Who are Synergist's main competitors?

The closest are the other agency management platforms that put the finance layer at the centre. Synergist's own 2026 guide to agency management software names, among others, Productive, Function Point, Scoro, Paprika, Deltek WorkBook, Kantata and Streamtime; Workamajig (project management with integrated financials for creative agencies) and Accelo (quotes, projects, retainers and billing) compete for the same buyers. Phloz is a different kind of competitor: it runs clients, delivery and each client's tracking setup, and leaves job costing and invoicing to your accounting tool.

Who owns Synergist now, and does that change anything?

Banyan Software, a group that backs software businesses for the long term. In March 2026 Banyan acquired Synergist together with Agency Works, the partner that had spent 25 years implementing Synergist in agencies, and combined the two into one business. Synergist told customers that nothing changes day to day, and the product is still Synergist: job, resource and financial management for UK creative, marketing, PR and digital agencies. The new owner is not a reason to switch on its own; the fit questions on this page are.

Synergist does full job costing. Does Phloz replace that?

No. Phloz does the lightweight slice: log time against a client or one of its tasks, roll it up against the retainer's monthly hours, and see where the hours went by task and department, with over-budget alerts in the weekly digest on paid plans. That answers "are we over-servicing this retainer?" without estimates, purchase orders, WIP or invoicing. If you need true job costing and margin per job, Synergist (or another agency management platform) is the better fit; Phloz leaves the money to your accounting tool.

What does Phloz have that Synergist doesn't?

A typed map of each client's tracking setup — GA4 properties and data streams, GTM containers, Meta pixel and Conversions API, Google Ads conversion actions — that your team records and re-verifies. A weekly audit reads it, scores each client 0–100, and flags gaps, nodes marked broken, and anything not re-verified in 30+ days; on paid plans a digest emails you the clients that need attention. Synergist's features cover jobs, people and money, and none of them models a client's measurement setup. Phloz also gives clients a passwordless portal for tasks, approvals and tracking reports, and from Growth up it audits each client's Google Ads account weekly, read-only.

Alternative to Synergist

The Synergist alternative for digital marketing agencies

Synergist is job management and costing for UK agencies, now owned by Banyan Software. Phloz is a delivery-first competitor: clients, tasks, the tracking map.

What you're probably tired of

A job-costing structure (estimates, phases, purchase orders, WIP) wrapped around work that is mostly the same monthly retainers for the same clients
No structured place for each client's tracking setup — GA4 properties, GTM containers, pixels and conversion actions live in a spreadsheet beside the job list
Finance-first screens: the people doing the delivery work fill in timesheets there, then run their day somewhere else
Per-user pricing on top of a core fee, a one-off onboarding fee, and an implementation Synergist itself puts at six to eight weeks for most agencies

What changes on Phloz

Self-serve setup: create a workspace, import your client list from a CSV (Clients → Import) and start the same day, with no implementation project
A typed tracking map per client (GA4, GTM, Meta pixel and Conversions API, Google Ads conversion actions) with a weekly audit, a 0–100 health score, and on paid plans a digest of the clients whose recorded setup needs attention
Retainer burn instead of job costing: monthly hours per client, time logged against the client or one of its tasks, a burn bar, and where the hours went by task and department
Pricing by active clients, with team seats included in each plan (extra seats are paid) and a free plan to start on

Should you actually switch?

A switch is real cost — a few days of structural mapping, a parallel-running week, training time, and the friction of breaking habits your team has built. Worth it when the new tool meaningfully changes how you work; not worth it when the gain is incremental.

The five signals that you're ready to leave Synergist: (1) you're paying for seats or contacts you don't use, (2) you're running the tracking stack in a separate Sheet because the CRM has nowhere for it, (3) onboarding a new team member takes more than a day because the configuration is tribal knowledge, (4) clients ask "where do I see progress?" and you don't have a clean answer, (5) you're duplicating client data across two or three tools because no single tool fits.

If three of those five describe your agency, the structural upgrade is likely worth the switching cost. If only one or two, stay where you are and revisit at the next pricing renewal — switching for marginal gain is usually a worse decision than the marginal gain.

When Synergist is still the right choice

The honest counter-positioning. Synergist isn't wrong for everyone — these are the cases where staying makes more sense than switching. If any of them describe you, weigh the trade carefully before migrating.

Job costing is the job: estimates built from past jobs, phases, purchase orders and supplier invoices recorded against each job, and profitability by client, job type or skill set. That is Synergist's core; Phloz's retainer burn is deliberately lighter.
Your finance team runs WIP, revenue recognition and invoicing in the platform and posts to Xero, Sage or QuickBooks from it. Phloz has no invoicing or revenue module, by design.
You run several trading companies as one group. Synergist handles multi-company groups, with one user fee across the companies; Phloz has no group layer, so each workspace is its own plan and its own reporting.
You need an on-premise install, or a vendor with UK-based support. Synergist offers cloud or on-premise and supports customers from Greater Manchester and Leicestershire; Phloz is cloud-only.

