A 25-person creative agency billing £2 million a year can lose £150,000 to £300,000 in margin without ever pinpointing why. Scope creep consumes projects task by task. Unlogged hours vanish into thin air. A client who looks profitable on paper turns out to be below average once you factor in the rounds of feedback that never made it onto a timesheet. Real profitability by client, by project, by service type remains a black box.
That is not a sales strategy problem. It is a tooling problem.
PSA (Professional Services Automation) platforms exist precisely to solve it: they connect time worked, project budgets, invoicing and margin reporting in a single interface. In 2026, three tools dominate the conversation for creative and digital agencies in Europe: Harvest, Teamleader Focus (and its agency-focused sibling, Orbit), and Productive.io. This comparison analyses them on verified data, with primary sources.
PSA vs ERP: a distinction every agency must understand
A generic ERP (SAP, Odoo, Sage X3) is designed to manage physical flows: orders, stock, purchasing, goods invoicing. Its core data model revolves around products and transactions.
A creative agency does not sell products. It sells time transformed into deliverables. Its economics rest on three levers: billing rate (the proportion of worked hours actually invoiced), margin per project (revenue minus hours spent, subcontracting and expenses), and the ability to handle mixed billing models — time-and-materials, fixed price, monthly retainer.
A generic ERP does not cover these needs out of the box. Implementing one for a 20-person agency is the equivalent of using industrial machinery to hang a picture frame.
A PSA covers exactly this scope: time tracking by project and client, project budgets with overspend alerts, invoicing from logged hours, and margin reporting. The three tools in this comparison are PSA platforms, not ERPs in the strict sense. They assume a separate accounting tool (Xero, QuickBooks, Access Financials) handles statutory bookkeeping. The boundary is blurring — Teamleader now integrates accounting, Productive.io handles revenue recognition — but none of the three replaces a full ERP for an organisation with multi-entity consolidation, inventory management or integrated payroll needs.
Agencies that grow past 100 people or build a multi-entity structure will eventually need to look at a professional services ERP such as Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central or a services-configured Odoo. See our article on ERP for professional services and PSA for the next level up.
Harvest: the time-tracking pioneer
Harvest was founded in 2006 in New York, originally to serve the design agency run by its founders. By 2026 it claims more than 70,000 business customers and 4.5 billion hours tracked, with more than $64 billion in invoices generated (getharvest.com, accessed 26 September 2026).
2026 context to watch: Harvest was acquired by Bending Spoons, the Italian technology group known for acquiring consumer apps (Evernote, Meetup). A UI redesign (“A Fresh Harvest”) is under way. The medium-term product roadmap under the new owner is unclear — a factor worth weighing in any 3–5 year decision.
Verified pricing
| Plan | Monthly | Annual |
|---|---|---|
| Free | $0 | $0 |
| Teams | $11/user | $9/user |
| Enterprise | $17.50/user | $14/user |
| Enterprise Plus | On request | On request |
Pricing in USD only — no EUR option published. Source: getharvest.com/pricing, accessed 26 September 2026.
What Harvest does well
Integration with existing stacks is its strongest card. Chrome and Firefox browser extensions connect natively to Asana, Jira, Linear, ClickUp, Trello, Basecamp, and Monday.com: start the timer from the task card without changing tabs. More than 50 native integrations cover accounting (QuickBooks, Xero), payments (Stripe, PayPal), communication (Slack) and analytics (Databox, Klipfolio). In 2026, an MCP connector enables integration with AI environments such as Claude or ChatGPT.
The learning curve is near zero. A team of ten can be fully operational in under a day. The value-for-money on the Teams plan ($9/user/month on annual billing) is hard to beat for pure time tracking.
What Harvest does not do
Harvest has no CRM, no commercial pipeline, no capacity planning in the proper sense (forward-looking resource allocation). The interface is English only. There is no Peppol e-invoicing integration, which is already a barrier in Belgium (Peppol mandatory since January 2026 for B2B) and will become relevant in other EU markets through 2027.
Project margin reporting is limited on base plans: per-client profitability requires manual CSV exports or a connected BI tool.
Ideal profile: agencies of 5–20 people with a heterogeneous PM stack (Asana or Jira), accounting on Xero or QuickBooks, looking for reliable and unobtrusive time tracking to bridge the two. Harvest is infrastructure, not a steering platform.
