Harvest gets you halfway: it tracks hours and bills invoices. It doesn't tell you which retainers are profitable, doesn't do capacity planning without a second product, and doesn't do channel-shaped project structure.
Marketing agencies run on monthly retainers across SEO, paid, content, social, and PR channels — and the dirty secret is most agencies have no idea which retainers actually make money. The hours go in, the invoice goes out, and at the end of the quarter nobody can answer "did the $8K/mo retainer with that B2B SaaS client cover the strategist + designer + copywriter hours we put against it?" Harvest tracks the hours but provides no cost-rate model, so margin math happens (or doesn't) in a spreadsheet quarterly. Tempough's Margin report makes the per-retainer profitability question a one-click answer: cost rates per person, channel-shaped project structure (one project per retainer, phases for monthly cycles or campaign-anchored sprints), and a Sankey view of where billable hours actually went. For an agency considering whether to raise rates, replace a strategist, or fire a retainer client, that visibility is what the whole exercise hinges on.
Not a generic critique — the specific places marketing agencies typically run into the wall.
A marketing agency's most important question is "which clients are actually making us money?" Harvest tracks revenue but has no internal cost rates, so it can't answer that. You're left exporting to a spreadsheet quarterly. Tempough's Margin report makes it a one-click answer.
Capacity planning matters for an agency taking on new retainers — you need to see whether the team has bandwidth. Harvest splits it into Harvest Forecast at $5/seat extra. Tempough's Schedule is bundled at Team for the same price.
Marketing engagements naturally break into channels (paid, social, content, SEO). Harvest doesn't model phases, so the only option is creating one project per channel — which fragments the client view. Tempough's phase model keeps the client view intact while letting you slice by channel.
At 10+ seat agencies with multiple account teams, approvals need to route to the right account lead — not fan out to every approver. Harvest does basic approvals; Tempough's org chart routes to direct managers automatically.
The same surface, audience-tailored to what marketing agencies actually need.
No add-on, no separate product. Run a margin report and see cost vs. revenue per client + per retainer + per team member. Agencies routinely find 1-2 unprofitable retainers in their first margin run.
No second product to buy. Plan assignments per campaign, see capacity utilization across the team, get forecast-vs-actual variance at the end of each week.
One project per client, multiple phases for paid / social / content / SEO / email. Hours roll up per channel for reporting; client-level rollup is also one query. Best of both views.
Harvest Pro + Harvest Forecast = $18.75/seat. Tempough Team = $11/seat. Team Pro = $13/seat with branded invoices and team groupings. A 12-seat agency saves $1,116/year on Team and gets margin reporting Harvest doesn't have.
Team gets you the agency core — forecasting, cost rates, approvals, retainers, margin reports. Team Pro adds branded invoices (which matter when you're a marketing agency shipping outbound documents) and team groupings for splitting reports by account team. Most marketing agencies over 6 seats land on Team Pro.
Why teams leave Harvest, audience-agnostic.
Audience-specific tour of the feature surface.
Step-by-step walkthrough — most teams finish in under an hour.
Two-week trial. No credit card. Full feature set.