Migration: what to plan for

Synergist exports its main lists to CSV, and its API returns CSV for list calls, so start with the client list: Clients → Import reads it, with a contact per row. Jobs do not import; re-create live work by hand as parent tasks with subtasks under each client. What stays behind by design: estimates, purchase orders, WIP, revenue recognition and invoicing, none of which Phloz has. If your invoices start in Synergist today, move that step into your accounting system and run one billing cycle in parallel before you cancel. Export historical timesheets and job reports for your records; Phloz logs time from the day you move. Allow one to two days for the structural mapping — you are shedding complexity, not carrying it over.

The structural rethink — mapping Synergist's shape to Phloz's opinionated agency model — matters more than the data move. Read the marketing agency CRM buyer's guide for the six capabilities that should drive the decision, and the pricing page to run the per-active-client math at your client count.

Synergist migration FAQ

The questions agency owners ask before signing the switch decision. Honest answers — same data we'd give a friend evaluating the move.

Who are Synergist's main competitors?: The closest are the other agency management platforms that put the finance layer at the centre. Synergist's own 2026 guide to agency management software names, among others, Productive, Function Point, Scoro, Paprika, Deltek WorkBook, Kantata and Streamtime; Workamajig (project management with integrated financials for creative agencies) and Accelo (quotes, projects, retainers and billing) compete for the same buyers. Phloz is a different kind of competitor: it runs clients, delivery and each client's tracking setup, and leaves job costing and invoicing to your accounting tool.
Who owns Synergist now, and does that change anything?: Banyan Software, a group that backs software businesses for the long term. In March 2026 Banyan acquired Synergist together with Agency Works, the partner that had spent 25 years implementing Synergist in agencies, and combined the two into one business. Synergist told customers that nothing changes day to day, and the product is still Synergist: job, resource and financial management for UK creative, marketing, PR and digital agencies. The new owner is not a reason to switch on its own; the fit questions on this page are.
Synergist does full job costing. Does Phloz replace that?: No. Phloz does the lightweight slice: log time against a client or one of its tasks, roll it up against the retainer's monthly hours, and see where the hours went by task and department, with over-budget alerts in the weekly digest on paid plans. That answers "are we over-servicing this retainer?" without estimates, purchase orders, WIP or invoicing. If you need true job costing and margin per job, Synergist (or another agency management platform) is the better fit; Phloz leaves the money to your accounting tool.
What does Phloz have that Synergist doesn't?: A typed map of each client's tracking setup — GA4 properties and data streams, GTM containers, Meta pixel and Conversions API, Google Ads conversion actions — that your team records and re-verifies. A weekly audit reads it, scores each client 0–100, and flags gaps, nodes marked broken, and anything not re-verified in 30+ days; on paid plans a digest emails you the clients that need attention. Synergist's features cover jobs, people and money, and none of them models a client's measurement setup. Phloz also gives clients a passwordless portal for tasks, approvals and tracking reports, and from Growth up it audits each client's Google Ads account weekly, read-only.

What you keep when you migrate

The honest list of what survives the move from Synergist. Your client list and contact records. Your active tasks and their assignees, statuses, due dates. Your custom fields only in part: Phloz has no custom fields, so map each one to a fixed client or task field, or into notes, as you go. Clients and contacts import from a CSV (Clients → Import); tasks are re-created by hand, so budget the time. Your inbound email addresses if you set up forwarding (re-pointed at the per-client Phloz inbound addresses).

What doesn't survive: historical activity logs (keep your old tool's export if you may need them). Bespoke automation rules built on Synergist's specific automation engine — these need to be re-expressed in Phloz's patterns (recurring tasks, assignment notifications, inbound thread routing) or kept as manual steps; Phloz has no Zapier connector, webhooks, or public API. Past time entries stay in your old tool's export — Phloz doesn't import them, but new time is logged in Phloz against each client (optionally a task) and rolls up against the retainer.

The trade is a lighter, more opinionated tool that runs your agency's shape natively — at the cost of some per-tool customisation that, in retrospect, was usually a workaround for a missing primitive. See agency project management software for the broader buyer's guide on what to evaluate alongside this switch decision.

Want the head-to-head, not the switch story?

The Phloz vs Synergist comparison covers what each tool does, what each doesn't, and when Synergist is the right choice — for the cases where you're evaluating rather than already unhappy.

Other tools agencies sometimes weigh as a Synergist alternative.

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Synergist and other product names referenced on this page are trademarks of their respective owners. Phloz is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by Synergist. Comparisons reflect our understanding of publicly available information and may change over time — verify current features and pricing with each vendor before making a decision.