10 best service business software to manage operations

When I first started running a marketing agency, I was able to hit the ground running because I had a lot of experience from my full-time job as a marketing manager. However, while brainstorming, branding, and going to market were second nature, I was initially overwhelmed by the sheer amount of client management and admin work needed to run a successful business.

As I spoke to other service business providers, I realized that I wasn’t the only one having these issues. Everyone seemed to be struggling with invoicing, managing clients, scheduling, reporting, analytics, and so on.

Many of my early problems could have been easily solved by leveraging dedicated service business software. As I began my search for the right tool, I realized that effective service businesses needed client portals to build relationships, flexible payment processing to boost cash flow, and excellent client onboarding features to drive retention.

In this article, we’ll give you the down low on what service business software is and what features it should have before sharing our list of the top 10 service business software tools on the market in 2024.

What is service business software?

Service business software describes the diverse range of tools that are built to help service business owners run efficient and well-managed companies with a strong commitment to customer success.

The best service business software takes a holistic view of your workflows and attempts to integrate these various tasks into a single platform or solution.

There are hundreds of different service business opportunities, spanning niches like marketing, healthcare, IT, fitness, e-commerce and more. What these businesses all have in common is that success relies on building and developing strong client relationships.

What should you look for in software to manage your service business?

Service business software must solve the common issues that arise when running a service business. Let’s take a look at the features you need to watch out for when evaluating a service business.

Customer onboarding

Professional business services need to make a great first impression. Client onboarding tools are an essential part of the user journey for two primary seasons.

First, they allow you to collect information on your clients that you need to meet their service expectations. Second, they train your clients with the information they need to use your service to its fullest effect.

Some of the onboarding features to look for in service business software include contract hosting and e-signature features, automated forms for data capture, and helpdesk features that give clients 24-7 self-service support.

Get onboarding right, and you boost client retention and build the stepping stones of trust. It’s a non-negotiable.

Client portals

Running a professional business service requires a lot of client liaison. There is information about projects, documents being sent back and forth, and invoices that must be sent, approved, and paid. And all of that is before we start talking about collaboration, project updates, and other types of information sharing.

A client portal helps you centralize all that data so everyone can access the document and information they need, alongside any discussions or agreements about projects.

Project management

Projects are the lifeblood of any service business. With so much information, media, requirements, and stakeholders involved in each project, it can be hard to keep track of everything. Project management tools help you track progress, time spent, milestones, and anything else that contributes to a successful project.

Client self-service options

As any service business professional will attest, when you’re running a company, it’s all too easy to lose time on admin that you need to spend on doing your core tasks. Client self-service options help you turn your operation into a 24-7 powerhouse while allowing your clients to get answers to questions when they need them.

Billing

Cash flow problems are all too familiar to service professionals. The best service business software helps solve these issues by automating invoices, sending polite reminders, and offering flexible revenue options, like monthly subscriptions for your services.

10 best service business software in 2024

Now that we’ve laid the groundwork, it’s time to share the best service business software in 2024.

Here are our top picks for the best service business software:

1. Copilot
2. Moxo
3. Dubsado
4. SuiteDash
5. Breeew
6. PandaDoc
7. Notion
8. Bonsai
9. ClickUp
10. Front

Alright, let’s take a deeper look at what each tool provides.

1. Copilot

If you run a professional service, you’ll know that performing your services is just one part of your day-to-day duties. Instead, there are a lot of administrative tasks associated with managing your clients and making sure they have a positive experience.

Whether you’re an accountant, a consultant, a marketing agency, a growing startup, or any type of freelancer, if you have lots of clients, that means you have lots of customer information to manage. It’s not just client details and communication but also project information, requirements, business processes, workflows, and more.

Too many professional services business operators spend way too much time managing projects, chasing up clients for signatures, communicating across different platforms, or digging through old emails looking for information. What’s more, none of that helps the client experience. Copilot was built to solve these problems.

Copilot helps service businesses centralize client communications so everyone has visibility over projects, messages, and related information. It also comes with excellent payment processing tools that allow for invoice generation, payment tracking, and flexible payment options, including monthly subscription payments.

