13 internal tools we built and run for a podcast agency
Fame is a B2B podcast agency that has been running for six years. Its team finds and books guests, produces episodes and promotes each show for around 100 clients, and Fame Crew finds local videographers for shoots and handles the editing. Team size: about 97 people (estimate), most of them freelancers and contractors. Fame is Forge's own sister company, so we built these tools for ourselves first and still run every one of them.
Every internal tool, the job it does and who got time back
| Tool | Job | Hours back/week | What it replaced | Running since |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Client portal | One login where every client sees their show: episodes, guests, approvals and results. | 40 (account managers) | Hand-written status emails | May 2026 |
| Asset review and approval tool | Clients watch, comment on and approve every episode and asset in one place, with automatic quality checks first. | 45 (producers and editors) | Email and Drive-comment feedback | July 2026 |
| Team hub | One home for the whole team: processes, the people directory, profiles and internal forms. | 15 (ops lead and new starters) | Scattered docs and form tools | May 2026 |
| Time tracking and timesheets | Weekly timesheets with a minimum that adjusts for holidays and leave, plus a report for managers. | 12 (managers) | Manual timesheet checks | June 2026 |
| Freelancer and contractor invoicing | Freelancers and contractors submit invoices in the portal, priced from a rate card or a flat monthly amount, and approvals run in order. | 10 (finance team) | Emailed PDF invoices | August 2026 |
| Finance automations | Alerts for failed payments and invoices, a billing view from Xero, and a monthly sweep of receipts into Drive. | 12 (finance team) | Manual dashboard checks and receipt hunts | August 2026 |
| Payroll records and letters of employment | One place for pay records, letters of employment generated on request, and holiday entitlement. | 4 (ops team) | Spreadsheets and hand-written letters | August 2026 |
| Outreach campaigns | Email sequences from the team's own mailboxes, AI-drafted personal lines, one shared inbox for replies, and a manual LinkedIn queue. | 60 (growth team and producers) | Personal inboxes and spreadsheets | August 2026 |
| Guest research Chrome extension | Producers save a potential guest from LinkedIn in one click, straight into the client's guest list. | 40 (producers) | Copy-paste into a spreadsheet | September 2026 |
| Client health score and churn signals | A health score for every client built from real signals, early churn warnings, and a timeline of everything that happened on the account. | 10 (account managers) | Manual account reviews | June 2026 |
| Episode QA guardrails | Watches raw recordings arrive, checks every published episode against what was approved, and alerts the team when something doesn't match. | 20 (ops team and editors) | Watching folders and spot checks | August 2026 |
| Audio editing plugins | Plugins for Pro Tools, Reaper, Cubase and Audition that bring client comments, cleanup suggestions and uploads into the editor's own software. | 35 (audio editors) | Switching between three apps | September 2026 |
| Reports and monthly summaries | Reports precomputed so they load instantly, monthly ROI emails, and summaries of client comments. | 5 (founder and managers) | Hand-built reports | September 2026 |
What each tool does for the people who use it
Client portal. One login where every client sees their show: episodes, guests, approvals and results. Used by clients, account managers. 2,111 portal views by clients in the last 30 days, across 87 client accounts.
Asset review and approval tool. Clients watch, comment on and approve every episode and asset in one place, with automatic quality checks first. Used by producers, editors, clients. 1,314 automatic audio quality checks run before assets reached clients (to 7 October 2026).
Team hub. One home for the whole team: processes, the people directory, profiles and internal forms. Used by the whole team, new starters, the ops lead. 93 people used the hub in the last 30 days.
Time tracking and timesheets. Weekly timesheets with a minimum that adjusts for holidays and leave, plus a report for managers. Used by the whole team, managers. 30,139 time entries logged by 90 people since June 2026.
Freelancer and contractor invoicing. Freelancers and contractors submit invoices in the portal, priced from a rate card or a flat monthly amount, and approvals run in order. Used by freelancers and contractors, managers, finance. 71 freelancers and contractors invoice through it.
Finance automations. Alerts for failed payments and invoices, a billing view from Xero, and a monthly sweep of receipts into Drive. Used by finance, the founder. 169 overdue and unbilled invoice alerts sent since September 2026.
Payroll records and letters of employment. One place for pay records, letters of employment generated on request, and holiday entitlement. Used by the ops team, the whole team. 405 payslips and 97 pay records kept in one place.
Outreach campaigns. Email sequences from the team's own mailboxes, AI-drafted personal lines, one shared inbox for replies, and a manual LinkedIn queue. Used by the growth team, producers. 20 meetings booked from 1,658 leads.
Guest research Chrome extension. Producers save a potential guest from LinkedIn in one click, straight into the client's guest list. Used by producers, the outreach team. 832 potential guests saved from LinkedIn in the last 30 days.
Client health score and churn signals. A health score for every client built from real signals, early churn warnings, and a timeline of everything that happened on the account. Used by account managers, the founder. 18,592 health scores worked out for 185 client accounts since June 2026.
Episode QA guardrails. Watches raw recordings arrive, checks every published episode against what was approved, and alerts the team when something doesn't match. Used by the ops team, editors. 99 shows' public feeds checked every 15 minutes.
Audio editing plugins. Plugins for Pro Tools, Reaper, Cubase and Audition that bring client comments, cleanup suggestions and uploads into the editor's own software. Used by audio editors. 10%+ time saving on editing, in an audio editor's own words, after a manual prep pass.
Reports and monthly summaries. Reports precomputed so they load instantly, monthly ROI emails, and summaries of client comments. Used by the founder, managers, account managers. ~55 seconds to instant: load time of the slowest report after precomputing.
What it adds up to
- Hours back each week across the team: 308 hours (per-tool estimates)
- Software subscriptions no longer needed: £740 a month (estimate)
- Monthly cost to run all 13 tools (hosting and AI usage): £410 a month (estimate)
Fame’s own measured figure across all the tools is 345 hours a week given back to the team (5,460 hours in total as of 14 October 2026). How those hours split between the tools is our estimate, and the per-tool figures add up to that measured total.
Totals are added up from each tool’s own page. Subscription and running costs are estimates.
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