WorkflowMax

WorkflowMax is an all-in-one job and project management platform designed for service-based businesses. It covers the full lifecycle from lead capture and quoting through job management, time tracking, cost tracking, invoicing, and reporting.

The target market is professional services firms: creative agencies, architects, engineers, construction businesses, consultants, and designers. It's particularly strong in Australia and New Zealand, with a growing presence in the UK. Core features include time tracking with timesheets and timers, job management with task assignment and progress tracking, quoting and estimating, multiple invoicing methods (progress, actual time, quoted, percentage), 19+ standard reports covering WIP, profitability and utilisation, client and contact management, document management via integrations with Google Drive, Dropbox and Box, a Kanban job board for visual management, and a native iOS/Android mobile app.

WorkflowMax uses team-size-based pricing across three tiers rather than strict per-user pricing. Standard covers the core features: quoting, timesheets, invoicing, Xero integration, reporting, and job management. Premium adds client groups, multi-currency, productivity reporting, Zapier integration, and the Kanban job board. Advanced adds lead management, calendar sync with Outlook and Google, scheduled reports, a sandbox account, extended API access, priority support, and a dedicated account manager.

Exact per-team pricing isn't publicly listed in a simple grid. You need to use their pricing calculator or talk to sales. They offer a 14-day free trial and have been running promotional pricing (50% off for six months) to attract customers. The Lead Manager add-on costs $19/month on Standard and Premium plans. For accounts with 100+ users, additional users are $7 each.

The important thing for integration work: sandbox accounts are only available on the Advanced tier, which is the most expensive plan. If you need a testing environment, that's a cost you'll need to factor in.

Vendor lock-in risk with WorkflowMax is moderate. Your core data is exportable via CSV, XML, and API, which is good. You won't be trapped if you need to leave. The formats are standard enough that migration to another platform is feasible with some effort.

Where the stickiness lies is in the operational setup. If you've built your quoting templates, job workflows, custom fields, and reporting around WorkflowMax, switching means rebuilding all of that in a new system. The Xero integration is also a factor. If your accounting workflow depends on the tight WorkflowMax-to-Xero sync, moving to a competitor means re-establishing that connection (though most alternatives also integrate with Xero).

The deeper concern is the BlueRock ownership structure. If BlueRock decides the SaaS product isn't core to their advisory business, your platform could be sold again or wound down. The Xero revenue-share agreement provides some insulation, but it's worth keeping in the back of your mind.

WorkflowMax was founded in 2007 in Wellington, New Zealand and quickly became a popular job management tool in the ANZ professional services market. Xero acquired it in February 2012 for approximately $6 million NZD and operated it for 11 years before announcing its retirement in March 2023.

BlueRock, a Melbourne-based accounting and advisory firm founded in 2008 with around 400 employees, acquired the WorkflowMax brand (not the codebase) from Xero. They rebuilt the product from the ground up, which explains many of the early growing pains. Xero and BlueRock entered a revenue-share agreement, meaning Xero still has financial interest in the product's success.

The team has scaled from 1 to 60 dedicated staff within about 12 months, pulling in people from Xero and WorkflowMax alumni. BlueRock is a mid-sized advisory firm pivoting into SaaS product ownership, which is a risk factor worth noting. They're not a pure software company. That said, the Xero partnership and aggressive investment in the product suggest commitment. At its peak under Xero, WorkflowMax served over 10,000 businesses across 170+ countries.

WorkflowMax has two API versions. V1 is an XML-based REST API designed to mirror the old Xero-era API for backward compatibility. V2 is a JSON-based REST API that's actively being developed. Both use OAuth 2.0 authentication with access tokens that expire after 30 minutes and refresh tokens that last 60 days.

The API covers most of what you'd need: jobs, costs, tasks, clients, leads, timesheets, quotes, invoices, purchase orders, staff, and documents. There's a Postman collection for V1 and an interactive API Explorer for V2, plus OpenAPI specs are available. However, the V2 API is still labelled as beta in places, which tells you it's still maturing.

Rate limits exist but specific numbers aren't publicly documented. That's a yellow flag because you'll need to discover the limits through testing or by asking their team directly. The developer community is small, so you won't find many Stack Overflow answers or open-source libraries to lean on. If you had integrations with the old Xero-era WorkflowMax API, they won't work with the BlueRock version without modification since it's a completely different system with new endpoints and authentication.

Webhook support is listed as "Coming Soon" in the V2 API documentation. Some sources claim V2 introduces webhooks, but this appears to be planned rather than shipped as of early 2026. Zapier integration (available on Premium and Advanced plans) is the practical workaround for event-driven workflows right now. Don't build an integration strategy that depends on native webhooks until they're confirmed as live.

You can get your data out of WorkflowMax. There's an XML export for full account data, CSV exports for individual data tables (clients, jobs, timesheets, costs, etc.), and PDF/Excel/CSV exports for reports. The API also gives you read access to all major entities for programmatic extraction.

Importing is supported via CSV with templates provided for clients, suppliers, tasks, costs, jobs, timesheets, and leads. The API works for programmatic imports too.

The elephant in the room is the Xero-to-BlueRock migration experience. Multiple users reported data integrity problems: missing dates, time entries in wrong months, invoiced time reappearing as uninvoiced. BlueRock temporarily suspended self-service migration to address quality issues. The export function in the new system was also reportedly unavailable for a period after launch, which trapped some customers. These issues have largely been resolved, but they're worth remembering when assessing data portability risk.

The V2 API documentation at api-docs.workflowmax.com is reasonably structured with an interactive API Explorer, which is a plus. There's a Postman collection for V1 and OpenAPI/Swagger specs available. Support documentation at support.workflowmax.com covers authentication setup.

The main frustrations are the lack of a free sandbox (only available on the Advanced plan), vague rate limit documentation, and a small developer community. There are no official SDKs in Python, Node.js, or other popular languages. A .NET Core OAuth2 sample exists on GitHub from the Xero era, and third-party connectors exist via Pipedream and Airbyte, but that's about it.

The V1 XML format is painful to work with. V2's JSON is a big improvement but still carries a beta label. OAuth 2.0 implementation is standard. Overall, a competent developer can get things working, but expect to spend more time than you would with a mature platform like Xero or HubSpot. Budget extra hours for your integrator.