by Youssef Elbeqqal · September 4, 2026
Agency Tools Beyond ClickUp and Airtable
TL;DR
ClickUp and Airtable are usually just two pieces of a larger agency stack that also includes Slack for communication, Google Drive or Dropbox for files, Figma or Adobe Creative Cloud for design, PandaDoc or DocuSign for proposals, and a CRM like HubSpot. Knowing the full stack matters because the real cost isn't the number of tools, it's what has to move between them by hand.
ClickUp and Airtable get most of the attention in agency-ops conversations, but neither one runs alone. A typical agency stack wraps several more tools around them, each handling a piece of the job ClickUp and Airtable were never meant to cover.
The stack around ClickUp and Airtable
Communication runs through Slack internally and email externally, kept deliberately separate from project tracking. Files and assets live in Google Drive or Dropbox, organized by client. Design work happens in Figma or Adobe Creative Cloud. Proposals and contracts go out through PandaDoc or DocuSign for e-signatures. Client and sales data often lives in a CRM like HubSpot, sitting alongside - not inside - whatever's tracking day-to-day project work.
Why the sprawl happens even though nobody wants it
Most teams would rather run fewer tools. Roughly 70% of organizations say they'd prefer a unified platform over a pile of disconnected point solutions, and yet the stack keeps growing anyway - because each specialized tool does its one job better than an all-in-one platform does that same job as a feature. Design work belongs in Figma, not a project management app's file attachments. E-signatures belong in a tool built for e-signatures.
Where the actual cost hides
The tool count isn't the real problem. It's what has to move between the tools by hand once they're all in place. Knowledge workers already spend an estimated 58% of the day on "work about work" - the coordination and status-chasing that surrounds actual output rather than producing it - and every additional disconnected tool adds another surface for that overhead to grow on.
What actually needs connecting, not consolidating
The fix isn't collapsing onto a single all-in-one platform and losing what each specialized tool does well. It's the same principle covered in why ClickUp and Airtable are the agency stack nobody talks about replacing: a new deal signed in a CRM should be able to create the matching ClickUp project and Airtable record automatically, without anyone re-entering it three times. See how tool integration and data sync connects a stack like this without replacing any piece of it.