clientsandprofits.com

What It Is

Clients & Profits is business management software for the creative services industry, offered by Clients & Profits, Inc. since 1986 and positioned as “Software for the Business of Being Creative.” It primarily serves design studios, advertising agencies, and in-house marketing communications departments, covering the full workflow from project initiation, scheduling, time tracking, and costs through client billing and financial accounting.

Core Capabilities

The product is organized by use case: Studio, Agency, and Marcom. Studio focuses on tracking jobs, time, costs, and cash flow; Agency adds media planning, buying, billing, and advertising-industry financials on top of project management; Marcom is geared toward internal projects, budgets, chargebacks, and time management. Features include the Job 360 project dashboard, Creative Dashboard, estimates, change orders, purchase orders, time cards, Smart Timer, Timesheets, client project pipeline, CRM, production calendar, timelines, the Projectr client portal, homeBase collaboration module, client approvals, asset management, and real-time management reports. Its strength is that all data works from a shared database, reducing duplicate entry across quoting, approvals, execution, and billing.

Pricing and Deployment

Pricing is subscription-based by employee role. Studio costs USD 25/45/65 per user per month, Agency costs USD 25/45/115, and Marcom costs USD 25/45/85. There is also a Freelancer mobile time-card user plan at USD 9 per month. The monthly fee includes one-on-one support, online training, and software updates, but there is also a one-time startup fee, which requires a quote. Deployment uses a cloud-hosted database with a hybrid desktop/Web/mobile architecture. It supports macOS and Windows, while Jobr Mobile and Projectr Web are optimized for iPad.

Pros and Cons

Its advantages are deep industry fit, especially for the full advertising and design workflow of estimates, changes, time tracking, purchasing, billing, and financial close-loop management. The vendor also handles the database, backups, monitoring, and updates, reducing the IT maintenance burden. The drawbacks are that the website does not disclose open APIs, third-party integrations, compliance certifications, a free trial, or payment methods. The product is also relatively feature-heavy; if you only need lightweight project collaboration, the learning and implementation costs may be high.

Best Fit and Access from China

Clients & Profits is best suited to small-to-midsize and mature creative firms with dedicated project, client, finance, and production workflows, especially teams that need to calculate profitability and manage client billing. There is no information about access from China, so its availability is unknown. Payment, local invoicing, and data export compliance are also not disclosed. For teams in China, it may be worth evaluating local alternatives such as 飞书项目, PingCode, and Teambition, or comparing it with similar overseas tools such as Workamajig, Productive, and Scoro.