For boutique studios
Keep capacity, approvals, retainers, and invoices in the same story.
Steady helps boutique creative, strategy, production, and service studios plan client delivery, manage retainers, collect estimate approvals, track margin, and turn completed work into professional invoices.
The studio problem
Studio work moves through too many disconnected moments.
Boutique studios often sell a mix of fixed-fee projects, retainers, hourly support, expenses, and ad hoc client requests. Without one connected system, scope, approvals, delivery, margin, and invoicing drift apart until the month needs to be reconstructed manually.
- Fixed-fee work, retained work, hourly support, and non-billable studio time are hard to separate once everything is just calendar events and notes.
- Approvals can live in email while delivery lives in a task board and invoices are rebuilt from memory later.
- Retainers are easy to over-service when usage and remaining balance are not visible during planning.
- Margins are hard to understand when staff rates, client rates, hours burned, expenses, and invoices are disconnected.
The Steady workflow
A studio workflow from scope to payment.
Steady connects the commercial side of studio delivery: planned capacity, quote approval, tracked work, retainer usage, expenses, invoices, payment, and client-facing documents.
Scope and approve
Send estimates and quotes for approval, collect signatures, and keep the approved work attached to the client record.
Plan studio capacity
Schedule fixed-fee, hourly, retainer, and non-billable work across the team so delivery pressure becomes visible earlier.
Track delivery and margin
Convert work into time entries, track expenses, monitor hours burned, and keep staff and client margin in view.
Invoice and share
Create invoices from verified work, retainers, expenses, service catalogue items, and ad hoc lines, then share them through browser links or the portal.
Why boutique studios choose Steady
A clean operating layer for scope, delivery, margin, and billing.
Steady gives small studios the structure of an agency system without burying the team in heavy project management software.
Billing-safe calendar
Clearly separate hourly, fixed-price, retained, and non-billable blocks so the team knows what should and should not become an invoice.
Estimate signatures
Send browser-based estimates and quotes, collect signatures, and keep approvals connected to client delivery.
Retainers and credits
Manage client retainers as hours or credits, activate them manually or from paid invoices, and track usage as work is delivered.
Client and staff margin
Track revenue, labour cost, effective hourly rate, staff margin, and client margin across a studio team.
Client portal
Let clients view quotes, sign estimates, pay invoices, download PDFs, and optionally see planned work or invoice time detail.
Invoice engine
Invoice from time entries, fixed-fee items, expenses, retainers, service catalogue items, and ad hoc lines without rebuilding the job.
Who it is for
Built for small studios where delivery, approval, and billing overlap.
Steady fits founder-led studios that need professional commercial control without losing the simplicity of a calendar-first workflow.
Brand and design studios
Keep estimates, approvals, delivery time, expenses, and invoices connected from scope to final payment.
Content and production studios
Plan shoots, prep, post-production, client reviews, expenses, retainers, and invoice-ready delivery records.
Strategy and operations studios
Run retained clients, project delivery, advisory time, and team capacity from a shared calendar-first system.
Boutique service teams
Coordinate a small team around client delivery, margin, quotes, retainers, payments, and period close.
“Boutique studio work gets messy when scope, delivery, approval, retainer usage, and invoicing all live in different places.”
Angela McConnell
Boutique Studio Owner