Agencyjoy vs Streak CRM: What is the Ideal Choice for Web Designers?

Why This Matters

If you’ve been around web design for more than about five minutes, you’ll know the story: a new lead pops up, you chase them for info (while knee-deep in other client work), the emails stack up, and suddenly you’re missing deadlines or, even worse, forgetting why you were chatting to someone called “Sarah from Oak & Elm” in the first place. In this business, relationships are gold, but sloppy follow-through or a missed deadline can blow a month’s earnings in seconds.

It doesn’t matter if you’re a solo Squarespace tinkerer or running a tight little agency. Staying on top of clients, leads, and project timelines is the first step to a saner, more profitable workflow. That’s what led most of us to look at Customer Relationship Management (CRM) tools in the first place.

Most CRMs are built for full-time sales teams, not designers who bounce between creative sprints, troubleshooting, and sending that all-important invoice on a Friday evening. Designers need a tool that works the way they do, not another layer of admin that pulls them away from their craft.

Agencyjoy and Streak CRM both aim to help, each with a distinct approach. Choosing the wrong one can lead to endless fiddling, wasted time, or worse: lost clients.

Common Pitfalls

The world’s full of folks who sign up for the latest, shiniest CRM, spend three days faffing about moving contacts in manually, then abandon it when workflows get too fiddly.

Some common mistakes include:

• Picking something because it’s ‘trendy’ or because a big agency uses it, then realising it’s total overkill for your smaller projects.
• Ignoring how you and your team actually work day-to-day (Are you swimming in emails? Jumping between Google apps? Tracking ads?).
• Overestimating your appetite for learning fifty new features when all you want is an upgrade from your sticky note collection.
• Choosing on price alone, forgetting that a ‘cheaper’ tool that annoys you wastes double the time.

The best CRM isn’t the one with the most bells, graphs, or empty promises from a sales video. You need a system that fits your work rhythm and actually handles key tasks behind the scenes. Let’s tackle the overwhelm.

Step-by-Step Fix

1. Get Clear on What You Actually Need

Don’t buy a toolbox if all you need is a hammer. Before you even look at features, ask:

• Do you want a CRM to wrangle leads, or do you need a complete sales and ad reporting system?
• Is your email inbox your command centre, or are you managing lots of projects and timelines outside Gmail?
• Do you already use Google Workspace daily, or are you sharing files and notes across different platforms?
• How important are integrations with other tools (for marketing, scheduling, reporting)?

Grab a notepad and jot down the real problems you want to solve:

• "I forget to follow up with leads."
• "My team and I lose track of client conversations across email and Slack."
• "I waste loads of time setting up tasks manually."
• "I have no idea if our Facebook ads are paying off."

2. Compare Agencyjoy and Streak CRM Side-by-Side

Agencyjoy:

• Built specifically for creative agencies and freelancers.
• Focused on sales tracking, time management, and return-on-investment (ROI) ad tracking.
• Lets you manage leads, keep tabs on projects, schedule tasks, and pull actionable reports (for sales and ads performance).
• Includes free integrations (like Sales Rocks and Connect), making it easier if you’re juggling social, ads, and lead generation.

Streak CRM:

• Sits right inside Gmail: no new tabs, no context-switching.
• Best for those whose client communications happen mainly via email.
• Tracks emails, leads, deals, and works with G Suite tools.
• Customisable pipelines for following deals from first email to finished project.

3. Reality-Check: Does It Play Nicely With The Rest of Your Tools?

You don’t want a new platform that refuses to integrate or cooperate with your current set-up.

Agencyjoy Integrations

• Connects with common third-party tools (think: ad platforms, basic marketing tools).
• Ideal for small agencies that run their own campaigns or juggle multiple sources.

Streak CRM Integrations

• Deeply linked with Google Workspace (Gmail, Calendar, Drive).
• Limited if you want to pull in data or tasks from marketing or invoice platforms outside G Suite.

4. Don’t Ignore Customer Support and Learning Curve

Picture this: a client email slips through the cracks because you got lost in a settings menu and support never replied. This is a real risk that leaves designers searching for alternatives.

Agencyjoy

• Responsive customer support, known for helping smaller teams and freelancers.
• Clean interface that most designers find easy to pick up (no need for hours of tutorials).

Streak

• Solid knowledge base and community, but direct support may not always be fast.
• Some learning curve for customising deal pipelines, especially if you’re new to CRMs.

5. Test It in a Real Project (Before You Move Your Whole Business)

Any CRM looks good in a product demo. Real life is messier: clients change their minds, projects overlap, deadlines fall on bank holidays. The best judge is to trial each system as you would actually use it.

• Agencyjoy offers free trials. Set up your typical sales process, enter a couple of live and pipeline leads, run a quick ROI report from your last campaign.
• Streak starts free for basic use. Build a custom pipeline for a current project, tag your emails, assign notes, and track your client’s journey from “Hi” to paid invoice.

Work for a week or two as normal. Don’t just ‘test features’—actually live inside it.

What Most People Miss

Most designers (my old self included) focus on feature checklists and overlook the ‘hidden tax’: switching costs and stray admin that adds up over months. A CRM that saves you five minutes each day, every day, provides much more value than a dashboard full of unused features.

Many people also underestimate how much they’ll rely on support and how often they’d rather work in email than devote time to a new system. The best systems fade into your daily routine over time. When you’ve got the right one, you stop thinking about it entirely.

As your workload grows, the tool that was perfect solo might become limiting. Consider how your CRM can adapt as your projects and team expand. Look ahead—can your CRM accommodate handed-off tasks, multiple pipelines, or help new team members avoid repeating past mistakes? Plan for future challenges as well as today’s needs.

The Bigger Picture

If you set up the right CRM early, life becomes simpler for you and everyone who works with you. You get easy access to client details, seamless task management, and quick visibility into which leads are most likely to convert to real projects. You avoid double-booked calls, lost briefs, and the creeping sense that something slipped through the cracks.

Even better, it lays the foundation for growth:

• Onboarding new team members gets faster, because info is centralised.
• Your pipeline stays full, because no lead is left to rot in a forgotten email thread.
• When you want more advanced reporting or marketing, you’ve already laid the groundwork.

For web designers who prefer to focus on design and avoid admin headaches, the right CRM is an essential business partner.

Wrap-Up

Agencyjoy and Streak CRM are both excellent tools, but each serves a different set of habits and goals.

• If you live inside Gmail, want minimal learning time, and prefer your workflow deeply connected to your inbox, Streak will feel comfortable quickly.
• If you need clear sales tracking, ROI reporting, integrated project and time management, and your leads arrive from several sources, Agencyjoy is a solid investment.
• Trying to use a tool just because “everyone else” does is a shortcut to frustration and wasted time.

Choose a system that actually fits the way you work and one you’ll appreciate both now and as your business grows.

Want more helpful systems like this? Join Pixelhaze Academy for free at https://www.pixelhaze.academy/membership.