10 Best Approval Software for Marketing and Creative Teams
Getting approvals is one of the least glamorous but most important tasks for marketing and creative teams. Looking to streamline this process and make it more efficient? Look no further—we’ve found the best approval software for your team.
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Quick Summary
This article explores the top approval software tools for marketing and creative teams. We reviewed platforms like Picflow, ClickUp, and Filestage to help you find the right fit for your team’s workflow. These tools offer practical, scalable solutions to match your process. Visit the Picflow Blog for more resources on how to simplify feedback and speed up approvals.
Choosing the Right Approval Software for Your Workflow
The “creative process” is full of unglamorous but necessary tasks that can take up valuable time and resources. One of these is obtaining approvals for work, whether it be from clients, team members, or stakeholders.
Luckily, approval software can help streamline this process and make it more efficient and help creative teams get back to creating sooner.
In this Picflow guide, we’re introducing you to eight of the best approval software around. We’ll compare features, pricing, and more to help you find a tool that will enhance your team’s unique approval process.
Let’s get started!
Why Listen To Us?
With years of experience and a deep understanding of the creative process, we've designed Picflow to be the ultimate solution for seamless approval workflows. So far, over 10,000 teams have trusted us to streamline their collaboration and approval processes, allowing them to deliver high-quality work faster than ever before.
The bottom line—we know a thing or two about what makes a great approval software.
What is an Approval Software?
Approval software is a digital tool designed to streamline the process of working with clients and stakeholders to get approval on various stages of a project. For marketers and creatives, that means getting client approval on designs, copy, and other assets before moving forward with the next steps.
Take Picflow, for example.
Picflow makes it easy to build beautiful galleries for a project’s images and videos. You can then share these with anyone involved in the approval process to gather feedback in the form of annotations, comments, tags, and approval statuses.
Having a dedicated tool for approvals helps keep the process organized and efficient, and also eliminates the need for constant back-and-forth communication via email or other messaging platforms… which we all know can get overwhelming and confusing.
Top 10 Approval Software Tools Compared
| Tool | Best For | Key Features | Free Plan | Starting Price |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Picflow | Visual teams needing fast feedback | Branded galleries, annotations, approval limits, version control | Yes | $8/month |
| ClickUp | Task-based approval workflows | Custom statuses, task dependencies, notifications | Yes | $7/user/month |
| ProofHub | All-in-one team collaboration | Markups, approval chains, time tracking | No | $45/month (flat rate) |
| Approval Studio | Design teams needing deep markup tools | Annotations, chat-style comments, design integrations | No | $45/month |
| WebProof | Agencies and publishers | Document annotations, workflow automation, InDesign plugin | No | Contact sales |
| Kissflow | Enterprise workflow automation | No-code workflows, integrations, scaling for large teams | No | From $1,500/month |
| Hub Planner | Resource and timesheet approvals | Scheduling, time tracking, approval workflows | No | $7/resource/month |
| Gain | Social content review and publishing | Auto-publishing, dynamic previews, client collaboration | No | $99/month |
| Filestage | Creative teams managing asset approvals | Visual reviews, file versioning, task automation | Yes | $19/user/month |
| Ziflow | Advanced creative proofing workflows | Multi-file reviews, side-by-side versioning, automation triggers | Yes | $20/user/month |
1. Picflow
Picflow is an online gallery tool for photographers, artists, and creatives to showcase their work and get feedback from clients and collaborators. It comes with a ton of features to support a seamless approval process—from approval statuses and limits to annotations and easy sharing options.
Our gallery designer makes it easy for anyone to build and customize a beautiful, responsive gallery in minutes—and you can easily embed it on your website or share a link with clients for instant feedback and approvals.
Key Features
Approval Tools: Collate and organize feedback from multiple stakeholders in one place with comments, tags, approval statuses, and more.
Approval Limits: Set limits on the number of assets that can be approved to avoid overspending and overworking.
Easy Sharing: Share your galleries by inviting users, sharing invite links, or embedding gallery widgets in websites and apps.
Image & Video Annotation: Collect precise feedback by allowing users to draw and comment on specific parts of the visual content.
