For consultants who'd rather be consulting.
Pipeline, retainer invoicing, time on engagements, books with bank import, and an AI agent that handles the back office while you handle the actual work. Built for independent management, strategy, and growth consultants who want one app instead of seven. Multi-currency from day one.
Multi-currency · Retainer billing · Time tracking · No card
Four wedges that matter to consultants.
A real pipeline, not a contact list.
Customizable stages (Intro Call → Scoping → Proposal → Won → Engagement → Wrap), deal steps, payment plans, lead source attribution. Track warm leads from a podcast appearance separately from referrals from past clients. Forecast revenue by stage, not by hope.
Retainer billing without a separate tool.
Each retainer is a deal with a payment plan. Otto drafts and sends the next month's invoices in batch — right amount, right currency, right PO reference per client. Books ledger captures everything as recurring revenue. Tax season becomes one PDF export, not a panic.
Time tracking that bills itself.
Clock in / clock out against deals. Daily timer badge always visible. Daily recap modal at end of day. Generate hourly invoices from logged time in any currency. No more reconstructing 'what did I work on Tuesday' from a calendar.
An AI agent for the part of consulting you hate.
Otto runs 35 actions across pipeline, invoicing, time, books, and calendar. Voice or chat. "Otto, log the discovery call from Anna at Acme, create the engagement at $24k Q1, send the proposal cover, schedule the kickoff Tuesday at 10." He drafts each action; you approve. The agent eats the back-office grind so you can think.
The consultant stack you stop paying for.
Things consultants ask.
Why not just use Bonsai or HubSpot Free for a consulting practice?
Bonsai is freelancer-shaped — light CRM, strong proposals, US-coded. HubSpot Free is a CRM with everything else missing. Hey Otto bundles CRM, invoicing, time tracking, books, and an AI agent in one app — priced for a 1–5 person practice (Solo $29, Studio $69 for up to 5). Multi-currency native. Real pipeline, not just a contact list.
How does Hey Otto handle retainers?
Each retainer is a deal with a payment plan (e.g., $5k/mo for 6 months). Otto can draft and send the next round of monthly invoices in batch with the right amount, currency, and PO reference per client. Books ledger captures everything as recurring revenue. No exporting to QuickBooks, no separate retainer-tracking spreadsheet.
Does it support hourly billing for engagements that are not retainers?
Yes. Time tracking with deal-linked timers (clock in / out, pause / resume), daily timer badge, daily recap modal. Generate an invoice from the time logged against a deal in any currency.
I work with international clients. Multi-currency?
Native. USD, EUR, GBP, ILS, AUD, CAD, plus per-deal override and live FX rates. A consultant in London billing a New York client in USD and a Berlin client in EUR handles both in the same dashboard with PDF invoices in either currency.
I am cynical about AI features that turn out to be useless. How is Otto different?
Fair. Most "AI in CRM" is autocomplete dressed up as intelligence — drafts an email you would have written anyway. Otto is a 35-action tool-calling agent: tell him "log the call with Anna, create the discovery deal at $8k, schedule a follow-up Tuesday" and he executes each action with an editable confirmation card before commit, plus 30-day undo. Voice or chat. The work is done, not just suggested.
What about contracts, MSAs, SOWs?
Hey Otto ships PDF invoicing today; contracts, MSAs, and SOWs are on the roadmap. If signed paperwork is core to your engagements, run a tool like HelloSign / Dropbox Sign in parallel for that one workflow until we ship it natively. Everything else lives here.
Is there a free plan?
Yes. 1 user, unlimited contacts, light agent use (10 actions/day), USD only. Multi-currency unlocks at the Solo plan ($29/mo). No credit card to start.
