Vendasta, being a jack of all trades for digital marketing agencies, comes with high cost, hidden charges, and low-maintenance marketplace tools. These are the reasons why agencies are looking for Vendasta alternatives.
Marketing agencies need to maintain consistency and quality of work. And for such cases, Agency Handy is a solid option as an agency and client management platform. HubSpot, Salesforce, and SEMrush are worth considering for specific fields.
This article highlights the top 8 alternatives if you’re shifting from Vendasta.
Quick List of Vendasta Alternatives
- Agency Handy: Streamlines agency client onboarding, proposals, and project management.
- HubSpot: Powerful inbound marketing automation integrated with a free CRM.
- Salesforce: Enterprise platform for creating complex, personalized customer journeys.
- Mailchimp: User-friendly email marketing and automation for small businesses.
- SEMrush: An all-in-one toolkit for SEO, content, and competitor research.
- Asana: Visually organizes team projects, tasks, and complex workflows effectively.
- DashClicks: An all-in-one platform with white-label fulfilment for agencies.
- Birdeye: Manages online reviews, customer messaging, and feedback in one place.
Top 4 Reasons to Consider a Vendasta Alternative
The following are the reasons digital marketing agencies are considering making a switch from Vendasta –
1. Expensive Pricing Structure with Hidden Costs
Vendasta pricing is typically the first thing that comes to mind. Their pricing ranges from $99 per month for the starter tier to $1,579 per month for the higher plans. Additionally, there’s an onboarding fee that can exceed thousands.
When you add everything together, the total cost is hard to justify, especially for smaller teams or agencies just starting out.
Also, there are hidden charges when you want to make Vendasta white-label from all aspects and add more internal users.
2. Overloaded with Unnecessary Features
Vendasta tries to cover everything from CRM, billing, marketing automation, reputation management, and even a marketplace. It sounds great at first, but it’s a double-edged sword.
You’re paying for features and tools you won’t even touch. And what’s annoying is that the ones you do use from the Vendasta marketplace don’t always feel stable. For agencies that need consistency, that’s frustrating.
3. Lacks Flexibility and Customization
Flexibility is another pain point. Vendasta locks you into their way of running things. If you want to build your own workflows or customize the client experience, you’ll find there isn’t much room to move. Agencies that want to shape the platform around their services often feel constrained.
4. Complexity and Steep Learning Curve
And then there’s the complexity. The platform is massive, and that makes it confusing to navigate. Training your team takes time, and setting up client accounts isn’t straightforward either.
8 Vendasta Alternative Tools for Digital Agencies
It’s hard to find an alternative that fully replicates Vendasta. However, if you’re looking for stable platforms as alternatives to Vendasta’s offerings, these 8 are your best bet.
| Tool | Key Strength | Pricing | Client Onboarding Automation | Service Catalog | White-Label |
| Vendasta | Massive Service Marketplace | $300 – $1,500+ | ❌ | ✔️ | ✔️ |
| Agency Handy | Client and agency management | $19 – $199 | ✔️ | ✔️ | ✔️ |
| HubSpot | Powerful Integrated CRM | $20 – $3,600+ | ✔️ | ✔️ | ✔️ |
| Salesforce | Complex Customer Journeys | $1,500 – $10,000+ | ✔️ | ✔️ | ✔️ |
| Mailchimp | User-Friendly Email Builder | $20 – $400 | ❌ | ❌ | ❌ |
| SEMrush | Comprehensive Keyword Data | $130 – $500+ | ❌ | ❌ | ❌ |
| Asana | Powerful Workflow Visualization | $15 – $35 per user | ✔️ | ❌ | ❌ |
| DashClicks | White Label Fulfillment Services | $97 – $597+ | ✔️ | ✔️ | ✔️ |
| Birdeye | All-in-One Customer Experience | $300 – $600+ | ❌ | ❌ | ✔️ |
1. Agency Handy
Vendasta is pretty much a “jack of all trades, master of none” tool for digital marketing agencies. Whereas, Agency Handy is for agencies that are shifting from a fulfillment-type business to a direct service-providing one, this would be the best alternative to try.
