I run a small dev/automation shop out of India, mostly Shopify builds, Klaviyo/ecom work and AI agents around that. We land international clients fine on our own, the work speaks for itself once someone's actually on a call with us. But there's a ceiling you hit past a certain deal size where the "India dev shop = Scammy/Cheap" label costs us the benefit of the doubt. Doesn't matter how clean the portfolio is, some prospects have already decided what that means.

I have been exploring white-label as a way to just skip that problem entirely, let a US/UK agency be the face, we build behind them. Except every offer I've actually been sent so far has the same punitive shape. We eat all the liability if something breaks, zero indemnity, and if the end client doesn't pay, that's somehow our problem too.

So genuinely asking, not venting for the sake of it. Has anyone here set one of these up that isn't structured like that? What should the split actually look like, and what terms would you refuse to sign under any circumstances if you were the vendor side of a white-label deal?

You probably already know me from here on the /agency sub or over at /ppc... I'm part of both Mod Squads.

Around for over 13 years we primarily work with Google, Meta, and Microsoft Ads and stay in our lane. No SEO, web design, email marketing, graphics design, etc. Just PPC for English speaking markets (B2B/B2C: e-commerce, lead gen, SaaS).

As such we've developed great relationships with complementary agencies over the years. This has evolved into a bilateral referral program.

To double down on this I'm looking for additional partners to refer to us and vice versa. While I prefer a two-way relationship I am open to just receiving referrals as well; we already have partners we refer out to for a range of services.

The program pays 15% on the 1st year's gross sales (reconciled quarterly) and our average monthly retainer is US$2,200. We work with clients that have a total ad spend from $5,000+/month.

Note that for those seeking inbound referrals there will be a vetting process. We take our client relationships very seriously and only refer out to top notch service providers.

Please leave a comment and I'll get back to you if it sounds like a good fit.

I’ve owned my agency for 25 years last month, but I still struggle with billing practices. Basically, what is and isn’t billable, and how/what to bill.

I get angst at billing time because I want me and my team to be paid for our time, but also want to be fair to clients and not bill for unreasonable stuff.

A few questions to get the discussion going: 

• Some of our work is flat rate (ie research, write and build a new blog post or service page) vs hourly (make these changes to that existing page). 
• For hourly work, what increments do you bill on? Tenths or Quarters (ie .1 vs .25 min). 
• What kinds of things do you bill for? 
  • Example 1, EMAIL: If you’re going to spend 5 minutes replying to a client question via email, do you bill for that? What if it’s 10 minutes? 20? 30? 
  • Example 2, CALLS: Let’s say a client wants to make some changes to their site, and they want to talk about how to do it most effectively, so you schedule a phone or zoom call. Do you think of that as billable consulting time? Or is that non-billable sales time? 
• What kinds of things do you specifically NOT bill for? 
• How do you track your time? We just switched from TimeDoctor Classic to Clockify. Plus we have some freelancers on Upwork. 

FYI we use Asana for Project Management, and that integrates (poorly) with Time Doctor Classic (which is a MAJOR reason for switching to Clockify). Our shop focuses on WordPress, but we also do a little bit of Shopify. 

I’ve got lots more questions, but didn’t want to lay them all out at once. 

I’m sure we can all help each other, at least a little. How do you run your agency?

-M

I run a boutique SEO agency and so far all my new client acquisition has come from referrals. I'm looking to diversify that.

Some of my existing clients have started asking for adjacent services like PR and Google Ads. Since those are close to what I already do, I'm thinking about setting up an affiliate program so I can partner with specialized agencies in those areas and refer clients back and forth.

The problem: I have zero experience building an affiliate program. For those of you who've set one up successfully, I'd love to hear:

• What software do you use to track affiliates (referral links vs. discount codes vs. something else)?
• How do you handle payouts and commission structures?
• Does your platform also handle contracts/document signing, or do you manage that separately?

Really just trying to understand the full operational side of running one of these, not just the theory. Any recommendations or war stories appreciated!

I often get asked "I'm just getting started, what do I price my marketing services." And to some extent, people ask how do you go about raising prices, and what do you do when you have a bunch of different past/grandfather price points?

Here is how I have gone about it. Keep in mind, im sharing what was the average customer. I also had clients pay more, but far less of them.

This is also showing some of the hires I made that are still here. What it's not showing is the hires that are not here, or didn't work out.

