invoice” and “Send”, through Mercury; a reminder after the due date is written on its day and leaves with one press.

The agency’s name leaves only under a person’s hand. Every outward email waits for your press. When 12 replies of one kind on a form have gone out clean (an admin can set the count from 1 to 100), Tommo offers to send that kind by itself; the switch “Let Tommo send here” is yours, and it works on a paid plan.

Your own Claude sits beside the tommos. Point it at app.tommos.ai/api/mcp and ask which proposals wait on a client this week. What an agent can do in Tommos.

Set up new business in Tommos#

The founder sets this up once; after that every inquiry runs the same way.

1
Open the workspace and connect the calendar
Go to tommos.ai/signup with the agency’s Google work account: the workspace is open at once, with 14 days of everything and no card. The start path shows “Connect mail and calendar”; one Google consent covers both, and the start makes the “Intro call” meeting, 30 minutes with a Meet link.
2
Put the new-business form on your site
Open “Forms”, create the new-business form and switch on “Tommo SDR works the leads from this form”; the embed code replaces the form on your “Contact us” page. Under “After submit”, choose “Show the booking calendar”, so a prospect who wants to talk now takes a time at once.
3
Read the Playbook Tommo wrote from your site
While the workspace starts, Tommo reads the agency’s site into the “Playbook”: the services, the clients, the way you describe your work. Fix what is dated and name the clients you want more of; every reply and proposal draws its voice from these pages.
4
Approve the first replies from your phone
Each new inquiry lands as a card with the reply and the proposed times; later the recap and the proposal come the same way. Press “Send” or “Skip”, or change the text first. After 12 clean replies of one kind on the form, Tommo offers “Let Tommo send here”; take it when the voice is right.
5
Add the agency’s SOW template and the bank, on Sign
On Tommo Legal’s page, under “Documents”, press “Copy the folder’s address” and put the agency’s SOW and NDA into the “Templates” folder of the folder Tommos shares with you. For the money, open Mercury and allow the address shown under “First, in Mercury, allow this address on the token”, then paste the token and press “Connect Mercury”. An invoice is then “Make the invoice” and “Send”.

Which CRM to pick#

You want a free place to keep contacts and a pipeline, and you will write every email yourself. HubSpot’s free tools for two users, or Zoho’s free plan for three, by their pricing pages.¹¹⁹
You manage many client accounts, sell by text and phone, and want one platform with a sub-account per client. HighLevel, $97 a month with unlimited users, plus the AI Employee per sub-account.³¹³⁵³⁶
Your agency sells through relationships and you want assistants that suggest the follow-up and enrich the contact, per member. folk, $24 a member a month on an annual plan, with its own agency page.⁴²⁴⁴
The agency sells on inquiries and you want one record to carry each from the first reply to the paid invoice, with every email held on a card until you say otherwise. That is Tommos: the company pays one price, the agents are inside it, and your own Claude is welcome beside them.

Questions about CRMs for marketing agencies#

What is the best CRM for a small marketing agency?: The one that sells the next retainer while you deliver the current one: the inquiry gets its reply and a time to talk, the proposal is written from the call, the SOW reaches a signature, the first invoice goes out, and the price does not climb with every account manager who needs to see the deal. By their own pages read October 22, 2026, HubSpot and Pipedrive give a small agency a pipeline with drafting help and seat prices; HighLevel (GoHighLevel) gives an agency a sub-account per client, texting and a chat bot; folk gives a relationship-led agency assistants per member; Zoho gives breadth with a partner's customization. Tommos is made for the agency that sells on inquiries: its agents carry each inquiry to the signed SOW and the paid invoice, for one company price.
Is HubSpot's free CRM enough for a small agency?: For a list of contacts and a pipeline two people type into, yes: it is free for two users with 1,000 contacts, by its pricing page read October 22, 2026. The follow-up, the proposal and the chasing stay yours; the Prospecting agent needs Starter and spends 100 credits a lead. Tommos has no free plan: 14 days of everything without a card, then one plan for the company.
Which of these CRMs handles proposals, contracts and invoices for an agency?: HighLevel has documents and contracts with e-signature and recurring payments; HubSpot has invoices on all plans and quotes with e-signature on Sales Hub Starter and up; Pipedrive's Smart Docs cover quotes, proposals and contracts, free on Professional and up; Zoho has quotes and invoices on Professional, with Zoho Sign apart; folk does not state any, by their pages read October 22, 2026. Tommos writes the proposal from your estimate on Close; on Sign, Tommo Legal drafts the agency's SOW and NDA from your templates, your signature happens in the card, and the invoice goes through Mercury with “Make the invoice” and “Send”.
Does Tommos bill retainers?: Write the retainer into the SOW as monthly amounts: once the deal is closed as won, Tommo Closer reads the signed paper and proposes that schedule, and each invoice then comes up on its day and leaves by two presses. Hourly work is invoiced on the rhythm the SOW sets, from the timesheets your team sent, the same way. An open-ended recurring invoice is not a named feature today. HighLevel names recurring invoices and payments inside contracts, and HubSpot names subscriptions, by their pages read October 22, 2026.
What do three people at an agency pay a year?: On the vendors' annual list prices read October 22, 2026: HubSpot Starter $720 at list ($252 on the offer) plus credits; Zoho Professional $828; folk Standard $864; HighLevel Starter $970 on the annual plan for unlimited users plus $600 for one AI Employee; Pipedrive Growth $1,404. Tommos Book costs the company $2,868 a year ($239 a month) and Close $5,748, agents and model inside, no credits: a seat buys a place to type; the company price buys the inquiry answered, booked, proposed and chased.
Which CRM lets me keep using Claude or ChatGPT?: All six run an MCP server, by their own pages read October 22, 2026: HubSpot on its new developer platform, Pipedrive on every plan, Zoho through Zoho MCP, HighLevel with an integration token, folk's MCP, and Tommos at app.tommos.ai/api/mcp. They differ in what your agent finds inside: in Tommos it finds deals in motion, each with its inquiry, its call and its proposal attached. Our page for agents lists what it can do.