Agency Handy, being an all-in-one tool, manages client onboarding, payments, tasks, and client management. The goal is to simplify agency management as much as possible.
Your clients can purchase the service right from the public form. They can select services, get invoices, and proceed to complete payments. Agency Handy then welcomes new clients with an email and client portal access. From the client portal, clients can upload files, collaborate with the team, and give file feedback.
Using a Kanban board, you can simply drag and drop tasks as per their status. Clients will get the real-time project update from client portals.
For team management, Agency Handy allows adding up to 30 team members. You can assign different roles to team members.
Agency Handy Features
For agencies and large businesses, here’s what Agency Handy has to offer –
Client Onboarding Automation
One of the key selling points of Agency Handy is its ability to automate client onboarding steps. All you need to do is embed a public form or the service catalog. Clients then select their preferred services, complete self-checkout, and proceed to payment. All these without needing to do anything from the admin end.
Multipackage Service Catalog
Digital agencies offer multiple services. Having an organized list of all services converts more prospects into clients. That’s why Agency Handy allows you to organize your services in a catalog view with multiple packages and pricing options.
Invoice and Subscription
When it comes to digital agencies, subscription management is one of the core functionalities. Agency Handy allows you to manage all your one-time and recurring subscriptions effortlessly. You can pause, resume, and cancel subscriptions as needed.
Custom Forms
Agency Handy comes with customizable public, intake, and order forms. Public form is embeddable on websites. You can customize these forms with valuable inputs, such as text, drop-down, multiple-choice, check box, numbers, short paragraph, spreadsheet, file attachment, and more.
You will have the required inputs to create well-crafted forms that capture all necessary information from clients and prospects.
Lead Pipeline
Whenever visitors fill out your public form, you will get their input as leads. These prospects or leads can then be organized according to their status. You can drag and drop these leads into a Kanban board in categories such as new, contacted, qualified, working, proposal sent, etc. No prospects are overlooked.
Client Portal
Agency Handy is superior to its competitors as a client portal software. Once a client completes the payment, they receive credentials to access the client portal, where they can upload files and check the real-time project status. They can Also, communicate with the task assignee, and give file feedback with advanced annotations.
Team Management
Whether you have a small or mid-sized team, you can accommodate up to 30 team members in Agency Handy to assign various tasks and projects. Team members can be designated as admin, super admin, manager, or assignee.
Agency Handy tracks your team’s work time and prepares a worksheet letting you know their performance.
Task Management
As an agency-centric platform, Agency Handy excels at managing projects and tasks effectively through its Kanban board task management view. Whenever you create a task or project, you can simply drag and drop it into pending, progress, review, and done boxes.
File Feedback and Annotation
For your creative projects, Agency Handy allows clients to provide direct feedback on files using advanced annotation tools. There will be less back and forth between files. You can also control the file version and restore to any version you want.
Other Agency Handy features include:
- Unlimited clients and orders
- CRM
- White-label branding
- Custom domain
- Custom email
- Up to 30 team members
- Up to 5 Workspaces
- Client collaboration
- Time tracking
- Up to 10 TB file storage
- Wise, PayPal, Stripe, Crypto, and manual bank payment methods
Best Use Cases of Agency Handy
- Graphics and Creative Agencies: Clients can give direct feedback on designs and documents with advanced annotation tools.
- Content Marketing and SEO Agencies: Agencies can showcase their services in multiple package pricing in a catalog.
- Web Developers and Designers: Changes on web designs can be pin-pointed using advanced annotation tools.
- Solo Photographers and Video Editors: Solopreneurs can automate client onboarding workflow with proposals, invoices, intake forms, and client portal.
