--- title: Can My Agency Sell White Label Development? url: https://varstatt.com/jurij/p/can-my-agency-sell-white-label-development author: Jurij Tokarski date: 2026-07-23 updated: 2026-10-26 description: "A small agency's clients want apps it can't build. It can sell them as its own: the agency keeps the client, a partner builds, the client owns the code." section: Blog (https://varstatt.com/jurij/archive) tags: Q&A (https://varstatt.com/jurij/c/questions) --- We're a small marketing agency. Clients keep asking for web apps and automations we can't build. Can we sell that under our name and have someone else build it, without the client finding out or us losing the account? Yes. In white label web development, the agency owns the client: the brief, the meetings, the price. A partner builds out of sight, and every question goes through the agency. It works on two conditions. The margin has to hold, so the build costs less than the agency charges. And the work has to live in the client's own accounts, so no builder can walk off with it. ## The Agency Sells, the Partner Builds A white label developer builds what the agency sells as its own. The name comes from a blank white label that the seller fills in with its own brand. Three phrases describe the setup from different sides: - A white label developer: one person who builds under your brand. - A white label agency: a company that builds for other agencies, usually with a team. - White label web development: the work itself, whether a site, an app or an integration, sold under your brand. "White label automation" muddies it. Two things go by that name: software you rebrand and resell, or a builder who works under your brand. The first sells you a product to run for your clients. The second sells you a person's time and judgment. For the asks this agency hears, web apps and automations, the second is the fit. A provider takes tickets, and a partner takes the technical calls, which is what a team that can't build needs. With the roles split, the agency's next fear is the client finding out. ## The Client Hears Only From the Agency The partner never contacts the client. The client sees one brand when three things hold: - No client contact: the client's questions reach the partner through the agency, in writing. - No name on the work: nothing carries the partner's brand, and nothing goes in its portfolio without the agency's permission. - The agency's review first: the agency sees every task before its client does. None of that rests on an NDA. It's how the work runs from the first day. Plans and reports carry the agency's brand, so the client knows about the partner only if the agency tells them. Out of sight doesn't mean hidden from the owner. Whoever owns the repository and the hosting can see every account with access to them. As for the law, white labeling is a common arrangement, and I'm not a lawyer. Read the client contract for two things: what it says about subcontracting, and who owns the work. With those in place, the client stays the agency's. Whether the account pays is the next question. ## The Margin Lives in a Full Queue A fixed weekly cost sits against what the agency charges. It pays when the queue stays full, across as many clients as it holds. White label work is priced three ways: - A per-project quote moves with every brief, and changes are billed on top. - An hourly rate leaves the agency carrying every overrun, since [hours measure presence](/principles/philosophy/hours-wrong). - A retainer keeps the cost the same whatever the mix of jobs. The margin is what the agency charges minus what the build costs it, and that price is the agency's to set. Two things eat it. One is a cost that moves after the quote. The other is a quote made blind, on a request nobody on the team can size. A fixed weekly cost answers the first: each quote starts from a known number. Scoping answers the second, when someone sizes what an ask takes and what it risks before the agency quotes. On a client's inherited code, that's [a read ranked by risk](/jurij/p/should-i-rebuild-my-app-from-scratch). The queue comes in waves, though. A salary doesn't pause when the pipeline does. A partner the agency can pause in a quiet month keeps the cost in line with the work. A full queue keeps the margin. What keeps the account is what happens when something goes wrong. ## Trust Shows in the Handover Capacity is easy to compare. Ask instead whose accounts the work lives in, and what the client keeps if the partner leaves. The bad case is familiar. The developer who built a client's site stops answering, nobody knows the code, and the client calls the agency. That's how an account gets lost. A pitch can't rule that out. Four questions, asked before you hand over a client, get closer: - Who writes the code: the same person every week, or a new stranger per job? - Whose accounts: does the work land in yours or your client's from day one? - What if the partner vanishes: what would the next developer find? [The bus factor post](/jurij/p/isnt-a-solo-developer-a-bus-factor-of-one) covers a good answer. - How do you leave: a short billing cycle and no notice period, as in [Exit Freedom](/principles/partnership/exit-freedom)? Portfolios help less here, since white label work stays off the builder's site. So the real test is one client task, reviewed before the client sees it. [Hiring for one stream](/jurij/p/whats-the-difference-between-freelancer-agency-and-retainer) has more on that first test. That first task is a small step, and most agencies already take small ones. ## Most Agencies Outsource a Little [AgencyAnalytics' benchmarks survey](https://agencyanalytics.com/blog/marketing-agency-benchmarks-management) of 121 marketing agencies was published in August 2023. In it, 81% outsourced at least part of their work, and only 5% outsourced more than half. So outside help is normal for an agency. Handing a whole service line to a white label partner is the rare step, and one client project at a time keeps it small. ## How I Work Under an Agency's Brand Varstatt isn't an agency: it's me, one [tech partner behind your agency](/x/agencies), paid by the week. The work is [white label web development](/x/agencies/white-label-development). I take over the tech side your agency already runs and keep it running. I don't talk to your client, and their questions reach me through you. Nothing carries the Varstatt name. You see every task before your client does, and I revise until you're satisfied. The care comes first. I take over client sites and flows on the tools they already run, WordPress, Make and Zapier included. Updates and security fixes, broken forms, new pages and content edits go on one board. My craft is the JavaScript ecosystem. Around it, I run those tools well enough for most changes a client needs. For deep work in another stack, I bring in a specialist and stay accountable. New sites come as a delivery line, never one site for one client. I build the line once under your brand, and each new site runs through it: several a month, for example. New apps go on my [default stack](/principles/delivery/default-stack): JavaScript and TypeScript. New flows go on n8n by default, or on the Make or Zapier a client already runs. A flow that already runs gets fixed where it is. [n8n, Make or Zapier](/jurij/p/should-i-use-n8n-make-or-zapier) covers that choice. New native mobile apps are out. One weekly price, on the [homepage](/), covers all your clients together. Tool and model fees are billed by the providers, to accounts the agency or its client owns. The owner is the agency or the client, whichever their contract names: I'm a contributor, [never the owner](/jurij/p/who-owns-the-code-my-developer-writes). [Week 0](/principles/partnership/onboarding) is setup: access and the environment, nothing built yet. Then all your clients share one board, and you rank it. Before you quote, I size what an ask takes and what it risks. One task runs at a time, about 72 hours each on average, so your ranking decides who goes first. That's [WIP One](/principles/delivery/wip-one) at work, and also the limit. Several client builds running at once need a white label agency with a team. In a quiet month you can [pause](/principles/diligence/pause-not-end), and billing stops at once. No project on this site is agency work. What it shows is work inside other people's products, such as [a rebuild beside a live product](/jurij/p/soapnoteai-v2-now-serves-100-percent-of-users). I've also built client work under an agency's brand, so I know the handover from the agency's side too. ## What the Agency Should Do Now Start with one client project, set up in the client's accounts. Price it before the next one comes in. Pick the request the team turned down last, a web app or an automation. Put the repository, the hosting and the tool accounts in the client's name from the first day. Then quote it from the weekly cost, not from a guess. If the first project holds its margin, the second goes on the same board. If it doesn't, the agency has spent a week and kept the client. The [project form](/start?cta=white-label-post) takes about a minute: name one request your team couldn't take.