White Label Services: What Agencies Can Resell and How
8 min read
White label services let your agency sell work that a partner team produces, under your own brand, at your own price. Your client sees your name on the proposal, the files and the invoice. The partner stays in the background and never contacts your client unless you ask them to.
Most guides on this topic are written by marketing platforms, so they focus on SEO packages and reporting tools. This guide is for agencies that want to resell design and development. It covers which services work well as white label, how to package and price them, what to keep in-house, and how to add a new service without putting a client at risk.
What white label services are
The term comes from white-label products: one company makes the product and another company sells it under its own brand. For agencies the product is usually a service. A partner designs the website, builds the theme or animates the explainer. You own the client relationship, the brief and the final sign-off.
Three things make a service truly white label, not just outsourced:
- Your brand only. No partner logo, credits, footer links or watermarks in anything your client sees.
- Confidentiality. The partner signs an NDA and does not show the work in its own portfolio without your permission.
- You stay the contact. Questions, feedback and approvals flow through you, or through the partner using your agency’s name and email if you set it up that way.
If you want the full picture on how a partnership works day to day, our guide on choosing a white label partner goes deeper. This article is about the menu: what to sell.
Design and development services agencies can white label
Not every service suits the model equally. The table below compares the common design and development services by how they are usually sold and where the risks sit.
| Service | Typical deliverables | One-off or recurring | Main risk to manage |
|---|---|---|---|
| Web design (UI/UX) | Sitemap, wireframes, Figma designs for desktop and mobile | One-off, often leads to a build | Vague briefs that cause many revision rounds |
| WordPress development | Custom theme or block build, plugins set up, staging site | One-off plus maintenance | Code quality and who owns hosting access |
| Webflow development | Webflow build, CMS collections, interactions, client handover | One-off plus updates | Workspace and site plan ownership |
| Brand and logo design | Logo set, colour palette, type choices, brand guidelines | One-off | Taste gaps between partner and client |
| Motion and animation | Logo animation, explainer video, UI micro-interactions, Lottie files | One-off or per campaign | Script and storyboard sign-off before production |
| Website maintenance | Updates, backups, small edits, uptime checks | Recurring | Response times and clear limits on “small edits” |
| Landing pages and campaign design | Page designs and builds, ad creatives | Recurring per campaign | Tight deadlines tied to ad launches |
A good rule: one-off projects bring in the cash, recurring services keep the client. The strongest offers pair the two, for example a website build followed by a maintenance plan.
How white label services work, step by step
The workflow is similar for every service. What changes is the content of the brief.
- You sell the project. You run discovery, write the proposal and agree the scope with your client.
- You brief the partner. Goals, audience, sitemap or deliverables list, brand assets, examples the client likes and dislikes, deadline and budget.
- The partner quotes and plans. You get a price, a timeline and a list of open questions before work starts.
- Production in stages. Work is shared at agreed checkpoints, for example wireframes, first design, final design, staging build.
- You review first. Every deliverable passes your check before your client sees it.
- You present to the client. Feedback comes back through you, gets consolidated and goes to the partner as one list.
- Handover. Files, logins and documentation are handed to you, under your brand, ready for the client.
Step 5 matters most. If you skip your own review, you are not reselling a service, you are forwarding emails. A short website launch checklist makes that review fast and repeatable.
How to choose which services to add first
Adding five services at once spreads your attention thin. Start with one or two. Use these questions to pick:
- What do clients already ask you for? Look at the last ten requests you turned down or passed to someone else.
- What fits your current work? A branding studio adds web design easily. A marketing agency adds landing pages and website builds.
- Can you judge the quality? You need at least one person who can tell good work from average work in that service. If no one can review code, start with design.
- Does it lead to recurring revenue? Development leads to maintenance. Brand design leads to campaign design.
- Can you explain it in one sentence? If you cannot describe the service on a sales call, you are not ready to sell it.
How to package and price white label services
Your partner’s price is your cost, not your price. Your client pays for your strategy, your project management, your review and your accountability. Price for all of that.
Pick a packaging model
| Model | Works best for | Watch out for |
|---|---|---|
| Fixed project price | Websites, brand identities, animations with a clear scope | Scope creep. Write down pages, rounds of revisions and what is out of scope. |
| Tiered packages | Repeatable work such as small business sites or logo packages | Clients who pick the cheapest tier and expect the top one |
| Monthly retainer | Maintenance, ongoing design support, campaign pages | Unused hours and unclear limits. Define what a month includes. |
| Hourly or day rate | Audits, small fixes, unclear work | Clients who dislike open budgets. Cap it or estimate first. |
Build your price from the bottom up
- Start with the partner’s quote for the scope you agreed.