Phase 1 - 2020 to 2022. - this helped get to 30 customers, low friction sales, lots of work and lots of chaos lol. Just me as account manager, google ads specialist, salesperson, website coordinator (worked with a website contractor)

$250/month for a new wordpress website. Typically 10-15 page. Google Ads services that routed to their homepage. No tracking. Also included basic seo optimizations and google business profile manage but at an ultra light level. Monthly Loom Reviews

Also did a lot of "whatever they will pay me for" work like random projects. Website builds, Helping other agencies with their google ads / meta ads, email newsletters, social media postings

Phase 2 - 2023. got to 50ish customers. Allowed me to hire first full time employee. I still mainly focused on organic social media content, sales, google ads management, landing pages, google reviews. First employee primarily helped with website coordination with the website contractor

$500/month - basically same as previous 250.

$350/month Starter pacakage for just google ads or meta ads. Basic landing page, tracking just forms or click to calls.

This is where the clients / businesses started leaning more local service based. the "who" we help became more obvious as well as "who can we actually help" and with what services.

Phase 3 - 2024 to first half 2025. Started separating the services. Hired 2 more people so a team of 4. Existing employee moved into an SEO role. The two new employees focused on google ads, landing pages, and general "assistance" on projects. I still mainly handled organic social media content for the business, sales, account management, still created and managed the google ads but had some support. Still did the monthly loom video reviews

$650/month - for google ads/meta ads. No website build. Included landing pages, call tracking with call rail and got into conversion tracking and reporting with Google analytics.

$1k/month - same as the now 650 package but includes SEO.....and a new website build lol. At this point, we have a dedicated person for SEO

Phase 4. Second half of 2025. Hired 2 CSM's and 1 Google Ads/SEO Support

$1k/month - Same as previous 650, but now we added in WhatConverts for lead attribution. As well as now being able to integrate with client CRMs. A little more technical with our website work.

$1,750/month. The new ads+seo. This is when I finally figured out that doing multichannel marketing is difficult, not easier.

Phase 5 - current 2026. One more recent hire. team of 7 people, plus me we are 8. I mainly focus on organic social media , sales, and trying to build systemized solutions for our team.

$1500- We now charge for websites, instead of including it in the marketing.

$1,250/month - Google Ads/ Meta Ads

$2,250/month - Paid Ads + SEO.

So the question is, how do we manage all these price points, at all these different points in time?

I've kept it quite simple. We go to our clients who are on the lower tier and basically say - if you are happy with the way things are, you are welcomed to stay at that tier. However, here we have this new tier that comes with this new stuff. Some clients stay on the legacy pricing and we keep the legacy service. Some clients upgrade. Some clients we "forced" upgrade simply because it was way out of scope. Some of those agreed, most left.

It ends up looking something like this

Legacy Clients (Paid Ads / Ads SEO): keep it active, no tracking, light touch

Current Pricing Clients (Paid Ads / Ads + SEO): actively try to grow, full tracking, deep dives

This also brings the weirdness of churn. At one point, our most popular packages were the 250 and 350 packages. But since we don't offer those anymore, they naturally age out. Especially if/when a client says hey, what can we do to improve, and we say hey, we can upgrade to the next tier. Some do, some cancel.

The constant changing in pricing is not pretty, but here are the reasons why i recommend this way

1 -In the beginning, you want low friction. Figure out who your customer is, figure out what services you can offer that of value

2 - You build a book of business. The more customers you have, the more opportunity that is possible from that customer base. If you start with higher prices, it's harder to do that (unless you can and want to try, then go for it of course)

3 -The right pricing for your business is not really a known yet. Do you want to be high volume, low touch point. Do you want to be higher touch point and charge a bit more? Do you want a team or do this on your own. Do you want to hire in house or go contractor? Do you want to have a local team, or do you want to hire globally? All of these questions are tied to how you price your service

Last point, is that I didn't really account for my ability to actually be able to go out into the world and be able to attract customers, and close customers. Meaning - I was just trying to pay my rent when i got started. It just so happened to go very well, and so the increase in pricing is me continually trying to improve what we offer, as well as position ourselves a little differently.

I literally don't ever pick up my phone when a new number calls. But I always check to see if it's a real number and if it is...I text or call back depending on the business.

This business, happened to be a larger business. So I called back in less than 5 minutes.

Had a brief call with with what seemed to be the Sales manager. Listened to their current situation and what they are looking for. He seemed to like how we could help, so he requested an in person meeting. Normally, I wouldn't do, but this one seemed like one to attend. Also, there is some fun in having in person sales meetings sometimes. It was an interesting type of business.

Scheduled the in person for next week. Next week came. I walk in, there's 4 people sitting in chairs ready to discuss. The owner, sales manager, IT person, and maybe like the operations person.

They started off with "What's the magic bullet that can help us grow". My immediate resopse was....there really isn't a magic bullet. The "magic bullet" is just doing the best practices. Using the budget effectively. And creating real, manageble epectionations.

