How to set up recurring billing for a marketing agency

recurring billing for a marketing agency is the topic of this guide. Most agencies bill recurring retainers but run the money through a patchwork of QuickBooks and spreadsheets — which means manual invoices, chasing card declines, and no clean view of what each client actually nets. This guide walks through setting up recurring billing the way agencies operate: define your retainer plans as subscriptions, link clients to ACH bank draft so payment lands automatically, and let invoicing run on a schedule instead of by hand. It's written for the operator who owns billing, and every step below maps to how HubWho is built to handle it as a single billing and client-operations platform.

Step 1 — Model your retainers as subscriptions, not one-off invoices

Before any money moves, decide what you're actually billing. Most agency retainers are fixed monthly amounts (a $2,500/mo social management retainer, a $4,000/mo SEO program) with the occasional add-on. Model each of these as a recurring subscription with a price, a billing interval (monthly, quarterly, annual), and a start date — so the system knows what to charge and when, rather than you rebuilding an invoice every cycle.

In HubWho you create the plan once, then attach it to a client. The same record that drives billing also carries the wholesale cost you enter for that service, which is what lets the platform show true per-client margin later. Keep plans clean and named the way you sell them — 'SEO – Growth,' 'Paid Social – Core' — so your invoices, portal, and revenue KPIs all read consistently.

If you're moving off spreadsheets or another tool, you don't have to re-enter every client by hand. HubWho includes a source-agnostic CSV importer: export your current client list and subscriptions to a spreadsheet, map the columns, and bulk-create them so your recurring billing starts from your real book of business.

Step 2 — Turn on ACH auto-draft (and card) so payment lands automatically

Recurring billing only saves you time if you're not manually collecting each month. The fix is auto-draft: the client authorizes payment once, and each cycle the charge runs on its own. HubWho supports payment by ACH bank-link via Plaid and by card. ACH is the workhorse for agency retainers — lower fees than cards and far fewer expirations and declines to chase, which matters a lot on multi-thousand-dollar monthly invoices.

The setup is one-time per client: the client links their bank account through the secure Plaid flow (or saves a card), and that becomes the payment method tied to their subscription. From then on, when an invoice is due, the draft runs against that method automatically — no emailing a payment link, no logging a check.

Decide your default per client. For larger retainers, steer toward ACH to protect your margin from card fees; keep card on file as a backup or for smaller add-on charges. Either way, the goal is the same — every active subscription has an authorized payment method so billing is hands-off once it's live.

Step 3 — Let invoicing and billing run on a schedule

With plans and payment methods in place, invoicing becomes a scheduled event instead of a monthly task. Each subscription generates its invoice on its billing date, the auto-draft runs against the client's ACH or card, and the client sees the charge and a clean invoice in their white-label portal on your own domain — so the whole experience looks like your agency, not a third-party tool.

This is also where you stop reconciling across systems. Because the subscription, the payment, and the cost you entered all live on one record, you can see MRR, ARR, and churn across the book and pull true per-client margin on demand — what you bill versus your own wholesale cost — instead of exporting your processor and QuickBooks into a spreadsheet to figure out what a client really makes you.

For payments that fail — an expired card, an ACH return — automated dunning and accounts-receivable follow-up is on the HubWho roadmap; it's being built to retry and nudge on failed charges. Until that ships, plan to review failed payments in your dashboard and follow up directly, the same disciplined step you'd take in any billing system today.

Step 4 — Connect the tools that show whether the retainer is earning its keep

Recurring billing keeps the money flowing, but retention is what keeps the recurring revenue alive — and that depends on clients seeing results. HubWho can pull KPI and reporting signals from tools agencies already run, like GoHighLevel, HubSpot, BirdEye, and Yext, alongside the native subscription and revenue data.

That gives you a fuller picture per client: the retainer they're paying, the margin it earns you, and the performance signals from the platforms doing the work. Wiring these in early means your billing system and your client-health view aren't two separate things — which makes renewals, upsells, and the occasional save conversation a lot easier to run from one place.

Step 5 — Pick your payment provider before you collect your first dollar

Recurring billing only works if money actually lands, and how it lands depends on the provider you wire up first. HubWho gives you a real choice here instead of locking you into one rail. You can start with instant onboarding, which takes minutes with no underwriting wait — useful when you want to send your first invoice this week. Or you can connect your own merchant account through Authorize.net or NMI, which takes longer to get approved but typically earns you lower per-transaction rates once you are processing real volume. The platform behaves the same either way; only the economics and the onboarding speed differ.

The practical rule of thumb: use instant onboarding so nothing blocks your first billing cycle, then move to your own merchant account once your monthly card volume is high enough that the rate difference outweighs the setup effort. Because the subscriptions, invoices, and client portal sit above the payment layer, switching providers later does not mean rebuilding your billing — your retainers keep running while the rail underneath changes.

For ACH specifically, clients link their business checking account once through Plaid's bank-link flow. That verification is instant — no micro-deposit wait, no PDF authorization form, no keying routing numbers into a gateway by hand. After the one-time link, every auto-draft pulls from that account on the due date at ACH cost, which is a fraction of card. For a high-ticket retainer book, getting clients onto bank-link is the single biggest lever on what you keep.

