Project management tools for agencies: generic tool or something specific?

Search for "best project management software for agencies" and you mostly get lists ranking Monday.com, Asana, ClickUp and Trello by stars and features. What those lists rarely answer is the question that actually matters for an agency: how do you keep an overview when you are not running one project, but ten projects for ten different clients at once, each of whom thinks they are the only client.

Project management software is software that tracks tasks, deadlines and the progress of work, usually in the form of boards, lists or timelines per project.

Why don't generic tools always fit an agency?

Monday.com is a good example of this. It is flexible, with boards you can set up however you like, and affordable at its core: the entry plan starts around $9 per user per month on annual billing, with a required minimum of three users. For a standalone team, that works fine.

The problem shows up once you use it for an agency with clients. Each board is essentially its own island. Want to know how much capacity your team has this week across all clients? You have to piece that together from separate boards yourself, or build an extra automation that does it. I described the same problem with Trello and Asana in Trello vs Asana for agencies: strong tools for individual projects, weaker once you want to use them to steer across multiple clients at once.

What does a generic tool miss specifically for an agency?

Two things that keep coming up. First, a client portal: with Monday, Asana and most generic tools, you have to set up a separate guest login or extra paid feature to let a client see anything, and it often feels bolted on. Second, the link between a deal won in your CRM and the project that comes out of it: in a generic project tool you start a project by hand, with the risk that something falls through the cracks during handoff.

I described that handoff moment earlier in from won deal to client project: exactly the point where agencies often lose information, because CRM and project live in two separate systems.

A third point that lists often skip: reporting across multiple clients. A generic tool easily shows you how one project is doing, but rarely gives a single-glance answer to which clients are behind this month and which are ahead. For an agency steering multiple clients at once, that is exactly the overview that gets missed most.

Is a generic tool ever the wrong choice, then?

Not at all. Work with a small, stable team on internal projects, or with a handful of clients where you easily keep track yourself, and a generic tool like Monday.com or Asana is often faster to set up and more flexible than something built specifically for agencies. You are not paying for features like a client portal that you would not use anyway.

The line sits roughly at the point where you can no longer keep track of which client stands where off the top of your head, or where your team wants a simple answer to "do we have room for a new client this week". I described that kind of overview earlier in how to keep an overview of multiple clients.

What does Wecooking choose?

Wecooking builds project management specifically around the agency problem: a won deal automatically becomes a project, clients can follow along through a client portal without you having to set up a separate feature for it, and you see in one overview how your capacity is spread across all clients. From €19 per month, all included, currently free in beta.

That is not inherently better than a generic tool, it is built differently, for a different problem. Work with changing, short client projects where handoff and client visibility keep coming up, and that approach saves you from stitching together separate tools. Work mostly internally or with a few stable clients, and a generic tool can keep working just fine.

Not sure which side your situation falls on? Trying it for free is the fastest way to find out, without having to decide first. Either way, the tool is not the goal, keeping a clear view of every client's project is.