Cross-Device Accessibility: Offers a responsive design that works across all devices, making it convenient for clients to review and provide feedback anytime, anywhere.
Real-Time Updates: Stay on top of all activities in your gallery—see if someone viewed, downloaded, or reviewed an image or video.
Version Control: Allows for easy comparison between different versions of the work, helping track progress and revisions.
Pricing
We offer three plans for Picflow—Free, Plus ($8/mo), and Pro ($16/mo).
2. ClickUp
ClickUp is a versatile project management and productivity tool that offers a comprehensive solution for managing tasks, documents, goals, and automating your approval process.
Marketing and creative teams can use ClickUp to define clear objectives and track progress on campaigns, approve content, and meet deadlines efficiently. It has a great notification system, so you are always aware of updates and changes to your project.
Key Features
Custom Statuses & Workflows: Customize the approval process with specific statuses that match your team's workflow.
Task Assignments & Dependencies: Assign tasks to team members and set dependencies to make sure approvals happen in the correct order.
Notifications & Reminders: Send automated notifications and reminders to keep approvals moving forward without delays.
Pricing
ClickUp offers four plans—Free Forever, Unlimited ($7/user/mo), Business ($12/user/mo), and Enterprise (custom).
3. ProofHub
ProofHub is an all-in-one project management and team collaboration software designed to streamline workflows, enhance communication, and facilitate seamless collaboration across teams.
As an approval tool, ProofHub lets creative teams add markups directly to assets, organize feedback in comment threads, and define complex approval chains that automatically move from one stage to the next.
Key Features
Asset Markup: Draw and annotate directly on images, videos, and documents for easier collaboration and feedback.
Approval Chains: Set up multi-stage approval processes with defined roles and permissions to ensure efficient workflow management.
Time Tracking and Reporting: Track time spent on tasks and projects, and generate detailed reports for better project planning and budgeting.
Pricing
ProofHub has two plans—Essential ($45/mo) and Ultimate Control ($89/mo).
4. Approval Studio
As the name suggests, Approval Studio is a tool designed specifically to streamline the approval process for creative projects. It allows teams to collaborate and manage feedback on designs, images, videos, and other visual assets in one central location.
Key Features
Annotations & External Reviews: Allows detailed feedback directly on designs with annotations and lets external reviewers participate without signing up.
Chat-a-like Discussions: Facilitates real-time discussions within the review tool with a comment feature that’s similar to live chat.
Integrations: Supports a wide range of native integrations (Adobe Illustrator, Photoshop, InDesign, Sketch) for seamless collaboration.
Pricing
Approval Studio offers four plans—Lite ($45/mo), Pro ($135/mo), Pro XL ($255/mo), and Enterprise (from $5999/year)
5. WebProof
WebProof is an online proofing and workflow automation tool designed to streamline the review, approval, and collaboration processes for creative projects. It caters to a wide range of industries, including agencies, retailers, and publishers, offering a platform for efficient document management and team collaboration.
Key Features
Annotations & Direct Feedback: Enables precise annotations and feedback directly on documents, facilitating clear communication.
Automated Workflow & Notifications: Streamlines project workflows with customizable routing and instant notifications to keep projects moving forward.
Integrations & Plugins: Offers InDesign and Illustrator plugins for direct uploads and edits, enhancing the efficiency of design workflows.
Pricing
You’ll need to contact sales for pricing information.
6. Kissflow
Kissflow is a low-code workflow automation platform designed for organizations to manage their business processes efficiently. For enterprise marketing and creative teams, Kissflow can be used to fully automate complex approval workflows around content creation, design review, and project management.
Key Features
No-code Workflow Automation: Enables users to design and implement workflows without any coding knowledge.
Enterprise-Ready: Build workflows that scale to meet the needs of large organizations with multiple departments and teams.
Integrations: Easily connect Kissflow to your favorite tools, including Google Drive, Slack, and Dropbox.
Pricing
Kissflow offers flexible pricing to cater to your unique needs—Basic (starts at $1,500/mo) and Enterprise (custom).
