A marketing studio, a design shop and a five-person dev agency look different from the outside, but they share one fact. What they sell is their team's hours, and an hour nobody bills is gone for good. Software for a startup that builds a product won't think that way, and neither will most startup advice.
So this page reads Nautis from an agency owner's chair: winning work, scoping it, billing for it, getting paid and not burning out the people who do it. Where a dedicated agency tool does the job better, it says so.
Utilization is an agency's inventory
Wrike's professional services guide defines the utilization rate as hours worked divided by total available hours, and realization as hours billed divided by billable hours. It also makes the point every owner learns: you'll never reach 100% billable, because people need time for meetings, training and leave.
A worked example. You have five people with 140 available hours each in a month, so 700 hours. They log 455 hours of client work, which is 65% utilization. You invoice 400 of those hours, because some went on revisions you'd promised for free, so realization is 88%. Each of those 55 unbilled hours cost you a salary and earned nothing.
Nautis doesn't track hours, so the 455 and the 400 come from your time tracker. What it can do is put the result where you make decisions. Record utilization and realization as KPI tasks on a Task board with monthly targets, or keep a running sheet in Sheets with formulas. When utilization drops two months in a row, that's your signal to push sales. When it sits near the top for a quarter, it's time to hire or raise prices.
From first inquiry to signed scope
Most agency losses start before the work does: a vague brief, a proposal sent late, a scope nobody signed. Build the front of the process so each step leaves a record.
- Publish a project inquiry form with Custom forms: company, a Currency field for budget, a Date Picker for the deadline, and a File Upload for their existing brief. Embed it on your site.
- Send serious inquiries a Meetings link for a 30-minute discovery call, with a buffer before and after so calls don't stack.
- Track each opportunity in the Leads CRM on a pipeline with stages such as Inquiry, Discovery, Proposal sent, Negotiation, Closed Won and Closed Lost. Attach the proposal in the lead's Files tab and set a deal value and expected close date.
- Add an automation rule, for example raising priority to High when a lead reaches Negotiation, so the owner looks at it every day.
- Send the statement of work through Docsign, with the client signing first and you countersigning, and keep the audit log PDF with the project.
Stripe's guide to starting an agency says your processes should cover how revisions and scope changes are handled. Write that into the statement of work, then send each change as a short Docsign document of its own. Agreeing to a change in a chat thread is how unbilled hours pile up.
Retainers, project fees and getting paid
Stripe's agency guide compares three pricing models. Each one needs a different setup in Invoices.
| Model | Upside | Downside | Billing setup in Nautis |
|---|---|---|---|
| Hourly | Simple to calculate | Doesn't reward working efficiently | Products priced per hour, quantity from your time tracker on each invoice |
| Project fee | Finishing sooner doesn't cut your income | Underestimate the work and you do extra for the same fee | A deposit invoice at signing, then milestone invoices. Record partial payments as they arrive |
| Retainer | Predictable recurring revenue each month | Needs trust, so new clients may hesitate | A monthly recurring invoice with an optional end date, paused or ended from the Recurring page |
Payment is collected outside Nautis, through your bank or payment provider, and you record it with Record Payment. Invoices doesn't send dunning emails on its own. Overdue invoices get a badge and appear in the morning briefing from the Chief of Staff, where Do it drafts a reminder you can edit before it goes. The Analytics page shows aging by how long each invoice is overdue and your top clients by revenue, which is also a quick way to spot dangerous client concentration.
Know the rules where you trade. In the UK, for example, government guidance says that where no payment date is agreed, a payment is late 30 days after the customer receives the invoice or the service is delivered, whichever is later, and business-to-business terms are usually capped at 60 days. Put your terms in the invoice settings' default terms so every invoice carries them.
Keeping each client's brand and content straight
Agencies juggle other people's brands all day. The Brand kit supports more than one kit, so you can keep one for your studio, set as primary, and one per active client with their logos, colours, fonts and voice guidelines. Share a client's kit read-only with a freelancer through a link that expires when the project ends. Your plan caps how many kits you can create each month, so check before you onboard ten clients in one go.