- Add your own hours: discovery, briefing, reviews, client calls and handover.
- Add a buffer for revisions and small surprises.
- Add your margin. Set it from your own costs and targets, not from what another agency charges.
- Check the total against what the result is worth to the client. If the numbers do not work, change the scope, not the quality.
For more on pricing dev work in particular, see the pricing section in our guide to outsourcing web development.
In-house vs freelancers vs white label services
White label is not the only way to add capacity. Here is how the three common options compare for an agency.
| In-house hire | Freelancers | White label partner | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Fixed monthly cost | High, paid even in slow months | None | None, or a set retainer |
| Speed to start | Slow: hiring and onboarding | Fast if they are free | Fast once the partnership is set up |
| Range of skills | Limited to who you hire | One person, one skill set | A team across design, dev and motion |
| Cover for holidays and sick days | Your problem | Usually none | Handled by the partner team |
| Brand and confidentiality | Fully yours | Varies by person | Built into the agreement |
| Your management time | High | High, per freelancer | Medium: one point of contact |
Many agencies mix them. They keep strategy and account management in-house, use a white label team for production and bring in a specialist freelancer for rare skills.
What to keep in-house
White label works when you hand off production, not ownership. Keep these with your own team:
- The client relationship. Calls, expectations, bad news and renewals.
- Strategy and discovery. The thinking behind the work is what clients pay you for. A clear brand design process or web design process on your side gives the partner a better brief.
- Final quality sign-off. Nothing goes to the client without your approval.
- Account ownership. Domains, hosting, Webflow workspaces and design files should sit in accounts you or your client control.
- Brand standards. Keep a website style guide for each client so any team can build on-brand.
Checklist before you add a new white label service
- NDA signed and portfolio use agreed in writing.
- Ownership of code, design files and source files transfers to you or your client on payment.
- Response times and working hours agreed, including time zone overlap.
- Number of revision rounds defined for each deliverable.
- A standard brief template for the service.
- A review checklist you use before anything reaches the client.
- A handover pack: files, logins, documentation, all unbranded or in your brand.
- A small paid pilot project before you sell the service widely.
- A sales page or one-pager that explains the service in your words.
If WordPress is your first dev service, our white label WordPress development guide lists the technical standards to agree before the first build.
Common mistakes when reselling white label services
- Selling before testing. Run a pilot on an internal or low-risk project first.
- Forwarding client emails as briefs. Rewrite them into one clear brief with priorities.
- Pricing at cost plus a little. You will lose money on the first project with extra revision rounds.
- Letting the partner own accounts. If the partnership ends, your client’s site must not go with it.
- Too many partners at once. Each one needs onboarding and management. Fewer, deeper partnerships are easier to run.
From the studio: ask your partner to send work back with a short written note: what was done, what decisions were made and why, and what is still open. You can forward that note to your client almost word for word under your name. It saves you a call, and clients trust work more when the reasoning comes with it.
Frequently asked questions
What are white label services?
White label services are services produced by one company and sold by another under its own brand. For agencies this usually means a partner team handles design or development while the agency owns the client and the brand.
What services can an agency white label?
Common choices are web design, WordPress and Webflow development, brand and logo design, motion and animation, landing pages and website maintenance. Marketing agencies also white label SEO, ads and content, but those need a specialist partner.
Is it ethical to resell white label services as your own?
Yes, it is a normal and long-standing business model, as long as you deliver what you promise and stay accountable for the result. Your client buys an outcome from your agency, and you are responsible for it no matter who produced it.
How much should an agency charge for white label services?
Start with the partner’s cost, add your own time for strategy, management and review, add a buffer and then your margin. Check the result against the value to the client rather than copying another agency’s prices.
What is the difference between white label and outsourcing?
Outsourcing means someone else does the work. White label adds two conditions: the work carries only your brand, and the partner keeps the arrangement confidential.
Need a white label team for your agency?
Inkyy is a white label design and development team for agencies, working in-house from Bosnia and Herzegovina since 2015. We handle UI/UX and web design, branding, WordPress and Webflow development and animation under your brand, with an NDA signed before work starts. See how our white label services work, or book a call to talk through your next project.