7. Hub Planner
Hub Planner is a comprehensive resource management and scheduling software that helps marketers and creatives plan, track, and manage projects and resources in one, single place. With Hub Planner, you can easily track time, get timesheets approved, and manage projects with minimal intervention.
Key Features
Resource Scheduling and Capacity Planning: Helps teams visualize schedules and team capacities.
Timesheets & Tracking: Offers integrated timesheets for tracking actual work and automates timesheet approval.
Vacation and Leave Management: Simplifies the process of requesting and approving time off.
Pricing
Hub Planner offers three plans—Plug & Play ($7/resource/mo), Premium ($18/resource/mo), and Business Leader (custom).
8. Gain
Gain is a social media and client approval management tool designed to simplify the content approval process. It enhances collaboration between marketing teams and their clients by automating social media content review and feedback cycles.
Key Features
Dynamic Previews and Auto-Publishing: Allows users to create, schedule, and automate publishing for approved content.
Collaboration Hub: Provides a centralized platform for team members and clients to collaborate and manage social media content efficiently.
Automated Approval Workflows: Streamlines the approval process with automatic notifications and reminders, reducing manual follow-ups.
Pricing
Gain offers a single, all-inclusive plan—$99/month for access to unlimited features.
9. Filestage
Filestage is a robust review and approval platform built for creative, marketing, and content teams. It helps streamline feedback on images, videos, documents, and other media through centralized review dashboards and visual annotation tools. Ideal for agencies and in-house teams, Filestage supports multi-stage workflows that keep the review process organized from start to finish.
Key Features
Multi-File & Version Management: Share images, videos, and PDFs in one place while keeping track of revisions and switching between versions seamlessly.
Smart Collaboration Tools: Enable pinpoint comments, annotations, and automated notifications to keep feedback clear and workflows moving.
Control & Oversight: Maintain accountability with audit trails, approval locking, and task triggers to ensure nothing slips through the cracks.
Pricing
Filestage offers four plans: Free with 2 active projects and 2 GB storage; Basic at $109/month with 10 projects and 1 TB storage; Professional at $299/month with 25 projects and 3 TB storage; and Enterprise with unlimited projects and custom pricing.
10. Ziflow
Ziflow is a feature-rich online proofing solution tailored for teams managing complex creative approval workflows. With advanced automation tools, version comparisons, and detailed commenting capabilities, it’s a strong choice for design and marketing teams working across multiple asset types and departments.
Key Features
Version Comparison and Proofing: Review and compare multiple versions simultaneously, supporting images, videos, HTML5 banners, live websites, and more.
Workflow Automation: Trigger notifications, approvals, and actions based on project status.
Multi-Stage Routing and Collaboration: Set up conditional approval paths for different team roles with real-time comments, threaded discussions, and reviewer permissions.
Pricing
Filestage offers a Free plan for individual creatives and freelancers, a Standard plan at $199/month for growing businesses and busy agencies, a Pro plan at $329/month with advanced collaboration and workflow tools for scaled teams, and a custom Enterprise plan designed for large organizations with complex workflows.
Criteria To Consider When Choosing Approval Software
Customizability
Look for approval software that offers customizable workflows to align with your team's specific approval processes and requirements. The ability to tailor the software to fit your unique workflow ensures maximum efficiency and effectiveness in managing approvals.
User-Friendly Interface
Opt for approval software with an intuitive and user-friendly interface that's easy for team members and stakeholders to navigate. A simple interface reduces the learning curve and encourages adoption across the organization, leading to smoother collaboration and faster approvals.
Integration Capabilities
Consider approval software that integrates seamlessly with your existing tools and systems, like project management software, cloud storage platforms, or communication tools. Integration capabilities ensure smooth data flow between different platforms, eliminating the need for manual data entry and enhancing overall workflow efficiency.
Final Thoughts on Choosing Approval Software
To sum up, the ten approval software options we covered above offer unique features and pricing plans that will make them suitable for different businesses and teams.
Looking for an online gallery tool that can simplify review and approvals for your visual content? At Picflow, we offer an intuitive gallery designer, powerful approval tools like annotations and statuses, and affordable pricing plans to fit your needs.
Sign up for free today!
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