Creative & Digital Agencies

Custom Software Development for Creative Agencies

Agencies tend to run on Asana or Monday for tasks, a spreadsheet for resourcing and email for client approvals. We build the pieces that stitch those together: client portals, resource planning, and time and billing integrations with Xero.

Most creative and digital agencies run on a stack of tools that almost works. Projects live in Asana or Monday.com, files in Adobe Creative Cloud and Figma, conversations in Slack, invoices in Xero, and none of them agree with each other. Resource planning happens in a spreadsheet someone updates on Monday mornings, client feedback arrives as a screenshot in an email thread, and nobody knows whether a project made money until the accountant closes the month. By then the unprofitable retainer has burned another four weeks of senior time.

Your team can keep the tools it likes. What we build is the layer that connects them. A profitability dashboard that joins time tracking to Xero invoicing shows margin per project and per client while there's still time to act on it: scope creep becomes a conversation in week two, not a write-off in month three. Resource planning that reads from your project data, rather than a hand-maintained spreadsheet, shows who's overloaded next fortnight before the crunch arrives. Retainer tracking that counts down hours automatically takes the awkwardness out of true-up conversations.

Clients feel the mess too. A branded client portal gives them one place for briefs, work-in-progress, asset delivery and approvals, with feedback captured against the deliverable instead of scattered across email chains and Slack threads. Approval workflows with a proper audit trail end the "but we signed that off" disputes, and automated nudges chase the client for feedback so your project managers don't have to. For agencies pitching larger clients, a polished portal is also a credibility signal that a shared Dropbox folder is not.

IntraCode is a Brisbane development studio, and agency work looks a lot like ours: project-based delivery, scope pressure and utilisation maths. We work with agencies around Australia, starting with where your hours and margin leak and then fixing a price. The code and IP are yours, and hiring another designer never adds a per-seat fee.

Challenges We Solve for Agencies

Where software usually breaks down in agencies.

Resource Management

Working out who is free next week when everyone is on three projects.

Client Collaboration

Feedback and sign-offs buried in long email threads.

Profitability Visibility

Finding out a job lost money after it has already been invoiced.

What We Build for Agencies

Project Management

Boards, timelines and resource schedules set up around how your studio runs jobs.

Client Portals

Branded logins where clients submit briefs, review work and approve it.

Time & Billing

Project-based time tracking with retainer management and invoicing.

Digital Asset Management

Creative files stored with version history, so the final final version is easy to find.

How We Help Agencies Organisations

Explore the services we deliver most often for agencies clients.

Custom Web Applications

Secure web applications, customer portals and API integrations built with React, Next.js and Node.js.

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Business Automation

Workflow and business process automation that connects your systems and takes repetitive admin off your team.

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Product Design (UI/UX)

UX research, wireframes and interface design that make your software easy to use from day one.

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Tech Consulting

Independent advice on software architecture, technology choices and build vs buy decisions.

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Common Integrations

AsanaMonday.comFigmaAdobe Creative CloudSlackXero

Agencies Software Questions, Answered

Can you integrate with Xero, Slack, Asana, and our design tools?

Where they provide an API, yes. Agency builds are mostly integration work: pulling time and project data from tools like Asana or Monday.com, pushing invoices and retainer billing to Xero, posting notifications into Slack, and linking out to Figma and Adobe Creative Cloud assets. Your team keeps the tools they like; the custom layer makes them agree.

How much does a custom client portal or agency tool cost?

A branded client portal with approvals and asset sharing, or a profitability dashboard that joins time data to Xero, usually starts around $15,000-$40,000. Putting portals, resourcing and retainer billing into one platform costs more, depending on scope. The price is fixed after a discovery session.

Why not just use another off-the-shelf agency tool?

Plenty of agencies run well on off-the-shelf tools, and if yours can, we'll recommend it. Custom makes sense when your workflow is the differentiator: unusual retainer structures, multi-brand approval chains, white-label delivery, or reporting your tools can't produce. You also avoid per-seat pricing that scales painfully as the team grows.

How long does an agency software project take?

A client portal or profitability dashboard typically takes 6-10 weeks. Larger platforms with resourcing, retainers and multiple integrations run 3-5 months. We release in stages, and your team and a few pilot clients use the portal well before everyone else does.

Do we own the software, including for white-label use?

Yes. Once the final invoice is paid, the code, designs and IP are yours, including the right to brand it, extend it and put it in front of your clients as your own platform. That lets you offer a custom portal as part of your service, with no licence fee owed to us.