For social retainers, give each client its own plan in the Social calendar, with campaigns inside it and an account manager as the plan's Manager. Plan members are your own team members with Viewer, Editor or Manager roles, so a client can't approve posts there unless you give them a seat. Most agencies will send the approved calendar to the client for sign-off in their usual way. Campaign links from the URL shortener carry UTM tags, and the click reports by referrer, country and device make a decent appendix to a monthly client report.
Your own letterhead, set up in the Brand kit, can apply to PDF exports from the modules you choose, so proposals and reports leave the studio looking consistent.
Staff, freelancers and capacity
Small agencies flex with freelancers. In Employee management, each record has an employment type of Full time, Part-time, Contractor or Intern, so your regular freelancers can sit next to staff with their bank details on file. A payout run calculates net pay from each person's latest compensation, and Process marks it as paid. It doesn't move money or make statutory payroll filings, so you still need a payroll provider for employees, and your contractors invoice you as usual.
Note that the plan's employee limit counts every record you've ever kept, including people who left, so don't add every one-off freelancer. When you hire, Jobs and recruitment posts roles to a public careers page. Before saying yes to a big new retainer, check the Task boards for each active client: if the same two designers are assigned to most of the open tasks, the answer may be a hire or a later start date.
A month in a six-person design studio
- Week 1. The owner records last month's cash and burn in Startup Health. Runway is fine, but one client is 40% of invoiced revenue on the Invoices analytics page. She opens a Decision Loop entry to spend a day a week on new business for 60 days.
- Week 2. Three inquiries arrive through the website form. Two book discovery calls through the Meetings link, and both become leads in the pipeline with the brief attached.
- Week 3. A proposal is accepted. The statement of work goes out through Docsign, the deposit invoice goes out the same day, and the studio's standard project board is duplicated for the new client.
- Week 4. The briefing flags two retainer invoices overdue by 12 days. Do it drafts the reminders, and the owner edits the tone for the longest-standing client before approving. Utilization from the time tracker comes in at 71%, and she updates the KPI task.
What Nautis can't run for an agency
Be honest about the gaps before you move your studio onto it.
- Time tracking and resource scheduling. No timesheets, no capacity calendar. Keep a time tracker, and a resource planning tool once you pass about fifteen people.
- A client portal. Clients can sign in Docsign, book meetings, open share links and fill forms without an account, but they can't log in to see their project.
- Design proofing and file review. Use a proofing tool for comments on creative.
- Accounting and tax. Nautis isn't an accounting system. Keep accounting software and an accountant, and export expenses as CSV for them.
- Mature agencies with a PSA tool. If you already run a professional services platform with profitability by project, moving would be a step back on that job.
- Price and history. Launch is $49 a month and Voyage $99 at the time of writing, after a 14-day trial with no card. See pricing. Nautis launched publicly in July 2026 and has few independent reviews.
FAQ
What should agency operations software include?
At minimum, a pipeline for new business, a way to sign scopes, invoicing with retainers and partial payments, and time tracking for utilization. Nautis covers the pipeline, signing and invoicing, and adds planning, brand kits and cash tracking. You'll still need a separate time tracker.
Can Nautis bill monthly retainers automatically?
Yes. Recurring invoices in Invoices generate a new invoice each cycle, weekly, monthly, quarterly or yearly, with an optional end date. Payment is collected outside Nautis and recorded with Record Payment.
Does Nautis track billable hours or utilization?
No. There's no timesheet or utilization report. Track hours in a time tracking tool, then record utilization as a KPI task or in Sheets so it sits next to your pipeline and cash.
Can clients approve social posts inside Nautis?
Only if they're members of your workspace with a Manager role on that Social calendar plan, which uses one of your plan's seats. Most agencies keep approvals internal in Nautis and get client sign-off by email or in a meeting.