Professional Services & Agency Management
Build an agency management app
Kliv is an AI app builder. Describe the agency management app you need — client portals, project stages, approvals, retainers, metered overage, and utilization — and it builds it.
Just enter your idea into the text box and AI will build it for you
What is Kliv?
Kliv isn’t a bundle of project, time, invoicing, and portal tools — it’s an AI that builds software for you.
You describe the app you need in your own words, and Kliv builds it: the database, project screens, client portals, approval flow, billing logic, and utilization views. What you get is a real app that’s yours. You can change it later by asking for changes and run payments on your own Stripe account. It isn’t a template portal.
On this page, that app is an agency management app. Kliv builds all kinds of web apps; this one is for client work where approvals, retainers, billing, and utilization need to stay connected.
Why build your own agency system?
Agency operations often split across project tools, time trackers, invoicing, file sharing, and client portals. That makes retainers, approvals, and overages hard to prove at month end.
Kliv builds the rules into one app: what the retainer includes, when extra hours start billing, what “approved” means, and who may approve it. The fourteenth client portal costs no more effort to think about than the first.
The five facts an agency runs on
Agency arguments become records instead.
Clients and their walls
Every project, file, and comment belongs to a client organization. One client cannot read another client’s work.
Projects and stages
Discovery, concepts, refinement, delivery — stages are states with owners and dates, so project status is visible.
The retainer and its meter
Forty hours a month is a live balance. Hour 41 starts the meter at $140, and logged time flows to the month’s invoice.
Approvals
A deliverable goes to the portal, the client approves, and the state changes with a name and timestamp attached.
Utilization
Booked hours, retainer burn, and clients at risk of going over are read from the hours everyone already logs.
An example: Yuki’s brand studio
Here’s how one agency might use it. It’s only an example — you would describe your own clients, stages, retainers, rates, approvals, and reports.
Retainer invoices go out on schedule
On the first, 14 retainer invoices go out through Yuki’s own Stripe account. Each can include last month’s metered hours as line items.
The brief lands inside the client portal
Hollis starts a new campaign as a project in its portal. Brief, references, kickoff notes, and brand assets attach to the project.
Feedback stays with the deliverable
Concepts post to the portal. Client comments attach to the deliverable instead of being buried in an email thread.
Overage is visible as it accrues
A quick extra landing page takes nine hours. Six close out the retainer; three meter at $140 per hour and are visible to the client.
The invoice explains itself
Month end shows retainer, three metered hours, and the approval trail behind each deliverable. Yuki can look at utilization instead of reconciling by hand.
Describe what you want to build
Kliv builds from your description, so include clients, stages, approval rules, retainer hours, overage rate, invoices, and utilization views. Here are three examples:
Retainer overage billing
A live balance and automatic overage line items.
“Build an agency app with 40-hour monthly retainers, metered billing at $140 per extra hour, invoices through my own Stripe account, client visibility into hours as they accrue, and invoice lines that itemize retainer and overage automatically.”
Client approval portal
Deliverable sign-off with a timestamp.
“Build a client portal where deliverables move through review stages, clients approve with one click, every approval records the person and date, and final files stay private to that client organization.”
Studio utilization board
Next week and retainer burn at a glance.
“Build a utilization dashboard showing each person’s booked hours next week, retainer burn by client, projects at risk of going over, and clients consuming design hours while paying for strategy.”
The machinery, named
The portal is the same app with walls. Clients sign in with their own accounts, and organization roles decide what a marketing lead sees versus a CFO.
Deliverables sit behind rules. Files in a project store are private by default and shared per organization. A final package can even wait behind the final invoice if that is your rule.
Test billing before it is real. In the Sandbox, you can run a practice month with test payments: retainers invoice, one card fails and retries, and metered hours land as line items before a client is onboarded.
Kliv built a whole track for this shape of business — see how agencies run on Kliv for the full operating picture.
Common questions
What exactly is Kliv?
Kliv is an AI that builds custom web apps from a description. For agency management, it builds client portals, project stages, approval records, time and retainer rules, invoices, and utilization views around your studio.
Do I get a real app, or a template?
A real app. Your clients, projects, files, approvals, retainers, hours, invoices, and utilization records live in a database built for your agency.
Can I change it after it’s built?
Yes. You can change stages, roles, retainer size, overage rate, approval flow, invoice wording, or dashboard views by asking for changes.
Can clients bring their whole team?
Yes. A client organization can hold as many sign-ins as it needs, each with a role.
How does overage billing work?
Hours logged past the retainer feed a usage meter, and the logged unit and billed line are the same record.
What happens when a client doesn’t pay?
The card can retry while recovery emails send the fix. You decide the human steps, and portal access can follow the entitlement rules you set.
Can it work with tools we keep?
It can act in them: post to Slack when an approval lands, mirror tasks to Linear, or sync contacts to HubSpot, with secrets kept server-side.
Can each client only see their own work?
Yes. Client portals are scoped by organization, so one client cannot see another client’s projects, files, or comments.
Can approval records settle scope disputes?
Yes. Approvals can store the deliverable, approver name, and timestamp, so the record shows what was approved.
Does Kliv take a cut of retainers or overage?
No. Payments run through your own Stripe account. Card processing fees are between you and Stripe.
Do clients need Stripe accounts?
No. Clients just pay by card.
Can I use my own domain?
Yes. The app and client portals can run on your own domain.
Can I move off Kliv later?
Yes. The code syncs to your own Git repository, and your records are yours.
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Run the studio from the rules you already use
Describe your retainers, stages, approval rules, client walls, overage rates, invoices, and utilization questions in detail. Kliv builds the app that enforces them.