Jira alternatives for agencies that support clients

Agencies outgrow Jira for a different reason than product companies. The issue tracker is usually fine. The trouble is everything around it: clients email requests that someone copies into Jira, a separate service desk is bolted on for the portal, the documentation lives in Confluence, and outage updates go out from yet another tool. Each of those is another per-user licence.

This guide looks at the alternatives through an agency's eyes: can clients raise and follow requests, does the same ticket reach the developer, and what does it cost as the team grows?

What an agency needs from a Jira replacement

Before comparing tools, it helps to write down what "support clients" actually means day to day:

• A client portal where each client raises requests, sets a priority and follows progress, without seeing other clients or your internal notes.
• One ticket from request to release, so nothing is retyped between a helpdesk and the development board.
• Per-client projects with their own workflow, ticket numbering and client-facing column names.
• Sprints and estimates, because most client work is still planned and billed against time.
• Release notes and incident updates that reach the client without someone writing an email from scratch.
• Predictable pricing, because agencies hire in bursts.

The alternatives compared

Prices are list prices per month, checked on 8 October 2026. Competitors publish in US dollars; check their sites for current figures.

Jonta

Jonta was built for exactly this problem. A client raises a request in their own portal, and that request is the development ticket. It moves across a per-project board, picks up GitHub commits and pull requests automatically, is recorded in a deployment and ends up in release notes that are emailed to the client and published in the portal. Incidents, uptime monitoring and a wiki are in the same product.

Every feature is on every plan, and the price is flat for the workspace: £80 a month (or £864 a year) for up to 50 people. Jira and Confluence migration is free. See how the client portal works.

Watch out for: Jonta integrates with GitHub today, not GitLab or Bitbucket, and it doesn't have the Atlassian Marketplace's thousands of apps.

Jira with Jira Service Management

If you are staying on Atlassian, JSM gives clients a proper portal and Jira Software gives developers the board. The two are separate products, so requests are usually linked between them, and each is licensed separately. Add Confluence for documentation and Statuspage for incident communication and a 20-person agency is paying for four products. Our cost comparison works through the numbers.

Linear

Linear is widely liked for its speed and design, and it is a good fit for in-house product teams. It is less suited to agencies that need clients to log in and track their own requests. Jonta vs Linear.

ClickUp and monday dev

Both are flexible work-management tools with docs, forms and guest access. They can be shaped into a client-request process, but that takes configuration, and pricing is per user.

Zendesk

Zendesk is excellent at customer service at scale, with email, chat and voice channels. For agencies, the gap is development: requests still need copying into a separate tracker. Jonta vs Zendesk.

How to choose

1. Count your people, not just your developers. Per-user tools charge for project managers, support staff and designers too.
2. Ask a client to try the portal. If they won't use it, you will be back to email within a month.
3. Check what moving costs. Losing ticket numbers and history is the main reason agencies stay on Jira. Choose a tool that imports it all.
4. Run one client on the new tool first. A free plan makes this easy: Jonta's is free for 5 users with every feature.

Ready to try it? Get started free or compare plans.

Questions people also ask

Written by the Jonta team.