Step 6 — Know what is automated today versus what is still on the roadmap

Honesty about timing matters when you are deciding what to lean on. Several parts of the recurring-billing loop run hands-free in HubWho right now: subscriptions generate invoices on schedule, auto-draft charges saved ACH or card methods on the due date, proration invoices generate automatically when a client upgrades or downgrades mid-cycle, and the dashboards recompute MRR and per-client margin as your book changes. You configure these once and they run.

One thing to plan around: automated failed-payment retries — sometimes called dunning automation — are on the roadmap, not shipped. What exists today is the policy layer. You can define progressively firmer reminder tiers (Soft at day 3, Standard at day 14, Aggressive plus a late fee at day 30) and set your late-fee rules, and the A/R aging view heat-maps exactly which receivables are slipping. But the actual automated sending of those reminders is still being built, so until it ships you should treat the aging buckets as your worklist and chase the overdue accounts yourself. Setting your dunning policy now means the automation will simply switch on against rules you already trust once it lands.

Step-by-step

1. Import your client book once. Use the source-agnostic CSV importer to bring your full client list, services, and existing subscriptions in from a spreadsheet or your current tool in one pass — no manual re-keying and no blank slate to rebuild.
2. Turn each retainer into a subscription. Model every recurring client agreement as a live subscription with its plan and billing cycle. The subscription generates invoices on schedule and tracks MRR in real time, instead of you billing one-off invoices by hand each month.
3. Connect your payment provider. Use instant onboarding so your first cycle is never blocked, or connect your own Authorize.net or NMI merchant account for lower rates after underwriting. Enable Plaid ACH bank-link so clients can link a business checking account for low-cost drafts.
4. Enable auto-draft on the due date. Opt each subscription into auto-draft so saved ACH or card methods are charged automatically when the invoice comes due. Proration invoices generate on their own whenever a client upgrades or downgrades mid-cycle, so billing stays correct without manual adjustment.
5. Set your dunning and late-fee policy. Define the escalating reminder tiers (Soft, Standard, Aggressive) and late-fee rules now, and use the A/R aging view to see which receivables are slipping. Automated reminder sending is on the roadmap; until it ships, work the aging buckets as your collections list.
6. Watch margin and MRR on the dashboard. Track ARR, MRR, churn, and per-client margin from the agency dashboard, which recomputes as your subscriptions change. Pull per-client billed-versus-wholesale margin on demand to spot underpriced retainers before they cost you a full year.

Frequently asked questions

Is ACH or card better for agency retainers?

ACH (bank draft via Plaid) is usually the better default for recurring retainers: fees are lower than cards and there are no card expirations to chase, which protects your margin on larger monthly invoices. Card is a useful backup or option for smaller add-on charges. HubWho supports both, so you can set a default per client and keep a fallback on file.

Does HubWho automatically chase failed payments?

Not yet. Automated dunning and accounts-receivable follow-up is on the HubWho roadmap — it's being built to retry and nudge on failed charges — but it isn't a shipped, running capability today. For now you review failed ACH returns or card declines in your dashboard and follow up directly.

Can I move my existing clients in without re-entering everything?

Yes. HubWho includes a source-agnostic CSV importer: export your current clients and their subscriptions from a spreadsheet or your existing tool, map the columns, and bulk-create them. That gets your real book of business into recurring billing quickly instead of typing each client in by hand.

Can I switch from instant onboarding to my own merchant account later without rebuilding my billing?

Yes. HubWho's subscriptions, invoices, and client portal sit above the payment layer, so the provider underneath is swappable. A common path is to launch on instant onboarding so your first billing cycle is never blocked, then move to your own Authorize.net or NMI merchant account once your card volume is high enough that the lower per-transaction rate is worth the underwriting wait. Your retainers keep running through the change.

Roughly what do ACH and card cost on a retainer?

Card processing typically runs about 2.9% plus $0.30 per transaction, so a $2,000 invoice costs roughly $58 to collect. ACH is dramatically cheaper — usually well under 1% and commonly capped at a low flat ceiling per transaction, so the same $2,000 draft costs cents rather than dollars. That is why getting high-ticket recurring clients onto Plaid bank-link ACH is the biggest lever on what your agency actually keeps. Exact rates depend on your provider and your negotiated pricing.

Does HubWho automatically send the dunning reminders for overdue retainers?

Not yet. You can configure the full dunning policy today — three escalating reminder tiers and your late-fee rules — and the A/R aging view shows exactly which invoices are slipping into each overdue bucket. But automated sending of those reminders is on the roadmap, not shipped. Until it lands, use the aging buckets as your collections worklist and send the nudges yourself. Configuring the policy now means the automation switches on against rules you already trust once it ships.

How do mid-cycle plan changes get billed on a recurring subscription?

Automatically and proportionally. When you pause, resume, cancel, or change a client's plan from the subscription detail page, HubWho generates a proration invoice so you never under-bill or over-bill on a mid-cycle upgrade or downgrade. You set the plan once and the platform handles the math when it changes, including across an entire client group at once when one contact manages several locations.