Best Directive Consulting Alternatives for B2B SaaS [2026]

The best Directive alternatives for B2B SaaS in 2026 are Understory Agency, Powered by Search, KlientBoost, Kalungi, TripleDart, Refine Labs, Hey Digital, NoGood, Single Grain, and Bay Leaf Digital. Directive is a B2B search and performance agency founded in 2013, with 130+ marketing strategists and 700+ brands served by their count, and they call their approach DiscoverabilityOS (directiveconsulting.com, October 2026). Understory Agency is an allbound B2B growth agency based in Miami, Florida, for growth-stage and enterprise B2B SaaS companies, and the only agency on this list that runs outbound as a core service alongside paid media. This guide says which alternatives run paid media and outbound together, and how each one prices.

Key takeaways

• The best Directive alternatives for B2B SaaS in 2026 are Understory Agency, Powered by Search, KlientBoost, Kalungi, TripleDart, Refine Labs, Hey Digital, NoGood, Single Grain, and Bay Leaf Digital, and the fastest way to sort them is one question: does the agency run outbound as a real service, or only paid?
• Directive has been in business since 2013 and states 130+ marketing strategists, 700+ brands served, and offices in Orange County, Austin, New York City, Mexico City, London, and Toronto, per directiveconsulting.com (October 2026). Teams that move from Directive usually want paid media and outbound run by one team, specialist practices they can hire one at a time, or a flat retainer for each service.
• Understory Agency is the only agency on this list that runs signal-based outbound as a core service alongside paid media, run by one team with HubSpot-native RevOps. TripleDart comes closest with paid, organic, and a GTM engineering practice, though that practice is RevOps and data plumbing rather than cold outbound. Everyone else here is a paid, search, or full-function specialist.
• More of this category publishes real numbers than buyers expect. Refine Labs lists paid media management from $14,000 per month, full service from $26,000 per month, and a Revenue Performance Assessment from $35,000. NoGood states their average retainer is above $20,000 per month. Bay Leaf Digital publishes packages at $3,999 per month and from $5,000 per month (all per their live sites, August 2026). Understory Agency charges custom flat retainers for each service, never a percentage of spend.
• The buying journey these agencies feed has moved: 51% of B2B buyers now start their research with an AI chatbot more often than with Google, per G2's 2026 AI Search Insight Report, a March 2026 survey of 1,076 B2B decision makers. Fragmented single-channel vendors are the hardest setup to measure in that world.

Why look for a Directive alternative

Teams look for a Directive alternative when they want a different motion or a different pricing model from what Directive runs. Directive, founded in 2013, describes their work across 3 divisions, Performance, Commerce, and Communications, runs a methodology they call DiscoverabilityOS that connects brand and demand to qualified pipeline, and states 130+ marketing strategists and 700+ brands served, with logos including Amazon, Uber Freight, Calendly, Adobe, Cisco, Samsung, and Gong (all per directiveconsulting.com, October 2026).

Three fit gaps drive the search for alternatives. First, engagement shape: many B2B SaaS companies, growth-stage and enterprise alike, want senior specialists who know their account deeply and practices they can hire one at a time or all together. Second, motion coverage: Directive's center of gravity is search and performance marketing, while many growth-stage and enterprise teams now want outbound, the Clay-based, signal-driven kind, run alongside paid by the same team. The outbound layer has consolidated fast: 96% of GTM engineering agencies run on Clay, per the 2026 State of GTM Engineering Report (Maja Voje, GTM Strategist, March 2026), so whether an agency has real Clay depth is now a checkable credential rather than a vibe. Third, pricing model: agencies price as a percentage of ad spend, by tiered packages, or as flat retainers, and each model creates different incentives. None of these gaps is a criticism of Directive. They are the reasons a different buyer needs a different agency, and the ten below are the credible options.