Of course, deepening client relationships and benefiting from regular, timely payments require solid onboarding. Once again, Copilot excels in this area by offering a secure, automated, professional, no-code platform to onboard clients, gather pertinent information, populate client profiles, and get projects off on the right foot.

Copilot notable features

Copilot is packed with features that will support service business professionals in their quest to onboard clients and manage projects and relationships.

• Onboarding: Copilot offers a range of great features that are focused on smooth onboarding experiences. For starters, you can build custom forms to collect client information, allowing you to offer a more personalized service. Moreover, you can also automate welcome messages that ensure your clients get the information they need to have the right experience.
• Billing app: With such a large variety of payments, your clients will have their own preferences when it comes to paying for your services. Copilot offers billing management tools and also allows you to create invoices, subscriptions, and even checkout options for several different payment methods.
• Automation: Automation is a big part of Copilot's offering. As we mentioned earlier, you can easily create automated onboarding flows that trigger welcome messages and client intake forms. However, you can also take advantage of Copilot's fantastic automation features to attach specific attributes and data to your clients. What’s more, you can even send them particular files and folders based on their information to facilitate deep and personalized engagement.
• Integrations: Copilot is a great base platform for service businesses. However, it’s also highly customizable thanks to seamless integration with a diverse range of applications. You can connect a whole host of apps, such as your favorite tools for project management, meetings, data visualization, analytics, video communications, or whatever else you need. Moreover, if you want to build custom apps, you can reach out to the Copilot team to discuss your options.

Copilot pricing

Copilot offers a flexible array of pricing tiers that will suit teams of different sizes.

• Basic: $29 per month
• Professional: $69 per month
• Advanced: $119 per month
• Supersonic: Custom pricing

Copilot reviews

Copilot has near-flawless reviews for its strong service business software abilities.

• G2: 4.8/5 — “Copliot is a quality accounting portal to meet our needs.”
• Capterra: 4.9/5 — “Portal makes the experience for our team and our clients really simple.”
• Product Hunt: 5/5 — “Modern, straightforward, yet extremely feature-rich”

2. Moxo

Moxo is a collaboration and workflow automation platform that aims to simplify and streamline service providers' interactions with their clients. Moxo achieves this by offering a centralized digital workplace for businesses and clients to interact, collaborate, share information, and manage projects.

Some of the big reasons to consider Moxo include workflow automation tools that help simplify typical service business tasks, like onboarding, document sharing, and progress tracking. Another neat Moxo feature is magic links, which allow your clients to sign documents and upload forms without logging into their full accounts.

Overall, Moxo is a good tool for larger service businesses. Its price and features might prove a bit excessive for smaller teams.

Moxo notable features

Moxo has some excellent features for professional service businesses, including:

• Automation tools that allow you to create workflows for a variety of business processes
• An in-app communication platform that allows for secure messaging, document collaboration, and more
• Excellent reporting and analytics tools that allow you to monitor projects, campaigns, onboarding flows, etc.

Moxo pricing

Moxo offers different pricing tiers based on the number of users and various features.

• Starter: $90 per month
• Business: $425 per month
• Advanced: Custom pricing

Moxo reviews

Moxo is a well-regarded service business software tool.

• G2: 4.5/5 — “The best part of Moxo is pretty much everything.”
• Capterra: 4.1/5 — “Helpful! Definitely changed my workplace and made things easier.”
• Software Advice: 4.1/5 — “Moxo has amazing organization and meeting features.”

3. Dubsado

Dubasdo is well-known as a Customer Relationship Management (CRM) tool. However, it can also be used as a service business software thanks to its ability to streamline and automate manual admin tasks. Indeed, it’s a solid tool to help users manage their clients and projects.

You can use Dubsado across the entire client lifecycle. Some features include sending proposals and contracts, onboarding automation, invoice generation, client portals, and scheduling and project management tools.

Dubsado has a user-friendly, no-code interface, and it's customizable and highly scalable. However, there are some drawbacks, including cost, a lack of direct integration, and a steep learning curve.