Pros
- Ideal for agency operations with team members
- Manages projects and tasks in an organized way
- Automates client onboarding
- Catalog view for services with multipackage pricing
- Order forms include add-on services for upselling
Cons
- Entry-level plan doesn’t have white-label branding
Agency Handy Pricing
Agency Handy Pricing.webp
Freelancer
- Monthly: $19/mo
- Yearly: $13/mo
Team Starter
- Monthly: $66/mo
- Yearly: $66/mo
Business Pro
- Monthly: $199/mo
- Yearly: $133/mo
What Users Say About Agency Handy
G2: 4.9 out of 5
“I really like how Agency Handy keeps everything in one place—it makes managing tasks and tracking team hours super easy. The proposal tool is awesome too. It lays out all the package options in a way that makes sense to clients, and then it automatically creates tasks for my team based on what they select. It honestly saved me so much time.” – Sheena S.
Capaterra: 4.5 out of 5
“Agency Handy is an all-in-one solution that has streamlined our operations, improved client satisfaction, and boosted team productivity. It’s an indispensable tool for any digital agency looking to scale their business efficiently.” – Priyanka P.
To know more about this, be sure to check out 17hats vs Agency Handy full comparison.
Why Agency Handy is Better than Vendasta
Agency Handy packs client onboarding, project management, invoicing, payments, and many more agency centric features in a neat and intuitive platform. It might be as vast as Vendasta, considering the price and features digital agencies need, Agency Handy is the best Vendasta alternative.
| Feature | Agency Handy | Vendasta |
| Pricing Range | $19-$199/mo | $99-$999/mo |
| Mandatory Onboarding Fee | No onboarding fee | $500-$2500 (one time) |
| Ideal User | Service-Providing Agencies | Marketplace Resellers |
| Ease of Use | Simple & Intuitive | Steep Learning Curve |
| Automates Client Onboarding | ✅ | ❌ |
| Core Focus | Agency and Client Management | Reselling 3rd-Party Products |
| Service Catalog | ✅ | ✅ |
| File Feedback Annotation | ✅ | ❌ |
| Unlimited Clients | ✅ | ✅ |
2. HubSpot Marketing Hub
HubSpot brings all your essential marketing tasks into one clean, simple dashboard, which can be a refreshing change if you’re exploring options beyond Vendasta.
HubSpot Marketing Hub Features
Here are the topmost features HubSpot Marketing Hub comes with –
All-in-One Campaign & Automation Hub
You can build landing pages that capture new leads for your clients. Schedule all their social media posts in advance. Send out beautiful emails that people actually want to open. You can also set up automatic follow-up sequences for leads.
Client Dashboards & ROI Reporting
You get a clear dashboard for each client and see all their results at a glance. The real magic is showing them exactly which blog post or Facebook ad brought in a paying customer.
Inbound Marketing & Sales CRM
Write articles that help you get found on Google. Capture new leads with a simple form on your website. The built-in CRM helps you track every conversation you have with potential clients, so no deal ever slips through the cracks.
HubSpot Marketing Hub also comes with the following features –
- AI agent captures visitors
- Finds high-potential prospects
- Analyzes the customer journey
- AI-powered adaptive A/B testing
- Displays personalized website content
- Monitors email sending reputation
- Creates embedded call-to-action buttons
- Supports multiple currency transactions
Pros
- All-in-one marketing and CRM platform
- Extremely user-friendly and intuitive interface
- Powerful time saving automation
- Excellent educational resources and support
- Strong reporting and analytics tools
Cons
- Premium plans can be very expensive
- Lower-tier plans have limited features
What Users Say About HubSpot Marketing Hub
- G2: 4.4 out of 5
- Capterra: 4.5 out of 5
HubSpot Marketing Hub Pricing
- Free: $0/mo
- Starter: $15/mo/seat
- Professional: $890/mo (3 seats)
- Enterprise: $3600/mo (5 seats)
3. Salesforce Marketing Cloud
Salesforce Account Engagement is designed for B2B marketers seeking a Vendasta alternative. Your main goal is to generate high-quality leads for your sales team.
The platform’s greatest strength is how it connects directly to the Salesforce CRM. For your business, this means you get a seamless flow of information. You can track everything from the first marketing touchpoint all the way to the final sale.