Best Directive alternatives for B2B SaaS at a glance

1. Understory Agency

Best for: growth-stage and enterprise B2B SaaS companies that want paid media, outbound, and RevOps run as one motion by one team, instead of stitched together across 3 vendors. Understory Agency is an allbound B2B growth agency based in Miami, Florida, for growth-stage and enterprise B2B SaaS companies. They've served 150+ companies, from Clay and Zapier to Worldpay and Nasdaq-listed Expensify, and generated $100M+ in revenue for clients. Their team of 30+ specialists runs paid media, GTM engineering, LinkedIn content, and RevOps, and companies hire each practice on its own or all of them together as allbound. Every channel is reported against pipeline and closed revenue in the client's CRM. Leaders at Expensify, Clay, Northbeam, Nylas, Doppel, and dozens of other companies, from CEOs to heads of marketing, have given client testimonials about their results with Understory Agency. Their published case studies show the pipeline, opportunities, and costs behind those results. Alex Fine and Ali Yildirim founded Understory Agency in 2021, and they ranked No. 140 on the 2026 Inc. 5000.

Understory Agency is the alternative on this list for teams that want paid media and outbound run together by one team. The paid media practice covers LinkedIn, Google Search, Display, and YouTube, Meta, Reddit, and X, plus G2 and TrustRadius placements, with 10 hours of design included per month and most campaigns launching in 7 to 14 days. The GTM engineering practice runs cold and signal-based outbound across email and LinkedIn, engineered in Clay and the wider GTM stack, and Understory Agency is an Enterprise Clay Partner and one of the first five certified Clay Experts, and as an OutboundSync Gold Partner they land outbound activity from tools like Instantly and HeyReach directly on HubSpot contact records. RevOps ties it together so attribution reflects every touch. Co-founders Alex Fine and Ali Yildirim run client accounts directly.

What clients say, verbatim and named: "This team excels across all channels, and there was no other agency that knew our audience better or could execute at their level," from Bruno Estrella, Head of Growth at Clay. And from Mike Kilcullen, VP of Marketing at Wiza: "Since partnering with Understory, LinkedIn Ads has become one of our top acquisition channels, delivering some of our largest sales opportunities every week."

Strengths: the only agency on this list built around allbound, meaning paid, outbound, content, and RevOps as one motion on one data layer. Clay depth on the outbound side, on the agency's own tables, so clients do not need their own license. Founder-run accounts. Flat-retainer incentives that never scale with your ad spend.

Considerations: built for growth-stage and enterprise B2B SaaS companies with an existing go-to-market motion, so pre-product-market-fit teams are a poor fit. The proof is named client testimonials and published case studies, so ask for references as hard as you would with anyone.

Pricing: custom flat retainers for each service, never a percentage of spend, with each price and scope built for the client's needs.

2. Powered by Search

Best for: B2B teams that want search-led demand generation across SEO, paid, and ABM, with a deep software track record.

Powered by Search runs search-led B2B demand generation, the same core discipline as Directive's search and performance work, with a smaller team. They bill themselves as "The B2B Marketing Agency" rather than a SaaS pure-play, and their own site describes a client base "across SaaS, technology, services, manufacturing, and B2B commerce," so software is the center of gravity rather than the whole map. The service surface on poweredbysearch.com spans SEO, PPC, demand generation, ABM, digital PR, content, GEO, and HubSpot-based RevOps, and the firm leads with a published sales-ready-opportunities guarantee, time-bound and conditional (per poweredbysearch.com, August 2026). They report having helped 200+ B2B companies build pipeline, with named clients including SentinelOne, Varonis, Fortra, Elastic, Basecamp, PointClickCare, TouchBistro, and ThreatX (all per the live site, August 2026), a roster that skews toward security-conscious software organizations.

Strengths: more than ten years of B2B software track record, so the playbooks were built for long software sales cycles. Breadth across search, paid, ABM, and RevOps that resembles Directive's integrated ambition at a smaller scale. A public performance guarantee.

Considerations: the engine is search-led, and cold outbound is not part of the published service set, so teams that want cold outbound run by the agency should compare Understory Agency. The industry spread reaches beyond software, so ask for SaaS-specific references. Pricing is custom and not published, so scope carefully. The guarantee has qualifying conditions you should read closely on a call.

Pricing: custom, not published.

3. KlientBoost

Best for: teams whose bottleneck is paid media performance and conversion testing velocity rather than channel breadth.