Dubsado's notable features

Dubsado is a good choice for professional services teams thanks to the following features:

• Kanban-inspired project management boards for an Agile approach
• Client portals that help everyone keep up-to-date on projects
• Handy workflow automation tools to help you save time on rule-based tasks

Dubsado pricing

Dubsado has a limited free version and two paid tiers:

• Starter plan: $20 per month
• Premier plan: $40 per month

You’ll need the Premier plan if you want to take advantage of Zapier or bookkeeping integration, scheduling tools, or Dubsado’s automation features.

4. SuiteDash

SuiteDash is a powerful all-in-one tool for business management. It comes with a whole host of features that are designed to improve operations and client management, including tools for CRM, project management, billing, proposals and contracts, time tracking, and invoice payments.

While SuiteDash’s huge array of features is its greatest strength, they are also its greatest weakness. Some users might find the learning curve a little steep and a little overwhelming, and a few features (like automation) are a little undercooked. However, SuiteDash can save teams money by cutting down their existing software stack, which is something that can’t be ignored.

SuiteDash notable features

SuiteDash is so packed with features that it’s hard to name them all, so we’ll limit it to a few of the best.

• Strong UI that is suitable for nontechnical teams 
• Great templates for proposals, contracts, and invoicing
• Excellent lead-capturing and scoring tools to boost marketing
• Time tracking and billing tools to help secure payments for services.

SuiteDash pricing

SuiteDash offers three pricing tiers:

• Start: $19 per month
• Thrive: $49 per month
• Pinnacle: $99 per month

5. Breeew

Breeew is focused on productized services. In case you are unfamiliar with the concept, a productized service means that agencies, freelancers, or consultants move away from charging by project and instead outline what a customer can expect each month and charge a fixed price.

This approach helps professional services fit into the ever-popular subscription business model.

As for the app itself, Breew has a lovely user interface that is very intuitive, scalable, and it integrates well with popular accounting and CRM tools. What’s more, it has excellent tools for reporting and analytics. Breew provides a centralized hub for managing projects alongside excellent scheduling tools.

Of course, there are a few issues with Breeew. For starters, it lacks the customization options of other tools, and the Agency subscriptions are fairly high compared to rivals. However, that shouldn’t put you off exploring the tool, especially if you’re interested in pivoting to a productized service.

Breeew notable features

Breeew has some great features, including:

• Superb reporting and analytics tools to measure projects and provide data-driven decisions
• Solid project management hub to boost client communication
• Breeew is free until you get your first subscriber, making it an interesting choice for people who are launching new ventures.

Breeew pricing

Breeew offers two pricing tiers:

• Starter: $49 per month
• Agency: Custom pricing

6. PandaDoc

While PandaDoc doesn’t have the scope of the other service business software on our list, its power lies in document automation. These qualities are particularly relevant for service businesses who want to streamline their client acquisition, onboarding, and retention process.

Winning and managing clients requires a lot of documents. PandaDoc helps teams build these documents, distribute them to relevant parties, and capture e-signatures. What’s more, it has powerful workflow automation tools that enable teams to send reminders, get progress notifications, and generally stay on top of the process.

PandaDoc integrates well with popular CRM tools and even accepts a variety of client payments. Finally, it comes with flexible customization options and very usable templates. For smaller businesses, the price might be a little high considering its overall limitations in terms of client portal or project management functions, but PandaDoc is a good contender because it’s so good at what it does.

PandaDoc notable features

PandaDoc is focused on relieving the administrative burden that comes with running a service business. Some of its best features include:

• Drag-and-drop contract builder with great templates
• A comprehensive content library to help you build professional documents
• Solid workflow automation to keep onboarding and paperwork moving

PandaDoc pricing

PandaDoc offers a 14-day free trial and three pricing tiers:

• Essentials: $19 per month
• Business: $49 per month
• Enterprise: Custom pricing

7. Notion

Notion is a highly flexible and customizable workspace platform. The app’s USP is the consolidation of various different business functions into a single app. As such, its potential lies in its ability to reduce spending on disparate tools and centralize service business operations, such as client management, project management, and customer self-service.

As business service software goes, Notion ticks a lot of boxes. Its CRM capabilities are a great way to manage prospects and clients, while it excels at real-time collaboration, shared document editing, and gathering feedback. Finally, it’s a superb tool for tracking and managing projects and comes with a variety of templates.

