Worklenz vs Productive: PSA Comparison for Agencies

Productive is an agency-operations platform focused on profitability: budgets, resource planning, time tracking and rate cards, with revenue forecasting on its top plan. Worklenz covers the same core for agencies and service firms (projects, time tracking, resourcing, client portal, project finance and built-in invoicing) at about half the per-user price of Productive Professional, with an open source edition you can self-host.

Competitor prices and plan details were checked on Productive’s pricing page on 11 November 2026. Worklenz prices are from the Worklenz pricing page. Prices change, so check both before you decide.

Worklenz vs Productive at a glance

	Worklenz	Productive
Built for	Agencies and service firms that sell time	Agency operations and profitability
Starting price	Free plan; Pro $8, Business $12 per active user/mo ($6 / $10 billed yearly)	From $10/user/mo (Essential); Professional $25 annual / $29 monthly
Seat minimum	None	Check vendor
Free plan	Yes	No
Free trial	Pro and Business, no card	14 days, no card
Time tracking and timesheets	Pro and up	See note below
Resource scheduling and workload	Workload on Pro; full scheduler on Business	See note below
Client portal	Business	Check vendor
Invoicing	Business (create, send, mark paid, record payment)	Via integrations
Open source / self-host	Yes: AGPL-3.0, free Community edition	No

How Productive packages it: Budgeting, resource planning and time tracking start on Essential. Rate cards, billable-time approvals and recurring budgets need Professional; revenue forecasting is on Ultimate (quote only). Productive handles invoicing through integrations.

What 10 and 25 people pay per year

To compare like for like, this uses Worklenz Business, the plan with the client portal, invoicing and project finance, against the Productive tier closest to it.

Team size	Worklenz Business, billed yearly	Productive
10 people	$1,200 ($1,440 monthly)	$3,000 (Professional, $25 annual)
25 people	$3,000 ($3,600 monthly)	$7,500 (Professional, $25 annual)

Professional is the tier with rate cards and billable-time approvals, the closest match to Worklenz Business. Teams that only need time tracking, timesheets and the workload view can use Worklenz Pro at $6 per user per month billed yearly.

Where Productive is stronger

• Billable-time approvals. Productive Professional includes approvals for billable time. Worklenz doesn’t have a timesheet approval workflow yet.
• Revenue forecasting on the Ultimate plan, for agencies that plan revenue months ahead.
• A mature agency-operations product with budgeting and resource planning from its entry plan.

Where Worklenz is stronger

• One system from project to invoice. Tasks, time tracking, the workload view and scheduler, project budgets and rate cards, the client portal and invoices all share the same data. No stitching a PM tool to a time tracker, a scheduler and a billing tool.
• Price and no seat minimum. Worklenz Business is $12 per active user per month ($10 billed yearly), and you pay only for active users.
• Open source you can own. Worklenz is AGPL-3.0. You can self-host the free Community edition on your own servers, keep client data in-house, and avoid lock-in. Productive is closed, vendor-hosted software.
• Client portal with requests. Clients log in, raise requests with a status history, follow progress, and chat and comment with your team.
• Imports from Asana, Trello, Jira, ClickUp, Monday and CSV, plus iOS and Android apps.

Where Worklenz falls short

Honest gaps, so you can rule Worklenz in or out quickly:

• No timesheet approval workflow yet.
• No online card payments on invoices. You record payments manually.
• No CRM. Worklenz sits alongside the CRM you already use.
• A smaller integration ecosystem than older commercial PSAs. Today it covers Slack (Business), Google and Apple sign-in, and GitHub.

Switching from Productive to Worklenz

1. Start a free trial of Business. It needs no credit card, and it unlocks the client portal, invoicing and project finance so you can test the whole loop.
2. Bring your projects over. Worklenz imports from CSV, so the usual route is to export your projects and tasks from Productive as a spreadsheet (check Productive’s export options) and import them. Rebuild your delivery process as project templates while you’re at it.
3. Set up rates and budgets. Add your organisation rate card, per-project member rates and project budgets so costs and billable value build up from the first time log.
4. Invite clients to the portal once a project is running, so requests and status questions move out of email.
5. Run both tools for one billing cycle, then compare the invoice totals before you switch off Productive.

Moving a larger team? Book a demo and we’ll walk through the migration with you.

Which should you choose?

Choose Productive if you need billable-time approvals or revenue forecasting today, and the Professional or Ultimate price fits your budget.

Choose Worklenz if you’re an agency or service firm of 5 to 100 people that wants projects, time, resourcing, a client portal and invoicing in one system, at a lower per-user price, with the option to self-host.

See how other teams run on Worklenz: Imperius Agency, Longwapps, Nanosoft Fintech and WTV.

Frequently asked questions

Is Worklenz cheaper than Productive?

Worklenz Business costs $12 per active user per month, or $10 billed yearly, with no seat minimum: $1,200 a year for 10 people on yearly billing. See the table above for the Productive figures, and check both pricing pages for current prices.

Does Productive have built-in invoicing?

Productive’s pricing page lists invoicing through integrations (November 2026). Worklenz has invoicing built in on the Business plan: create, send and download invoices, mark them paid and record payments manually.

Can I self-host Worklenz?

Yes. The Worklenz Community edition is open source under AGPL-3.0 and free to self-host with unlimited users. Self-hosted Business adds priority support, SSO, custom branding and backup and restore; contact sales for pricing.

Does Worklenz have a free trial?

Yes. Pro and Business both have a free trial, and you don’t need a credit card to start it.