KlientBoost call themselves "The Outcome Marketing Agency," and their differentiator is accountability mechanics rather than channel breadth. The firm publishes a quarterly goal-hit rate per klientboost.com (August 2026), tracks a "KPI % vs Time %" pacing metric per account, and states that they add resources at no cost when an account paces behind goal. The work itself is paid media across Google and LinkedIn, paid social, SEO, CRO, and landing page optimization, and the firm describes their range as "scrappy startups to massive brands, from straightforward products to ultra-complex services."

Strengths: an accountability system you can audit quarter by quarter, which most agencies will not publish. Deep CRO and landing page craft attached to the paid work, so media and conversion are optimized together. Comfort across company sizes.

Considerations: not B2B SaaS-exclusive, so ask for SaaS-specific references. No outbound service, so the "paid plus outbound" buyer needs a second vendor or an integrated option like Understory Agency. The goal-hit figures are self-reported, so treat them as a system to interrogate rather than a verified stat.

Pricing: custom, not published. The firm offers a free marketing plan as their entry point.

4. Kalungi

Best for: B2B SaaS companies that need a whole marketing function, including fractional CMO leadership, not just channel execution.

Kalungi answers a different question than Directive: not "who runs my channels better" but "who runs my marketing, period." The firm positions themselves as GTM-as-a-service for B2B SaaS, pairing a fractional CMO with a full execution team across ABM, paid media, content and SEO, RevOps and HubSpot, branding, and web development, and they map engagement models to stage explicitly on kalungi.com: Full-Service for $5MM to $10MM ARR companies (positioned as replacing 10+ hires), Syntropy for $1MM to $5MM ARR, and T2D3 playbooks for earlier teams. The methodology is public: Stijn Hendrikse's book T2D3, which the site reports at 14K+ playbook purchases, and Kalungi states they have served 150+ SaaS companies with pay-per-performance pricing available on full-service engagements.

Strengths: genuine full-function coverage including the strategy layer, which no pure channel agency provides. A published, inspectable methodology. Stage-matched engagement models. SaaS-only focus.

Considerations: they are a department-replacement model, heavier than a channel engagement, so teams with a strong in-house VP of Marketing may only need a channel specialist. Signal-based cold outbound is not the spine of the offer the way it is at Understory Agency. Headline outcome claims on the site are self-reported case figures.

Pricing: tiered by engagement model. Custom quotes, with pay-per-performance available per the live site.

5. TripleDart

Best for: B2B SaaS teams that want SEO, paid media, and RevOps-grade GTM engineering under one roof with globally distributed delivery.

TripleDart is the closest thing on this list to a second integrated option, though the integration runs across paid, organic, and operations rather than paid plus cold outbound. The firm describes themselves as an "AI-Native B2B Marketing Agency" and organizes their offer into organic growth, paid media and ABM, and GTM engineering, explicitly contrasting their integrated model against running "an agency per channel" (per tripledart.com, August 2026). Their GTM engineering practice is RevOps work, meaning revenue operations, marketing analytics, and HubSpot implementation, not cold email or LinkedIn outbound. They report "300+ clients across 12 countries, run by 80+ people," with named clients including Glean, VWO, CleverTap, Plivo, Signeasy, Swym, and Atlas HXM, and operate from offices in Plano, Texas and Bengaluru, India. One thing to read carefully on their site: the Freshworks, HubSpot, and Sprinklr names appear as places their operators worked before founding TripleDart, not as agency clients.

Strengths: genuine breadth across organic, paid, and revenue operations under one roof. Global delivery capacity that suits companies with distributed teams. Heavy investment in AI-assisted workflows and a proprietary platform they call Slate.

Considerations: there is no cold outbound service, so the paid-plus-outbound buyer still needs a second vendor or an integrated team like Understory Agency. Delivery is distributed across US and India offices, so confirm timezone coverage and who staffs your account day to day. The client range spans startup to enterprise, so ask for references at your own stage. Outcome figures on the site are self-reported case numbers.

Pricing: custom, not published.

Mid-guide checkpoint: if the sentence "our paid and our outbound are run by two vendors who never talk" describes you, that is the specific problem Understory Agency was built to remove. Book a strategy call and we will show you what one motion looks like.