For some businesses, the CRM aspects won’t be enough, while the tool's overall complexity might take some time to master. However, overall, this is a solid tool.

Notion notable features

Notion has several features that make it an interesting option for service professionals, including:

• Superb and customizable templates that help you create slick documents and pages
• Fantastic database creation and management functionality with helpful database reference connectivity
• Sophisticated user access control that allows you to share the right information with the right people

Notion pricing

Notion offers a free version, but it will prove overly limited to most. Price per user starts at:

• Plus: $8 per month
• Business: $15 per month
• Enterprise: Custom pricing

8. Bonsai

Bonsai is another all-in-one tool that can help freelancers, contractors, and consultants streamline their business operations and manage projects. It features a robust CRM tool but helps with other concerns such as accounting, tax preparation, time and expense tracking, contracts, and invoicing.

The Bonsai interface is super and very intuitive, and the tool is highly scalable. The proposal and contract features are particularly good, and they can also help teams save a lot of time by automating invoice generation reminders and even payments.

Bonsai notable features

Bonsai is a credible choice for service business professionals thanks to some great features, including:

• Invoice generation and payment tools to help boost your cash flow
• Solid CRM capabilities that help you keep on top of client data
• Simple bookkeeping functions that help you monitor your financial health and prepare your taxes

Bonsai pricing

Bonsai offers users a flexible range of plans depending on usage and features:

• Starter: $21 per month
• Professional: $32 per month
• Business: $66 per month

9. ClickUp

ClickUp is a well-known and much-loved name in the business productivity and project management space. Its most considerable strength is its flexibility, which you can adapt and adjust around your particular needs, no matter how big or small your operations.

While ClickUp’s automation features are fairly basic, they are useful for triggering workflows or reminders based on specific events. Its form collection features are good, and it comes packed with excellent templates that will save you time.

Add on top ClickUp’s solid client portals, resource management, and time-tracking functions, and it’s easy to see why it’s a popular project management tool. However, the hierarchy-based workflow won’t work for every team, and the breadth of customization options might be a bit overwhelming for new users.

Overall, it’s a good choice for business services engaged in larger, multi-person projects. With the right integrations, it can form part of a comprehensive client-facing solution.

ClickUp notable features

ClickUp has become a well-regarded app for service businesses thanks to some great features, which include:

• Solid collaboration tools that help organize and manage large projects
• Resource management tools to ensure employees are hitting goals and feel supported
• Project management features with whiteboards, portfolios, and visually striking Gannt charts

ClickUp pricing

ClickUp provides a Forever Free version of its tool, and three pricing tiers:

• Unlimited: $7 per month
• Business: $12 per month
• Enterprise: Custom pricing

10. Front

Front is a client communication platform built to streamline omnichannel client communication. Its USP is that it centralizes emails, SMS, live chat, and social media messages into one easy-to-manage inbox. It’s a handy tool for service businesses that perform outreach across multiple platforms because it saves managing and monitoring multiple inboxes.

While Front is perhaps best suited to large teams with a diverse set of clients, it works for service business professionals, too, because of its automation features. For example, certain types of communication, such as inquiries, can be automated to provide answers to frequently asked questions. What’s more, you can also integrate Front with CRM and project management tools if you want to extend its capabilities.

While Front might prove to be overkill for some freelancers, it’s a nice choice for busy agencies.

Front notable features

The front has some good features for service businesses, including:

• Omnichannel communications that allow your clients to reach you however they want
• Analytics tools to track communication KPIs
• Automation features to help categorize and prioritize specific messages

Front pricing

The front has a flexible pricing model to suit businesses of different sizes and with different needs.

• Starter: $19 per month
• Growth: $59 per month
• Scale: $99 per month
• Premier: $229 per month

Conclusion

Service business software is as varied as service businesses themselves. However, the best tools have a few things in common, like making your life easier.

While all the tools on our list are excellent, Copilot offers the winning blend of features you need for a rich and meaningful client journey. From slick, automated client onboarding to a collaborative client portal to invoice generation and billing options, Copilot takes care of all the admin, allowing you to focus on what you do best: providing a service.