Affiliate disclosure: Some links in this post are affiliate links, which means I may earn a commission if you sign up through them, at no extra cost to you. I only share tools I use to run my own business, and Moxie is one of them.
For a long time, my business lived in about four places at once.
Client conversations were in my inbox. Contracts and invoices were in Dubsado. Tasks were in ClickUp. And the things that actually needed my attention right now? Those were usually in a text on my phone.
And I'm not bad at task management programs! I gave ClickUp a real shot for about a year. I built the lists, I set up the views. But I was still bouncing between ClickUp, my inbox, and Dubsado all day, and none of them showed me the whole picture.
The bigger problem took me a while to admit. I don't want to add the tasks.
When I finish a client stewardship report, there are always action items at the end. If I were a good student, I'd go into my task manager right then, add each one with a due date, and move on to get it out of my head. That's what Kelly Nolan preaches, and she's right!
But alas, my brain does not work that way. The minute that meeting is over, I'm on to the next one. I don't stop to add tasks.
...But Claude does.
That's a big part of this story. I didn't just need one place for everything. I needed one place that Claude could keep up to date for me, and that place turned out to be Moxie.
What I was actually looking for
I run Ivingo Creative, a small web design and SEO studio. Most of my work is retainer clients, I bring in contractors when a project needs them, and I recently brought on a part-time designer. I'm not a big agency, and I don't need software built for one.
What I needed was simple to say and hard to find:
- One place for clients, from first inquiry to final invoice
- A way for clients to ask for things without it all landing in my inbox
- A client portal that offered more than just invoices
- Tasks and projects that live next to the client they belong to
- Something I'd actually keep using after the first two weeks
Dubsado worked for me until it didn't, and the reasons were two-fold. I couldn't customize the client portal, and the portal was only for invoicing. But the bigger issue took me longer to put my finger on. My brain thinks of the client as the top level. Dubsado (and even HoneyBook) are built around the project. Since I have both monthly retainer clients and project-based clients, it made a lot more sense for me to start with the client and then go into their projects, instead of always looking at a project-centered dashboard.
Why Moxie stuck
Moxie is a CRM, but it's also a task management system, and that combination is the whole point for me. It's not one more tool to check. It's the place where everything else ended up.
The move took me about two months, and that's mostly on me. I went project by project, checked for notes, downloaded invoices, and only then archived each project out. I could have easily exported everything and moved a lot faster! But Dubsado had been my home base for years, and I wanted to make absolutely sure nothing got left behind.
If you looked at Moxie a while ago and felt like it wasn't quite what you needed, it might be worth another look. They've added a lot of features over the past year.
Here's how I use it.
CRM and pipeline
Every client and lead lives in Moxie. When someone reaches out about a new website, they go into my pipeline as an opportunity, and I can see where every potential project stands without digging through email threads.
Proposals, agreements, and invoices
This is the Dubsado replacement. Proposals, contracts, and invoices all come from the same place, attached to the same client record. When a lead says yes, I'm not copying their information from one tool into another.
Tasks and projects
This is where ClickUp used to be. Each client's work lives in Moxie as projects and tasks with due dates, so the work sits right next to the client it's for.
Moxie's dashboard is great for today. It tells me what's on fire right now. Where I needed more help was planning ahead, especially for retainer clients whose work doesn't scream at you on any given day... until suddenly it does. (More on how I solved that below.)
The client portal and tickets
If you run a business where clients can request tasks from you, this might be my favorite part. Moxie has a fantastic client portal and ticket system. Instead of a request coming in as a text or getting buried in an email thread, clients can submit it as a ticket, and it lands right where the rest of their work lives. I can also forward an email I receive from a client to moxie, and then it can become a ticket!
How I use Moxie with Claude
This is the part I get asked about the most lately.
Moxie now connects directly to Claude, and it's changed how I work with it. Those action items at the end of a report? Claude adds them to Moxie with due dates, so they don't live and die in my meeting notes. My inbox gets triaged each morning, and anything a client actually needs from me turns into a Moxie ticket instead of sitting in my inbox. I also have a weekly review dashboard that pulls straight from Moxie, so I can see my whole week (and every retainer client) at a glance before I start planning.
I've mostly stopped clicking around in Moxie myself. When a ticket needs resolving or a due date needs to move, I tell Claude and it makes the change for me.
Who I think Moxie is right for
Moxie makes the most sense if you:
- Run a small service business, solo or with a small team
- Work with retainer or repeat clients
- Have clients who regularly send you requests
- Are tired of paying for (and switching between) separate tools for your CRM, contracts, invoices, and tasks
If you're running a large team with complex project management needs, you might want something heavier. But if you're like me and every other system has felt like too much or not quite enough, Moxie is worth a try.