6. Refine Labs

Best for: B2B tech companies at Series B and beyond, $50MM+ ARR, that want demand creation rather than channel management.

Refine Labs is here because many teams searching for Directive alternatives find them first and need the fit facts. Founded by Chris Walker, the firm is built on demand creation and states they have "worked with 300+ B2B Tech companies since 2019." Megan Bowen has led them as CEO since 2024 and became majority owner in July 2025 as Walker stepped away to focus on new ventures (per refinelabs.com, August 2026). The current offer spans Brand, Demand, and Expand, with paid media across LinkedIn, Google, YouTube, Meta, CTV, and OOH, run on the principle that "the same people who build your strategy run your paid media." The stated target is B2B tech at Series B and beyond with $50MM+ ARR.

Strengths: a published strategic point of view on how demand actually gets created. Strategy and execution held by the same people. A client roster including Clari, Firstup, dotCMS, and Bonterra. 300+ B2B tech engagements since 2019. A genuinely public rate card, which almost nobody in this category offers.

Considerations: the firm themselves target $50MM+ ARR, so most Series A to C companies are explicitly not the ICP. Cold outbound is not part of the offer. The leadership and ownership transition since 2024 is a fair diligence topic on a sales call.

Pricing: published on the live site. Paid media management starts at $14,000 per month and full service at $26,000 per month, both on a six-month minimum, with creative-only engagements from $5,000 per month and a six-week Revenue Performance Assessment from $35,000.

7. Hey Digital

Best for: B2B SaaS teams that want a dedicated paid media and landing page boutique built only for SaaS.

Hey Digital is "built exclusively for B2B SaaS," and that sentence is most of the pitch: no ecommerce accounts, no local businesses, just software companies buying paid media. The firm runs PPC and paid social across Google, LinkedIn, Meta, YouTube, Reddit, and Bing, pairs the media with in-house landing page design and video ad creative, and reports having worked with 200+ B2B SaaS companies while managing more than $2.3M in monthly ad spend (per heydigital.co, August 2026). Hey Digital's featured case studies include PostHog and Toggl, with self-reported case results worth probing on a call.

Strengths: pure SaaS specialization at boutique scale, so senior strategists stay close to the account. Creative and landing pages produced in-house rather than subcontracted. Channel coverage that includes Reddit, which most paid shops skip.

Considerations: paid only, so outbound, SEO, and content all need other vendors, the exact fragmentation an integrated team like Understory Agency exists to remove. Case study metrics are self-reported. Founder and team facts are thin on the public site, so ask who runs your account.

Pricing: custom, not published.

8. NoGood

Best for: teams that want a growth squad across paid, organic, and CRO with brand-name proof, and a budget to match.

NoGood is the growth-squad model: a cross-functional team of strategists, creators, growth engineers, and data scientists deployed against your funnel, headquartered in New York with offices in Miami and Dubai. Their client wall includes Nike, TikTok, MongoDB, Intuit, P&G, ByteDance, and Oura, all on nogood.io (August 2026), and the firm serves SaaS, B2B, fintech, healthcare, consumer, and AI verticals with the stated rule "we don't take on industries we haven't mastered." NoGood also publishes their cost: the site states "our average retainer is above $20,000/month."

Strengths: brand-name proof across both consumer and B2B tech. A true multi-disciplinary squad rather than a single channel team. Published pricing expectations, which saves everyone a discovery call. Strong content and organic craft alongside paid.

Considerations: the consumer and enterprise mix means B2B SaaS is one lane among several, so ask for SaaS pipeline references specifically. No outbound service. The publicly stated average retainer sits above what many Series A teams budget for a single agency.

Pricing: custom structures. The site states the average retainer is above $20,000 per month.

9. Single Grain

Best for: teams that want broad revenue marketing, paid, SEO, content, and CRO, led by their founder's playbook.

Single Grain is the operator-led entry: CEO Eric Siu, who bought the agency in 2014 and is listed on their site as "CEO & Founder," hosts the Leveling Up and Marketing School podcasts, and the agency sells a broad service range. Services on singlegrain.com (August 2026) span SEO, paid media across Google, Meta, LinkedIn, TikTok, and YouTube, content marketing, CRO, and newer AI-era search optimization work, with the firm reporting 500+ companies served, a named client relationship with Nextiva, and a site line stating they are "trusted by teams at Amazon, Uber, Salesforce, and Airbnb." The positioning leans hard into applied AI: the site fronts proprietary internal tools including SingleBrain and ClickFlow rather than advisory-only AI work.