Teamleader Focus (and Orbit): the integrated CRM for European agencies
Teamleader was founded in 2012 in Ghent, Belgium. By 2026 the company employs more than 230 people and serves more than 34,000 SME customers on its Focus platform (teamleader.eu, accessed 26 September 2026).
Teamleader offers two distinct products that must be understood separately:
- Teamleader Focus: CRM + invoicing + project management for SMEs up to around 20 employees, across all sectors.
- Teamleader Orbit: a platform dedicated to agencies of 20 or more, with full PSA modules. By 2026, 4,089 agencies use Orbit (teamleader.eu/orbit, accessed 26 September 2026).
Verified Focus pricing
| Focus Plan | Monthly (annual billing) |
|---|---|
| SMART | €37.50/user |
| GROW | €49.50/user |
| FLOW | €67.50/user |
Notable conditions: 50% discount from the 6th user onwards, one extra user included free, 17% discount on annual vs monthly billing. Project management and planning modules are paid boosters (€5–€50/month extra depending on the module) — the listed price does not include them. Source: teamleader.eu/pricing, accessed 26 September 2026.
Teamleader Orbit: pricing on request only. No published rate card.
What Teamleader does well
The key differentiator versus the other two tools in this comparison: the interface is available natively in English, Dutch, French, German, Spanish and Italian. It is the only platform of the three to offer a fully localised experience, which makes a real difference for adoption in agencies where not every team member reads English comfortably.
Peppol e-invoicing is included on all Focus plans — a decisive advantage for Belgian agencies (Peppol mandatory since 1 January 2026 for B2B transactions) and relevant for agencies in the Netherlands, Germany and other EU markets moving towards mandatory e-invoicing. For detail on the Belgian Peppol obligations, see our article on mandatory Peppol e-invoicing in Belgium.
Teamleader Focus integrates a full CRM with commercial pipeline, quotes and invoicing. For an agency that wants to manage its entire commercial cycle in one tool — prospect → quote → project → invoice — it is the most vertically integrated option of the three.
Teamleader Orbit, the agency-specific version, goes further: capacity planning with load forecasting, real-time margin visibility per project and per client, capped-time tasks, and a billing dashboard. Teamleader claims these results from its Orbit client base: +23% billing rate, +26% billable hours, +7% revenue per FTE (teamleader.eu/orbit — publisher’s own data, weight accordingly).
What Teamleader does not do well
The project management module is not included in the base Focus price — it is a booster. An agency that activates CRM + project management + planning quickly finds the real cost materially higher than the listed rate. The opaque Orbit pricing makes direct comparison impossible without speaking to sales.
Users report limited automation in Focus, and reduced flexibility on complex recurring-contract billing. Capterra notes difficulties with retainer-based contract management.
Ideal profile — Focus: agencies of 3–20 people in the UK, Ireland or mainland Europe that want CRM + invoicing + Peppol in one tool with a fully localised interface. The natural choice for a Belgian or Dutch agency under 20 people.
Ideal profile — Orbit: agencies of 20–100 people that need capacity planning, real-time per-project margin tracking, and a solution built specifically for the agency business model.
Productive.io: the financial steering platform
Productive.io was founded in 2014. The company is incorporated in the United States (The Productive Company Inc.) but addresses primarily the European market. It employs between 51 and 200 people.
Verified pricing
| Plan | EUR monthly (annual billing) |
|---|---|
| Essential | €9.50/user |
| Professional | €23/user |
| Ultimate | On request |
Minimum 3 seats on all plans. EUR pricing confirmed for France, Germany, the Netherlands, Croatia and Spain. Source: productive.io/pricing/, accessed 26 September 2026.
Productive.io does not publish its customer count. Capterra records 109 reviews (4.6/5, 90% recommend) as of September 2026 — a limited review base to keep in perspective.
What Productive.io does well
Productive.io is the most financially complete of the three tools. Where Harvest focuses on time tracking and Teamleader on CRM, Productive.io centralises: time tracking, project budgets (time-and-materials, fixed price, retainer), resource planning (forecast load vs. capacity), invoicing and profitability dashboards. If the core question is “is this project financially off track, and by how much?”, Productive.io answers in real time without CSV exports.
All three agency billing models — time-and-materials, fixed price, monthly retainer — are native, not workarounds. The resource planning module with load forecasting (who is busy with what next week, how many weeks until a project hits its budget?) is the most sophisticated of the three.
