Professional Services Automation Software

PSA software is what a consulting or engineering firm runs its delivery business on: pipeline, quotes, resource plans, projects, timesheets, expenses and the reporting over the top, in one system rather than six. SUNAGO Matrix covers that ground with one difference that matters, which is that it costs every hour at what the hour actually costs you.

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What a PSA system has to cover

A services firm sells time. That single fact is why generic business software fits it badly. An ERP built for manufacturing counts stock. A CRM built for software counts licences. Neither can tell a consulting partner whether the engagement starting on Monday will make money, because neither knows what an hour of that team costs.

Professional services automation exists to close that gap. The category is defined by connecting six things that firms otherwise run separately, and the value comes entirely from the connections rather than from any one of the six.

Opportunity to contract

Lead to deal to contract, with proposals and compliant digital signature built in, then contract-to-project conversion when the work starts.

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Resource management

Every person on one allocation heat map, coloured by how utilized they already are, with anything past 100 percent flagged in red as it is committed.

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Project delivery

Budgets, phases, milestones, dependencies and a Gantt timeline, with progress measured in hours logged rather than percentages typed in.

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Time and expense

Weekly timesheets with billable and non-billable splits, approval workflows, and expenses with automated markup.

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Project economy

Real cost per hour, live margin and Forecast at Completion on every project, with financial warnings before a job goes underwater.

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Analytics and KPIs

Sales, project, resource and employee reporting on one dataset, so utilization and revenue per head are read from the same source as the invoices.

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Project economy, not project accounting

Most PSA and project ERP products will report a project margin. The question worth asking is what cost rate that margin was built on, because the usual answer quietly flatters every number on the page.

The common method is annual salary divided by a nominal year, something like 1,850 or 2,000 hours. Nobody bills 1,850 hours. Take the vacation entitlement out, take part-time capacity into account, then multiply by the utilization the person actually achieves, and the number of hours you can charge against that salary is far smaller. Add that person's share of company overhead, including the salaries of colleagues who bill nothing, and the true cost of a billable hour moves a long way from the naive figure.

SUNAGO Matrix derives the rate that way as standard, and every margin, Estimate at Completion and Forecast at Completion in the system is built on it. A consultant running at 60 percent utilization costs materially more per billable hour than the same salary at 85 percent, and the projects they are on should say so while there is still time to act.

If you want the arithmetic in full, it is written up in true cost per hour for consulting firms, alongside how EAC and FAC are calculated.

A PSA category that mostly will not tell you the price

This is the most useful thing to know when shortlisting. We publish ours, and we publish theirs where they publish it at all.

ProductPublished priceCompare
SUNAGO MatrixEUR 3 per seat per month, billed yearly, one plan, from one seatPricing
DeltekNo published price. Vendor route: "Request a Demo"Side by side
KantataNo published price. Vendor route: "Fill out the form and one of our PSA Advisors will get back to you to discuss a pricing plan built for you."Side by side
Deltek PolarisNo published price. Vendor route: "Request a Demo"Side by side
ScoroCore at USD 19.90 per seat/month, annual billing, 5-seat minimum. Project budgets & templates starts at USD 32.90Side by side
BigTime SoftwareEssentials at USD 20 per seat/month, as published. Project Budgeting is quote-onlySide by side
Productive.ioEssential at USD 10 per seat/month, billed yearly, 3-seat minimumSide by side
NetSuite SuiteProjects ProNo published price. Vendor route: "Free Product Tour" and "Contact Us"; no price on the product pageSide by side

Competitor prices read from each vendor's own pricing page in August 2026. The exact source URL and read date for every figure is stated on that competitor's comparison page.

Looking for your own industry? There are pages for engineering firms and agencies.

All fourteen comparisons are listed on the comparison index.

Every module, one plan

CRM & Pipeline

Leads, quotes, digital signature and revenue forecasting

Cloud Project Management

Budgets, phases, milestones, dependencies and a Gantt timeline

Resource Planning

Capacity after vacation and absence, with overallocation warnings

Timesheet Software

Billable hours against projects and phases, with approvals

Project Cost Tracking

Real cost per hour, live margin and Forecast at Completion

Expenses

Track and approve expenses with receipts and markup

KPI Reporting

Utilization, margin and revenue per employee on one dataset

Professional services automation software: common questions

What PSA software is, what it costs, and how it differs from project management tools.

What is professional services automation software?
Professional services automation software, usually shortened to PSA software, is the system a services firm runs its delivery business on. It covers the full commercial lifecycle in one place: the opportunity pipeline, the quote, the resource plan, the project, the hours logged against it, the expenses, the invoice and the reporting on top. The point of a PSA suite is that these stop being separate systems, so an hour logged on Tuesday changes the project margin and the firm's forecast without anyone rekeying it.
How is PSA software different from project management software?
Project management software tracks work: tasks, dependencies, deadlines, who is doing what. PSA software tracks the business of that work: what the hours cost, what they bill at, what margin the project is running, whether the people are utilized and what the pipeline needs next quarter. Tools like Asana and Monday are excellent at the first and hold nothing at all of the second. A consulting firm generally needs both, which is why PSA suites include project management rather than replacing it.
What are some professional services automation software examples?
The established PSA and project ERP category includes Deltek, Kantata, Polaris PSA, Scoro, BigTime and Productive, along with the professional services modules of broader ERP suites such as NetSuite, Dynamics 365 and SAP Business One. SUNAGO Matrix sits in the same category with a narrower focus on project economy. We publish side-by-side comparisons with published prices for each of these, because most of the category does not publish a price at all.
What does PSA software normally cost?
For much of the category you cannot find out without a sales call. Deltek publishes no price for Ajera, and Kantata, Polaris PSA and NetSuite SuiteProjects Pro are all quote-only. Where prices are published the spread is wide: Productive starts at USD 10 per seat per month with a 3-seat minimum, BigTime Essentials at USD 20, Scoro Core at USD 19.90 with a 5-seat minimum, and Dynamics 365 Project Operations at USD 135. SUNAGO Matrix is EUR 3 per seat per month billed yearly, on one plan with every module included, from a single seat, with onboarding and data transfer included. All competitor figures were read from the vendors' own pricing pages in August 2026 and are sourced on each comparison page.
How long does PSA software take to implement?
For the enterprise end of the category, implementation is usually a project in its own right with a partner attached. SUNAGO Matrix is designed to be useful in days: create the workspace, add your people with their salary, capacity and utilization, then import or enter live projects. From that point every logged hour updates cost, margin and Forecast at Completion. Onboarding, data transfer and team setup are included rather than billed.
Is this suitable for a small professional services firm?
Yes. Most of the category prices small firms out, either through seat minimums or through an implementation fee that dwarfs the licence. There is no seat minimum here and no feature ladder, so a firm of three gets the same product as a firm of three hundred and pays for three seats.

PSA without the implementation project

EUR 3 per seat per month billed yearly, every module included, onboarding and data transfer free. 14-day trial, no credit card required.

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