Dubsado is a client relationship manager that we’ve been using since 2019. It was created by a husband and wife that work as photographers, so it has creative small businesses at front of mind.

Here is what we use it for:

• Leads: Clients fill out the form on our Contact page and it goes directly into Dubsado. It also sends a notification to our info email.
• Contracts: We have all our contract templates loaded into Dubsado, ready to be customized for each client and project.
• Invoicing: Dubs can be set up to send out invoices on a schedule (great for retainers), and also has the ability to set up customized payment plans. You can also accept payment through Square or Stripe – which for us makes working with international clients easier.

Asana is a project management tool that keeps your freelance work organised and your clients in the loop. Whether you’re juggling one project or ten, it gives you a clear view of what’s due, what’s done, and what’s next.

What we love most about it:

• Creating project timelines and task lists for every client engagement
• Assigning deadlines and tracking progress without endless email threads
• Building repeatable project templates so you’re not starting from scratch each time
• Keeping all project communication and files in one place

Check it out here.

While we are an Adobe shop, Canva definitely has a place in our business. We use this as a tool to help share assets with clients – making them accessible for editing, duplicating and downloading.

Here are some of the things we use Canva for:

• Creating brand bibles for clients that can be shared so they can update them overtime as their brands evolve
• Suites of social media templates that need to be resized, duplicated, and shared with others, while considering brand guidelines
• Simple image resizing when Photoshop isn’t an option

The Adobe Suite is a tool that we employ almost on a daily basis. It allows us to perform more robust editing and design tasks for clients, while preserving the capability to save the layers and assets for future use. 

What we use most commonly is Photoshop for image resizing and copping, inDesign for client document design such as print ads, and annual reports, and Illustrator for graphic elements like logos.

While we do have access to Premier Pro and Adobe Rush, we turn to Wave most often for it’s quick editing capabilities. 

Here are the features we love most:

• Stock photos and videos that are royalty free
• Music and sound effects that are royalty free
• The ability to add text, graphics, and simple animation to video for socials, and ads
• Resizing and optimizing video for hero banners on website builds.

Check it out here.

We are a Google Shop and use almost every feature to it’s fullest capability. If we had to choose between Google vs Microsoft for a client, Google always wins for it’s diversity in products, their customer service and their constant updates. That was tough to write – Amy’s husband is a Microsoft engineer!

Here are the features we love most:

• Meets – since we design most of our sites on primarily Google Chrome, screensharing is so easy. We love that we can record, create transcripts, turn on subtitles, and it integrates with our calendar.
• Slides – this is how we design all our slide decks, including our client proposals. It has the added benefit of being able to open any Apple or Microsoft files in our drives as well. 
• Drive – we have files for every aspect of our business store here, and we love the accessibility and redundancy. It’s almost impossible to lose something for good. We’ve put it to the test by accident a few times.

This is the main way our team communicates with each other. It has become second nature to check notifications here first thing in the morning.

Here are a few of our favourite features:

• We create a channel for each client and add to-do lists that are pinned – keeping us organized for each project
• Hours are tracked for clients in a separate sheet, also pinned in the client channels
• History is saved forever, so all our old links, chats, and resources are saved
• Our clients that are also using the Pro feature can add us to chats so we can collaborate on real-time on their projects
• Emails are for client communication, keeping our inboxes tidier

This is one of the newest additions to our tech stack, and we’re in love! It allows us to create pdfs with notes and images for clients so easily! We just record the actions on our screen and it puts it all together for us. 

Want to check out this great tool? Here’s the link!

Most of our clients that need an email campaign manager for their newsletters, ads, or product updates are using Brevo (formerly Send in Blue). We’ve found this platform to be affordable (often free) for small business owners, with excellent reporting, easy to use templates, and automations are included with every plan!

If we’re building a new site for you, and you want to start an email list, let us add this feature to your proposal. It’s not too late to add it to an exisiting build either.

We’ve been using Content Studio since the Side Hustle went full time and it has grown by leaps and bounds. They’re constantly adding new features, we love it’s clean UX, and it’s easy to collaborate on social calendars with clients.

Claude is our go-to AI assistant for the writing-heavy parts of running a creative agency. It helps us think through problems, draft client communications, and produce polished copy faster than starting from a blank page.

Our whole team uses the PRO plan.

What we use it for most:

• Writing and refining client emails, proposals, and project briefs
• Drafting website copy, social posts, and marketing content for clients
• Researching and summarising information quickly during project work
• Brainstorming names, taglines, and messaging directions

Check it out here.