The major 2025 update (“Productive 5.0”) significantly reduced administrative overhead — critical in an agency where consultants often treat timesheet entry as a chore.
The entry price (€9.50/user on annual billing) is the most competitive of the three outside Harvest’s free plan.
What Productive.io does not do well
The undisclosed customer count is a signal worth taking seriously. A vendor that chooses not to publish this figure leaves an open question about the real size of its installed base. For a tool you are placing your agency’s financial management inside, vendor longevity matters.
The interface is English (Capterra confirms: English as primary language). No Peppol integration. The learning curve is steeper than Harvest: the platform is more complex, and full deployment typically takes several weeks to become fully operational.
Ideal profile: agencies of 10–100 people whose team is comfortable working in English, that want granular financial visibility across projects with integrated resource planning. Particularly strong for agencies with mixed contract types (fixed price + retainers + time-and-materials) that need everything consolidated in one dashboard.
Side-by-side comparison
| Criteria | Harvest Teams | Teamleader Focus | Teamleader Orbit | Productive.io Professional |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Reference price | $9/user/month (annual, USD) | €49.50/user/month (annual) | On request | €23/user/month (annual) |
| Free plan | Yes (1 user, 2 projects) | No (14-day trial) | No | No (free trial) |
| Minimum seats | 1 | 2 | 20+ recommended | 3 |
| Localised interface | English only | 6 languages incl. EN/FR/NL | 6 languages incl. EN/FR/NL | English primary |
| Integrated CRM | No | Yes | Yes | Light |
| Peppol e-invoicing | No | Yes | Yes | No |
| Resource planning | Basic | Paid booster | Yes | Yes (core) |
| Project margin tracking | Limited | Partial | Yes | Yes (core) |
| Integrations | 50+ native, 1,000+ Zapier | 75+ | Not disclosed | Limited |
| Customers | 70,000+ businesses | 34,000+ SMEs | 4,089 agencies | Not disclosed |
| Founded in | USA (now Bending Spoons) | Belgium | Belgium | USA |
Sources: getharvest.com/pricing, teamleader.eu/pricing, teamleader.eu/orbit, productive.io/pricing/ — all accessed 26 September 2026.
Choosing by agency profile
Freelancer or studio of 1–4 people. Harvest on the free plan (1 user, 2 projects) to test, then Teams at $9/user. If you are in Belgium or another EU country with mandatory Peppol, start directly with Teamleader Focus SMART (€37.50/user).
Agency of 5–20 people with a heterogeneous stack. Harvest Teams ($9/user) paired with your existing PM tool (Asana, Jira) and Xero or QuickBooks. It is the cheapest and fastest to deploy if your team already uses a project management tool. If your team is not comfortable in English or you need an integrated CRM, go straight to Teamleader Focus GROW (€49.50/user) with the project management booster.
European agency of 5–20 people with Peppol requirements. Teamleader Focus is the natural choice. Localised interface, native Peppol, integrated CRM, EU-compliant invoicing. The cost premium over Harvest is justified by the broader functional coverage.
Agency of 10–50 people needing financial steering. Productive.io Professional (€23/user) if your team works comfortably in English and resource planning + project profitability are your priorities. Teamleader Orbit (on request) if you want to add Peppol compliance and a multilingual interface for all teams.
Agency of 50 people and above. Beyond this threshold, specialist PSA limitations begin to show: multi-entity consolidation, payroll integration, high-volume subcontractor management, statutory reporting. The question of a professional services ERP — Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central, Oracle NetSuite, Access Group’s ERP suite — becomes relevant. See our complete ERP selection guide and our 2026 ERP comparison for next steps.
What these tools cannot fix on their own
A PSA platform does not solve a timesheet culture problem. If creative teams perceive time logging as surveillance, the data will be inaccurate regardless of which platform you choose. Deploying a PSA in an agency requires change management work similar in spirit — if smaller in scale — to an industrial ERP project: training, management sponsorship, close monitoring in the first weeks.
It also does not fix a commercial pricing problem. If fixed-price quotes are systematically undervalued at the point of sale, the PSA will make that problem more visible, but it will not correct it.
To go further, read our complete 2026 ERP comparison and our guide on ERP for professional services and PSA if your agency is above 50 people or preparing a multi-entity structure.