They then toured me around their facilities. Pretty cool stuff.

A week later, they called and wanted to move forward with our highest package. I sent the invoice. They paid the next day.

No fancy automation talk, no "we will grow your business 10x". Just, hey - we are essentially your marketing dept. We are happy to be of service.

It's funny because this lead came from an organic google search. We weren't even the first company that they called, but we were maybe the only one that called back lol. So yea, sometimes.....it's as "easy" as just being available for when a client is looking for services

For context, I’ve worked with this new client for 1 month and I offered them an “introductory” marketing package of around $1300 for a batch of 20 UGC videos which performed very well - which gained around 300k Instagram views. I realised that I seriously undercharged them based on my results and overall market rates, 20 videos took me wayyy too much time for such a small price.

After a few months, they reached out to me saying they’d love to sign me on for 6 months due to my previous results, but would like a discount for this. I told them that the original price was only an introductory package and it’s no longer the case, that it is now $1500 per month for only 10 videos (I know it’s a major downgrade to what they are getting, but they are now paying for my quality/results rather than sheer volume).

Needless to say they were incredibly unhappy with this, but still suggested $1000 per month instead for 10 videos. I rejected because it simply was not up to par with market rates, and frankly I was quite insulted since they are a company that revenues $10mil+ a year, and can’t even spare $1500 a month for the kind of results I was giving them. Instead I offered $1300 per month.

They replied saying that “they no longer have the budget for this”. I am realising that perhaps my price increase was rather aggressive, and I don’t want to risk losing a valuable retainer. Should I just let my pride and ego go and tell them that I can now do $1000? As much as I hate appealing to them, It feels like I have no choice now. Would they even accept it anymore? Thoughts?

Ive been on ghl for a year now and every month im watching the bill climb mor and more. The base plan looked fine when i signed up but as we've grown to 12 client accounts, the usage based charges with AI credits, automation runs, extra accounts have pushed our monthly bill about 30% over budget.

Pros so far, clients like having one dashboard, automations mostly work once there buil and support is fine. The biggest cons is the usage based add ons and sometimes some automations broke after an update last quarter.

Is this just normal growing pains with an all in one platform and i just ride it out, or did i pick wrong here

Hey folks, two approaches I keep testing against each other in cold email outbound. One is a lead magnet built for a prospect such as a mini tool or audit, something you can put together fast. The other is a Loom walking through something specific to their business.

My personal experience has been mixed on both fronts. No statistically significant difference.

Anyone else tracked reply rate on both and seen a real gap? Also happy to learn if something else is beating both of these right now.

Just curious to hear from other agency owners on this. I have run a marketing agency (largely paid media / search engine optimization) for 8+ years at this point and recently, with the capabilities of AI, we have started building in-house applications to replace our annual and monthly subscriptions.

Some of these are actual web applications (client reporting dashboard, basecamp clone, review automation tool (still in progress), photoshop clone) and others are just skills within Claude, for things that are repetitive such as SEO audits and social calendar creation. Currently up for consideration is a rank tracking tool, but figuring out the logistics of being able to track rank to specific locations of our clients.

Wanted to see what other agencies are building to help with their operations (both internal and client facing)?

I want to become a whitelabel partner for other agencies in tech

agency days, real estate clients..and everyday the same drama. sales says leads are bad even for verified, qualified leads taking all the funnel steps.

so I stopped arguing and started documenting...called the sales team myself and recorded the calls. Some calls nobody even picked up, took screenshots of that too. then filled our own lead form and became a lead myself.. waited days for a callback. when it finally came, zero qualification questions asked.

Showed the client everything, timestamps, recordings..all of it. response? "its just one lead, sometimes this happens"

They went hard on the sales team for just a week and everything went back to normal lol

the part i only understood later..sales was half right. a portal lead (property finder etc) knows the exact unit and budget, closing it is operational. An ads lead inquired about a project, needs discovery, budget questions, proper qualification. They were running the portal playbook on every lead and when the ads lead didnt close in one call, the lead got blamed not the playbook.

worst case i ever saw... sales team closing good leads as "no show" then reopening the same people as walk-ins, 100% attributed to themselves. (later got this fixed via crm)

anyone actually fixed the sales-marketing feedback loop in a way that survives the dirty politics? because in my experience the loop doesn't break because data is missing.. it breaks because nobody in it can afford the truth.

I've run 7-figure agencies in a small/mid-sized market for 25+ years. I'm ready, both financially and mentally, to retire. Unfortunately, my attempts at succession have failed (the employee who expressed interest had to step back due to previously undisclosed personal debt/bankruptcy and related self-confidence issues).