Salesforce Marketing Cloud Features
Worth mentioning features from Salesforce Marketing Cloud are –
Lead Management
You can start attracting potential customers by building custom landing pages and forms right in the tool. Once you capture a lead’s information, it automatically sends your new leads on personalized email journeys.
Connects Marketing and Sales Teams
For B2B companies, this is the platform’s standout feature. When a prospect interacts with one of your campaigns, the tool makes their entire activity history instantly visible to your salesperson inside their Salesforce CRM.
Revenue Reports
You no longer have to guess if your marketing budget is working. This tool gives your business clear answers using multi-touch attribution reports. You will be able to see exactly which campaigns, emails, and events influenced a deal, from the very first touch to the final close.
Other important features from Salesforce Marketing tool –
- Account-Based Marketing (ABM)
- AI Content Generation
- Prospect Activity Tracking
- Business Unit Management
- Sandbox Environment
- Dedicated IP Address
Pros
- Native Salesforce CRM integration
- Organized B2B lead nurturing
- Powerful lead scoring and grading
- Greatly improves sales/marketing alignment
- Solid option for account-based marketing (ABM)
Cons
- Best only for Salesforce CRM users
- Requires significant setup and training
What Users Say About Salesforce Marketing Cloud
- G2: 4 out of 5
- Capterra: 4.2 out of 5
Salesforce Marketing Cloud Pricing
- Starter Suite: $25/mo/user
- Marketing Cloud Growth Edition: $1500/mo/org
- Marketing Cloud Advanced: $3250/mo/org
4. Mailchimp
If you’re really into Vendasta’s email marketing campaign, Mailchimp can be an effective yet affordable alternative. Mailchimp gives you specific tools for marketing campaigns.
You get a drag-and-drop email editor that is simple to use. You can also choose from a library of pre-built templates to get started immediately.
Mailchimp also helps you grow and understand your audience. You can build simple landing pages and signup forms to collect new contacts. The platform then gives you clear reports on open rates and clicks, so your business can see exactly which campaigns are working.
Mailchimp Features
Below are the key features Mailchimp offers –
Professional Email Campaigns
With Mailchimp, you can design beautiful emails that look great on any device. The tool gives you an intuitive drag-and-drop editor to build your campaigns. You can also use their library of pre-built templates to get started even faster.
Automated Marketing Messages
You can set up your marketing to run on autopilot. For example, you can create a welcome email series that sends automatically to every new subscriber. You can also automatically send a special discount on a customer’s birthday.
Organize Audience
Mailchimp gives you one central place to store and manage all your contacts. You can use tags and segments to organize your audience into specific groups based on their interests or actions.
Mailchimp also comes with following features –
- Landing Pages and Forms
- Campaign Reporting and Analytics
- A/B Subject Line Testing
- E-commerce Platform Integrations
- Social Media Retargeting Ads
- AI-Powered Creative Assistant
- Customer Engagement Surveys
- Appointment Scheduling Tool
Pros
- Extremely easy for beginners
- Clean and user-friendly interface
- Ideal for designing catchy emails
- Great email deliverability and reputation
Cons
- Limited CRM functionalities
What Users Say About Mailchimp
- G2: 4.4 out of 5
- Capterra: 4.5 out of 5
Mailchimp Pricing
- Standard: Starts from $10/mo for 500 contacts
- Premium: Starts from $175/mo for 10,000 contacts
5. SEMrush
As a Vendasta competitor, SEMrush excels in SEO, local SEO, and content marketing services. You can access in-depth keyword research to discover what customers are searching for. You can perform detailed technical SEO audits on client websites to find and fix critical errors.
The tool also lets you analyze a client’s backlink profile, helping you build their search engine authority.
SEMrush Features
SEMrush offers the following features for agencies providing local SEO services –
Keyword Research and Content Planning
SEMrush helps you to find the exact terms your client’s customers are searching for online. You can discover content ideas with its topic finder. It can even generate a detailed SEO brief, giving you a clear, data-driven plan before you write a single word for your client.
