The Agency White-Label Playbook

You already did the hard part. You signed the clients, you earned their trust, and you send them an invoice every month. The question is how much revenue each of those line items carries, and how much of it survives when a client tightens their budget.

Most agencies sell hours. Websites, ad management, retainers. Every dollar of revenue costs you a dollar of somebody's time, and the month you stop working is the month the revenue stops.

Software margin works differently. You sell the same product to client thirty that you sold to client one, and your cost per client barely moves. White-label SMS closes that gap: you resell a texting platform under your own brand, at your own prices, billed through your own Stripe. Your clients log into yourbrand.com and see your logo. Because you already have a roster, you're not building from zero, you're adding a line item to relationships that already exist.

This playbook walks through the actual numbers, three pricing models with worked examples, who to pitch first, the pitch itself, and a 30-day launch plan.

Part 1: The math nobody shows you

The model has two core cost components: activation and wholesale messaging usage. Minimum monthly usage may apply based on partner tier after the launch period.

1. One-time activation, no recurring platform fee. Your branded software, your subdomain, unlimited clients.
2. Wholesale credits, starting at 3¢ each. One credit sends one SMS segment. You buy them in bulk, the rate drops as your volume grows (2.5¢ at 50,000 credits, lower above that), and you resell at whatever price you set.

Partners price credits between 4¢ and 10¢. Five cents is the usual starting point and the one our ROI calculator assumes: at 5¢ you keep 2¢ of every credit on a product you didn't build and don't maintain.

Here's a typical local client, the same example our ROI calculator starts with. A restaurant, salon, or retail shop sends about 2,000 texts a month. You charge a $99 monthly plan plus 2,000 credits at 5¢, so they pay $199. Your wholesale cost is $60 at the 3¢ starter rate. Your margin is $139 a month. Now scale it across a roster:

There is no monthly platform fee coming out of that. Your one-time activation is the only fixed cost: at ten clients, a $3,500 Agency activation pays back in about three months, and volume discounts widen the margin from there (the jump at 25 clients is the 2.5¢ wholesale tier kicking in). After your launch period, your partner agreement may set a minimum monthly usage. The number that matters more than any of these: churn. A client can pause their Facebook ads without losing anything. If they cancel their texting plan, they lose their number, their list, and their opt-ins, which took months to build. Resellers routinely see texting clients outlast every other line item on the invoice.

Part 2: Three ways to price it

There is no single right model. There is a right model for how your agency already bills.

Model A: Pure per-credit markup

You charge nothing monthly. Clients buy credits from you at 5¢ to 8¢ and burn them as they go. Worked example: a client sends 3,000 texts/mo at 5¢ = $150 revenue, your cost $90, margin $60/client/mo. Use this when your clients are small, irregular senders who would balk at another subscription. Easiest yes, least predictable revenue.