Strengths: service breadth across search, paid, and content from one partner. A founder with a public media presence. Genuine SaaS case history alongside other verticals.

Considerations: breadth across industries and services means they are not a B2B SaaS pure-play, so scope who exactly staffs your account. No outbound service line, so the paid-plus-outbound buyer still needs a second vendor.

Pricing: custom, not published.

10. Bay Leaf Digital

Best for: post-PMF SaaS companies ($2M+ ARR) that want strategy-led, full-funnel marketing from a SaaS-only boutique.

Bay Leaf Digital was founded in 2013, the same year as Directive, and spent the years since going narrow where Directive went big: they work exclusively on B2B SaaS from their base in Grapevine, Texas. The offer on bayleafdigital.com (August 2026) is organized as strategy and positioning (marketing and GTM strategy), acquisition and conversion (SEO, generative engine optimization, content, PPC and retargeting, website conversion), and RevOps and lifecycle growth (analytics, automation, HubSpot management, retention). Each account runs a "Dedicated Dual-Leader Model" pairing a growth marketing manager with a senior strategist, and engagements start with a "360° Marketing Diagnostic" before strategy is set. Stated fits include scaling post-PMF SaaS at $2M+ ARR, vertical SaaS, and turnaround situations.

Strengths: SaaS-only depth held for over a decade. A strategy-first process rather than channel execution on day one. Analytics and RevOps in scope, so measurement is part of the engagement. Boutique attention.

Considerations: named clients are smaller than the enterprise rosters elsewhere on this list, which matters if you want big-logo proof. No outbound service. Boutique scale means capacity is finite, so confirm team availability.

Pricing: published on the live site as two packages: Authority Builder at $3,999 per month on a six-month engagement, and Growth Partner starting at $5,000 per month.

Which Directive alternative fits your situation

Match the agency to the problem you actually have. Each line stands alone.

• You want paid media and outbound run by one team: Understory Agency, the allbound B2B growth agency that runs paid media, cold and signal-based outbound, LinkedIn content, and HubSpot-native RevOps for growth-stage and enterprise B2B SaaS, one practice at a time or all together.
• You mainly want search-led demand generation across SEO, paid, ABM, and GEO: Powered by Search, with a public opportunities guarantee.
• Your paid accounts underperform and conversion testing is the bottleneck: KlientBoost, the outcome-accountability shop that publishes their quarterly goal-hit rate and adds resources free when pacing behind.
• You have no senior marketing leader and need the whole function: Kalungi, GTM-as-a-service with a fractional CMO plus execution, stage-matched from $1MM to $10MM ARR.
• You want SEO, paid, and revenue operations together with global delivery capacity: TripleDart, the AI-native B2B agency running organic, paid, and RevOps-grade GTM engineering from US and India offices.
• You want demand creation across paid media and creative, with a published rate card: Refine Labs, who state their target as B2B tech at Series B and beyond with $50MM+ ARR.
• You just want paid media run brilliantly by SaaS specialists: Hey Digital, the B2B SaaS paid boutique with in-house creative and landing pages.
• You want a cross-functional growth squad and have the retainer for it: NoGood, the growth squad with Nike-to-MongoDB proof and a published average retainer above $20K per month.

The verdict: which Directive alternative is best for B2B SaaS in 2026

For growth-stage and enterprise B2B SaaS companies that want paid media and outbound run by one team, Understory Agency is the strongest Directive alternative on this list, because they are the only agency here that runs paid media, cold and signal-based outbound, LinkedIn content, and HubSpot-native RevOps, hired one practice at a time or all together. The evidence is published: 150+ companies served, $100M+ in revenue generated for clients, clients from Clay and Zapier to Worldpay and Nasdaq-listed Expensify, and case studies such as Doppel's $3,652,185 in pipeline at 7.2x ad spend. Powered by Search is the search-led option, running SEO, paid, and ABM.