Local SEO and Reputation Management
SEMrush makes things easier to manage your clients’ local online presence. You can directly optimize your clients’ Google Business Profiles from the platform. It also lets you track their rankings on Google Maps, so you can show them clear, visual progress.
Content Creation and Performance Analytics
The platform helps you execute on your strategy. It includes an AI article generator to quickly draft content based on the SEO brief you created. For social media, you can track your client’s posts and get analytics on their performance and engagement.
SEMrush also comes with other useful features as follows –
- Technical Website SEO Audits
- Backlink Analysis and Auditing
- Detailed Competitor Analysis Tools
- Daily Keyword Rank Tracking
- On-Page SEO Checker Tool
- Custom PDF Client Reporting
Pros
- Up to date SEO and keyword data
- Comprehensive all-in-one SEO toolkit
- Robust competitor analysis features
- Powerful local SEO management tools
- Great for creating custom client reports
Cons
- Overwhelming amount of tools and data
What Users Say About SEMrush
G2: 4.5 out of 5
Capterra: 4.6 out of 5
SEMrush Pricing
Pro
- Monthly billed: $139/mo
- Yearly billed: $117/mo
Guru
- Monthly billed: $249/mo
- Yearly billed: $208/mo
Business
- Monthly billed: $499/mo
- Yearly billed: $416/mo
6. Asana
Even though Vendasta comes with project management tools, its tools aren’t as efficient as mainstream platforms like Asana. The tool helps you to manage complex client campaigns, internal projects, and team workloads in one central place.
Asana Features
Below are the topmost features of Asana –
Organized Projects
Inside each project, you can break down all the work into individual tasks and subtasks. You then assign each task to a team member and give it a clear due date. Everyone on your team knows exactly who is doing what, and when it is due.
Client and Team Collaboration
Your team can communicate directly on tasks using comments. This keeps all conversations about a specific piece of work organized. You can also set up Rules to automate routine steps. For example, the tool can automatically move a task to the ‘For Review’ stage once it’s marked complete.
Visual Progress in Task Management
Asana lets you see your projects in different ways. You can use a simple List view for checklists, a Kanban-style Board view to see work moving through stages, and a Timeline view to plan out project schedules.
Asana comes with the following features as well –
- Project Portfolio Management
- Company and Team Goals
- Custom Project Data Fields
- Standardized Work Intake Forms
- Image and PDF Proofing
- Third-Party App Integrations
- Project Time Tracking
- Universal Reporting Dashboards
Pros
- Multiple project views
- Ideal for team collaboration
- Automates routine tasks
- Clean and intuitive user interface
Cons
- Requires other tools for CRM/Billing
What Users Say About Asana
- G2: 4.4 out of 5
- Capterra: 4.5 out of 5
Asana Pricing
Starter
- Monthly billed: $13.49/mo
- Yearly billed: $10.99/mo
Advanced
- Monthly billed: $30.49/mo
- Yearly billed: $24.99/mo
Enterprise
- Custom price
7. DashClicks
If you need white-label fulfillment services similar to those offered by Vendasta, but at an affordable price point, DashClicks is a major competitor to Vendasta.
It gives your business both the software tools you need to get more clients and the back-end fulfillment team to do the marketing work for them.
You can manage the entire agency, from sales to service delivery, within a single system, similar to Vendasta, or some sort of.
The platform’s greatest strength is this combined approach. You can use its CRM and sales tools to grow your own agency. Then, you can use its white-label services to deliver results for your new clients.
DashClicks Features
As a fulfillment service provider, DashClicks offers the following –
Sales Pipeline
The platform gives you a built-in CRM where you can manage all your agency’s prospects and clients. You can build custom sales pipelines to track every deal from the first contact to a signed contract. The tool also lets you create sales funnels and manage new leads.
White-label Fulfillment Services
This is the key feature for scaling your agency. You can sell a wide variety of services like SEO, Google Ads, and social media management directly to your clients. The Dashclicks team then does all the fulfillment work for you under your agency’s brand.