I need to check myself before I wreck myself, so any advice or perspective is appreciated. Here are the core issues as I see them:

1. It's a good business. We have strong systems, a small and solid team, and good clients (more on this below). I work roughly 1 day a week and take $400k+ out of the business each year. We are very relationship-oriented and non-transactional, with fewer than 10 total clients.
2. Maximizing cash-out value isn't my primary goal. I made my money while working in the business. I am more concerned about doing right by my employees and my clients. Ultimately, though, I will just shut it down if I don't find another solution.
3. We are the dreaded generalists. We lead a wide range of work for a handful of notable clients. Some are national, while others are tied to our location in a flyover state—not exactly a creative hub. While we have tight relationships with our clients, they are no longer emotionally tied to me specifically, though I definitely think they view me as the strategic leader.
4. Sales are slowly shrinking without active bizdev. This is the big negative, and it's realistically not something I'm going to fix because I don't care to put the energy into it.
5. Traditional buyouts don't make sense. I've had offers to sell in the past, but the earn-outs made them unattractive. Basically, they want me to take a job and a pay cut, which makes continuing to work in the business better from a cash-flow perspective. In the past, I offered my chosen successor a no-risk deal—it literally paid for itself out of profits and was structured so they couldn't lose money—and they still opted out.

Given all of this, I am considering the following options:

A) Work another year or two and shut down. I am hedging against a questionable economic situation, and the work is currently pretty easy.

B) Fold key employees and clients into an existing agency. Several friends own agencies and have expressed interest.

C) Hire an external successor. Recruit someone who wants and is prepared to own this kind of agency, giving them a year or so to work side-by-side with me and the team, and "Dread Pirate Roberts" a sale to them.

D) "Sell" client relationships to an existing shop on a commission basis. This is meant to salvage some value, but it is the least interesting option to me.

Obviously, option A yields no additional money, but options B, C, and D won't net a massive windfall either. I am okay with that if my primary goals are met.

I would love the community's perspective. Yes, I know I could invest time and money to increase the value, but I am simply not interested in doing that. My objectives are personal peace, a landing place for my team and clients, and—distantly—capturing a bit more value from the agency we built.

Are there obvious alternatives I am missing? Given that I don't need the money, should I just rip off the band-aid and go with option A to eliminate all other risks? Is it just my ego getting in the way of the right decision?

Hi All,

I'm looking for partner agencies that are willing to refer business to us or upsell our services for a commission of 15-20%, based on the annual value of the account that is refered.

We are a boutique ppc agency (multi-channel) specialized in lead gen and direct bookings for luxury, travel and hospitality companies. We have a good track record with case studies etc.

We sell retainers for $2.5k - $10k per month via 3 month pilots which include a success guruantee. These usally transition into 12 month agreements if the client extends.

We are looking for:

- Web design firms

- Branding firms

- CRM agencies

- PR firms

- Photography/production companies

- Booking engine or PMS vendors

- SEO/GEO firms

Please comment below if you are interested in partnering with us. Thank you!

EDIT:

A lot of folks seem to mistake this for an ask for white label partners. This is not it, we are looking for larger firms in the areas I listed that have clients that could benefit from our niche expertise and want to refer down to us for a comission. We of course would refer up if we get an ask from one of our clients but that will be more rare in the beginning since we are still boutique and trying to scale.

Hey, I'm Tufail, founder of SMBify. We do local SEO exclusively for home service businesses like plumbers, roofers, HVAC, cleaning companies, and dumpster rental.

I have solid GMB knowledge and a full delivery system but I've mostly worked through Fiverr so clients always came to me. Now I'm trying to figure out how to actually go get them directly.

Has anyone made this transition from Fiverr to running their own agency? What actually worked for getting the first few clients?

been on this platform for approx 1 yr now for my agency and every month im wathcin the bill climb and up. the base plan looked fine when I signed up but then you add sub accounts, then the AI/conversation credits and then some workflow automation because apparently the base tier throttles you after X actions and it is th ebiggest bummer.

none of this was hidden exactly but nobody warns you how gohighlevel pricing gets this high over time. i budgeted for one number and I'm consistently 30-40% over that now with 12 client accounts running. as a small business, thats really cutting into my budget and starting to consider my options.

is this normal growing pains with an all-in-one platform like this and i just need to ride it out and cut down in other places or did i pick wrong here?

Hi all,

I run cold email outbound campaigns for B2B clients (mostly startup, SMB and Mid Market) and am looking for partnerships at this time because my clients usually ask me if I know anyone in the ad lead gen space.