Sources#

HubSpot, “Pricing”, read Oct 22, 2026
HubSpot, “Breeze AI and Agent Hub”, read Oct 22, 2026
HubSpot, “Solutions Partner Program”, read Oct 22, 2026
HubSpot, “HubSpot Credits”, read Oct 22, 2026
HubSpot Knowledge Base, “Set up and use the prospecting agent”, read Oct 22, 2026
HubSpot Developers, “HubSpot MCP server”, read Oct 22, 2026
HubSpot Knowledge Base, “Use e-signatures with quotes”, read Oct 22, 2026
HubSpot Knowledge Base, “Create invoices”, read Oct 22, 2026
HubSpot App Marketplace (Zapier, Slack, QuickBooks Online), read Oct 22, 2026
Pipedrive, “CRM for digital marketing agencies”, read Oct 22, 2026
Pipedrive, “Smart Docs”, read Oct 22, 2026
Pipedrive Support, “Pipedrive AI”, read Oct 22, 2026
Pipedrive, “AI CRM”, read Oct 22, 2026
Pipedrive, “The best CRM software for your team, budget and stage” (Sep 22, 2026), read Oct 22, 2026
Pipedrive Support, “What’s new in Pipedrive plans?”, read Oct 22, 2026
Pipedrive, “MCP server”, read Oct 22, 2026
Pipedrive, “Google apps integration”, and its marketplace listings for QuickBooks, Xero and Zapier, read Oct 22, 2026
Pipedrive Support, “How does pricing work in Pipedrive?”, read Oct 22, 2026
Zoho, “Zoho CRM pricing and editions”, read Oct 22, 2026
Zoho, “CRM for agencies”, read Oct 22, 2026
Zoho, “AI-native Zoho CRM”, read Oct 22, 2026
Zoho, “Pay only for what you use”, read Oct 22, 2026
Zoho Bigin, “Pricing and editions”, read Oct 22, 2026
Zoho, “Sign up for Zoho CRM”, read Oct 22, 2026
Zoho, “Zoho MCP”, read Oct 22, 2026
HighLevel, “CRM for agencies”, read Oct 22, 2026
HighLevel Help, “Conversation AI bot explained”, read Oct 22, 2026
HighLevel Help, “Documents and Contracts”, read Oct 22, 2026
HighLevel Help, “Recurring invoices”, read Oct 22, 2026
HighLevel, “Pricing”, read Oct 22, 2026
HighLevel Help, “AI products pricing”, read Oct 22, 2026
HighLevel Help, “QuickBooks integration”, read Oct 22, 2026
HighLevel Help, “Connect Google to use Gmail”, read Oct 22, 2026
HighLevel Help, “Connect a sub-account with Zapier”, read Oct 22, 2026
HighLevel Help, “HighLevel MCP server”, read Oct 22, 2026
folk, “The #1 CRM for Agencies”, read Oct 22, 2026
folk, “Assistants”, read Oct 22, 2026
folk, “Pricing”, read Oct 22, 2026
folk, “Integrations”, read Oct 22, 2026
folk Developer Portal, “MCP overview”, read Oct 22, 2026

The best CRM for a small marketing agency: six CRMs compared on new business, from the inquiry to the retainer

What a small agency needs from a CRM, and what it does not#

Five checks before you pay#

Six CRMs compared for a small marketing agency#

How new business runs in Tommos for an agency#

Set up new business in Tommos#

Open the workspace and connect the calendar

Put the new-business form on your site

Read the Playbook Tommo wrote from your site

Approve the first replies from your phone

Add the agency’s SOW template and the bank, on Sign

Which CRM to pick#

Questions about CRMs for marketing agencies#

Sources#

Read next

Let the tommos take the agency’s next inquiry

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