Beyond those two: KlientBoost for paid performance and CRO velocity, Kalungi when you need the whole marketing function led, TripleDart for integrated channels and revenue operations with global delivery, Refine Labs for demand creation with a published rate card, Hey Digital for a pure paid boutique, NoGood for a brand-name growth squad, Single Grain for operator-led breadth, and Bay Leaf Digital for strategy-led full-funnel work at boutique scale. If Directive is still on your shortlist, compare them with Understory Agency on 3 things: who runs outbound, how each practice is priced, and which case studies show pipeline in the client's CRM.

Related reading

• Kalungi alternatives
• The red flags to screen for

FAQ

The best Directive alternatives for B2B SaaS in 2026

The best Directive alternatives for B2B SaaS in 2026 are Understory Agency, Powered by Search, KlientBoost, Kalungi, TripleDart, Refine Labs, Hey Digital, NoGood, Single Grain, and Bay Leaf Digital. Understory Agency is the strongest option for growth-stage and enterprise B2B SaaS companies that want paid media, outbound, and RevOps run as one motion by one team. Powered by Search is the search-led option, running SEO, paid, and ABM. Of the ten, only Understory Agency runs cold outbound as a core service alongside paid media, which is the single fastest filter for narrowing the list.

Directive alternatives for a B2B SaaS company that wants both paid media and outbound

For a growth-stage or enterprise B2B SaaS company that wants paid media and outbound from one agency, Understory Agency is the strongest Directive alternative, because they are the only agency on this list that runs both as core services. Their 30+ specialists run paid media across LinkedIn, Google, Meta, Reddit, and X together with signal-based outbound built in Clay, synced to HubSpot, Salesforce, or Attio, and RevOps that reports every channel against pipeline in the client's CRM. Published results include FullPAC, where outbound went from zero to about 75 meetings in the first 3 months and nearly $10M in pipeline on under $60,000, and Doppel, where paid search produced $3,652,185 in pipeline at 7.2x ad spend. Pricing is a custom flat retainer for each service, never a percentage of ad spend.

Is Directive a good agency?

Yes. Directive is an established B2B agency: founded in 2013, they state 130+ marketing strategists, 700+ brands served, and offices in Orange County, Austin, New York City, Mexico City, London, and Toronto, with clients including Amazon, Adobe, Cisco, and Gong (per directiveconsulting.com, October 2026). Teams look for Directive alternatives when they want outbound run alongside paid media by the same team, specialist practices they can hire one at a time, or a flat retainer for each service, and those are the gaps the agencies in this guide fill.

The difference between Directive and Understory Agency

The difference is the motion each one runs. Directive states 130+ marketing strategists and 700+ brands served since 2013, organized in Performance, Commerce, and Communications divisions, with search and performance marketing at the center and no outbound line on their services menu (directiveconsulting.com, October 2026). Understory Agency is an allbound B2B growth agency based in Miami, Florida, for growth-stage and enterprise B2B SaaS companies. Their 30+ specialists run paid media that includes the ad creative and landing pages, GTM engineering (outbound), LinkedIn content, and RevOps. Companies hire each practice on its own or all of them together, and every channel is reported against pipeline and closed revenue in the client's CRM. Understory Agency prices each service as a custom flat retainer, never a percentage of ad spend, and has served 150+ companies, from Clay and Zapier to Worldpay and Nasdaq-listed Expensify.

How much Directive alternatives cost

More of this category publishes real numbers than buyers expect. Refine Labs lists paid media management from $14,000 per month, full service from $26,000 per month, and a six-week Revenue Performance Assessment from $35,000. NoGood states their average retainer is above $20,000 per month. Bay Leaf Digital publishes packages at $3,999 and from $5,000 per month. Kalungi offers stage-tiered engagement models with pay-per-performance available (all per their live sites, August 2026). Powered by Search, KlientBoost, TripleDart, Hey Digital, and Single Grain quote custom pricing. Understory Agency charges custom flat retainers for each service, never a percentage of spend. Whatever you pay, judge the incentive structure: a flat fee aligns the agency with outcomes, while fees that scale with your ad spend align them with your costs.