Client Report and Reputation
The platform gives you tools to manage your client’s online presence and prove your value. You get a review management system to monitor and respond to your client’s customer reviews. The tool also helps you track their local search performance with a Google Business Profile rank tracker.
Other worth mentioning features from DashClicks are –
- Lead Management
- White-Label Website Builder (InstaSites)
- Automated Client Reporting (InstaReports)
- Agency Project Management Tools
- Built-in Client Billing System
- Client Onboarding & Intake Forms
- Marketing Call Tracking Numbers
Pros
- All-in-one platform for agencies
- Integration through Zapier and other platforms
- White-label fulfillment saves hiring costs
- Easy-to-use, modern user interface
- Fast website builder for clients
Cons
- Less powerful than dedicated tools
- Fulfillment quality can be inconsistent
What Users Say About DashClicks
- G2: 4.7 out of 5
- Capterra: 4.9 out of 5
DashClicks Pricing
- $199/mo
8. Birdeye
If you need a more effective review and reputation management tool as a Vendasta alternative for local businesses, you shouldn’t miss Birdeye. Birdeye unifies all customer interactions and online presence tools into one powerful platform.
There’s no single strategy to fit all niches when it comes to reputation management. Birdeye understands it pretty well, and provides custom plans for specific niches.
Birdeye Features
Below are the features Birdeye has to offer –
Central Monitor Reviewing and Responding
With Birdeye, you can automatically send review requests to your clients’ customers via text or email. The tool then pulls all new reviews from hundreds of sites into one dashboard. You can monitor and respond to everything from one single screen.
Manage Listings for Local Business
Birdeye scans and fixes your client’s business listings across the web. This ensures their name, address, and phone number are accurate everywhere online, which is really important for local SEO.
Unified Inbox
The platform gives your clients a powerful webchat tool for their website. It also brings messages from webchat, business text messages, and social media into a single, unified inbox.
Other important features of birdeye includes –
- Customer Experience Surveys (NPS)
- Automated Customer Referral Programs
- Local Competitor Benchmarking
- Appointment Scheduling Tool
- Mass Text Messaging Campaigns
- Customer Service Ticketing System
Pros
- Very effective for review management
- Solid local SEO listing tools
- Comes with agency and reseller program
- Unified inbox for easy client management
Cons
- Lacks other fulfillment services
What Users Say About Birdeye
- G2: 4.7 out of 5
- Capterra: 4.7 out of 5
Birdeye Pricing
- Custom pricing
So, What is the Best Vendasta Alternative?
If your digital marketing agency is about to shift from a reselling-based business model to a productized service-based model and wants to make sure all agency operations are managed smoothly, Agency Handy is the best alternative.
You can add your team, fully white-label the platform, manage clients through a client portal, manage projects and tasks seamlessly, and do much more all without breaking the bank. For agencies, it’s $99/mo. And $199/mo for large businesses.
Conclusion
Vendasta can feel costly and overly complex, while most agencies just need a simpler, branded way to manage clients and services. Agency Handy as a Vendasta alternative delivers just that. Clean client portal, service catalogs, invoicing, and collaboration without the bloat or high fees.
Try Agency Handy for 7 days for free, and see if it’s worth settling for.
Frequently Asked Questions
What features should I look for in a Vendasta alternative?
Look for essentials that actually serve your agency’s daily operations: a branded client portal, service catalog, invoicing and payments, project management, and collaboration tools. Flexibility, ease of use, and transparent pricing are key.
How does Agency Handy compare to Vendasta?
Agency Handy is designed for agencies that want control without complexity. It offers a fully white-labeled client portal, service catalogs you can embed on your site, invoicing, time tracking, forms, tickets, and collaboration tools at an affordable cost.
Does Vendasta have any hidden prices?
Vendasta has a hidden price for full white-label branding, adding more users, using templates from the marketplace, and other areas that aren’t stated with plans.