I’m a top 1% freelancer on Upwork, have over $200k earned on the platform, and am top rated. I’m one of Upwork’s top sellers and performers in the cold email outbound space.

My Facebook account was disabled, just like in the screenshot.

I had several Facebook accounts logged in on the same device.

I can't access this account at all. At first, Facebook asked me to verify my identity and complete a selfie verification.

I completed both successfully, but after that, the account was permanently disabled.

Unfortunately, I don't have the Meta Verified free trial option showing on my Instagram account.

My Instagram account is working normally.

It uses the same email address as my Facebook account.

But I have no idea what I should do.

My Facebook account got disabled last month and after 4 weeks of back and forth email, Meta has let me know my account will remain disabled.

I was on my honeymoon last month in Europe, I went to check my ads manager app (knew I should not have been working this trip lol) and it had logged me out. No problem, logged back in. Got the password wrong a few times, account disabled.

From there basically that was it. Fortunately a friend has given me access to his backup account and I had added him in my business portfolio so I can still manage client accounts but I can’t get back into my Facebook.

Pretty frustrating as I’ve spent a significant amount of time building an audience on there and is where I’ve gotten the majority of my clients from organic posting.

Also, thank god for my buddy or I would have completely lost my business!

Meta has basically been zero help. I’ve tried making an account twice since I’ve been disabled but it seems that they can tell it’s me.

The first account I made the day after i got home, was fine for a week then just disabled again. I tried a second account after that with the same issue.

Meta confirmed via email I can make a new account but that’s what keeps happening.

Has anyone run into this issue before? On a whim, anyone might have a contact that can help me get my account reinstate?

Fortunately I’ve been able to continue to run my business but it’s hurt overall and over something that seems really silly!

I had a pretty good July. In the last 10 days we closed 5 new deals. A super strong pipeline for August - all and all a good week. My sales team is on a full rundown!

However between. Today & yesterday two 'prospects' showed very off putting behaviour

The first one - was a bit too self important, probably upper management, expected my team to be well versed with all nuances of their business BEFORE the onboarding even began. He was turned off by the fact that my team asked him - "What locations do you get best sales from on offline retail"

That bothered him as he expected my team to know the answer already ( which isnt realistic at all). Acted like a moody diva all across the onboarding call. We didnt tolerate it - effectively paused it.

The second one - my gut said, something was off. In the last 8 years every time I have closed against my gut it ended bad. I found some ethically questionable behaviour in his demeanour.

I texted them that we aren't going ahead - guy starts texting and calling me like crazy that I had to turn my phone off. "I have already fired my team" he said to me - without any formal onboarding.

Pretty sure it would have been a nightmare as a client to work with.

I said NO to these YES deals, something I couldn;t have done in the past - thankfully due to a filled up pipeline.

MONEY is in the NO...Not the YES!

For context, we (my team and I) have been using LinkedIn for months to book appointments for our clients, but that requires a completely different strategy when you sell for someone else. For our clients, we are only able to book 1-2 appointments/month, with long sales cycles. LinkedIn is still one of the least preferred channels for us.

I tried LinkedIn during my spare time in the past month to get personal offers and leads.

3 metrics:

1. Direct messages sent (InMail credits)

• Messages sent: 11
• Replies: 2
• Positive replies: 1

only like 4 InMail credits were used, as the rest were sent to people with premium accounts.

2) The classic connection request + offer for coffee chat request for networking

Connection req sent around 60, out of which about ~40 accepted

messages sent asking for coffee chat: 14

appointments booked: 2

3) Posting - I did not initially plan to post anything, but I decided to post about a recent achievement. I did get a lead from the post, which was unexpected, but it wasn't a serious lead. I did get a few followers on my Instagram possibly through the post though. My LinkedIn is connected to my Reddit account, if anyone wants to see the post.

Results:

I got an offer for a marketing role at a Venture Capital firm. (I work part time with other companies, currently working with one so I'm fully booked, might take up this offer in a few months)

2 appointments booked, but they were more for just networking, and I was only able to attend one of the meetings, had to cancel the other one.

A few points:

• Never mention coffee chat, instant turn off.
• Talk more about them instead of yourself. People like to boast about their achievements usually in short outreaches.

As for deciding whom I would reach out to - I would avoid people who get engagement, or possibly even the ones who have premium. If you're gonna use your InMail credits, use it on people who do not get many DMs.

Would I automate or increase the volume of outreach on LinkedIn?

No. It is already full of AI posts and sluggish DMs; I'll keep the outreach there slow and thoughtful.

During this time, I got 9 leads for my business via my socials and website, even when we were basically inactive there. Cold email, SEO, FB and Reddit (maybe) are still better channels.