HOW WE SCORE

Vendors can pay for placement. They can't buy a score.

Every Index Score comes from the same place: a close read of each tool's features, pricing, plans and documentation, plus what users say about it, graded on the things that matter when you run an agency. Some vendors pay for featured placement; we label them PARTNER, and it never moves their number.

Ease of use & setup

How fast a lean agency team gets productive, how steep the learning curve is, and whether people keep using it once the novelty wears off.

Feature depth for agency work

Whether it does the actual agency job properly — not just whether the feature exists on the box, but whether it holds up in real client work.

Scales with clients & retainers

Client portals, guest access, white-label, retainer and budget tracking, and whether per-seat pricing stays sane as you grow.

Price & transparency

Real pricing and limits, paid placements labelled, the per-seat maths spelled out, scores never for sale.

The research process

We dig into each tool the way an agency evaluating it would: its features, pricing and plans, documentation, integrations, and the aggregated feedback from people who use it — onboarding clients, tracking billable time, sending campaigns, running projects. We update reviews as products change, so the score reflects where a tool stands today, not where it was a year ago.

Scoring against a fixed rubric

Each tool is graded on the same four things: ease of use and setup, feature depth for agency work, how well it scales with clients and retainers, and price and transparency. Using one rubric across every tool keeps the rankings honest and comparable rather than a matter of taste.

What money can and can't do

AgencySoftware is reader-supported. Some links are affiliate links, and select vendors pay for featured placement — always labelled PARTNER. Neither ever changes a score, a rank, or what we write. See our full disclosure.