What a white label web partner actually costs an agency
Agencies pay white label partners roughly $2,500–5,000 for a theme-based build, $6,000–12,000 for a custom site and $8,000–20,000 for a store, then bill clients two to three times that. Maintenance retainers run $150–800 per site per month. The number that decides profitability is not the rate — it is how many revision rounds and how much project management sit outside it.
Most agencies discover white label pricing the expensive way: they quote a client from a partner’s headline rate, win the project, and then find out what was not in it.
This is what the market actually charges in 2026, what is left over, and where the money leaks.
Partner rates by project type
These are rates agencies pay a partner, not what the client pays at the end.
| Build type | Partner rate |
|---|---|
| Theme-based site | $2,500 – 5,000 |
| Custom site | $6,000 – 12,000 |
| WooCommerce or Shopify store | $8,000 – 20,000 |
| Maintenance, per site per month | $150 – 800 |
| Dedicated monthly capacity | $2,000 – 5,000 |
The spread inside each row is not arbitrary. A theme-based site at the bottom of the range means the partner is installing a purchased theme and replacing content. At the top it means custom template work on a theme foundation, which is a different job wearing the same name.
What you bill the client
The sustainable benchmark is a gross margin of fifty to seventy percent on total delivery cost. If your partner charges $2,500, you bill $5,000 to $7,500.
That markup is not a tax on the client. It pays for the things the partner never sees: the discovery call, the four emails clarifying what the client meant, the review before anything reaches them, and the fact that you carry the relationship if something goes wrong at 6pm on a Friday.
Agencies that mark up less than fifty percent usually discover they have bought themselves a job rather than a margin.
Where the money actually leaks
The headline rate rarely breaks the economics. These four do.
Revision rounds. Two rounds is the standard inclusion. Your client will want four. If the partner charges for rounds three and four and you have already quoted a fixed price, the difference comes out of your margin.
Content. Most partner quotes assume content is supplied. Most clients assume content is included. Someone writes it, and if nobody priced it, that someone is you at midnight.
Project management. A good partner includes it. A cheap one expects you to brief developers directly, which means your senior person spends six hours a week doing coordination you thought you had outsourced.
Post-launch fixes. Fourteen to thirty days is normal. Anything shorter means bugs found in week five are billable, and explaining that to a client who just paid you is not a conversation anyone wins.
Questions that change the quote
Before comparing two partners on price, make the two prices comparable:
- How many revision rounds are included, and what does an extra one cost?
- Is project management inside the rate or beside it?
- Who writes the content, and what happens if the client does not supply it?
- How long is the post-launch fix period?
- How many projects do you run at once, and what happens if you are full?
- Do we get source files and hosting access, or is anything retained?
A partner who answers all six in writing before being asked is usually the more expensive one on the sheet and the cheaper one by the end of the project.
What we charge
We publish partner rates rather than quoting per enquiry: a landing page from 950 €, a site up to eight pages from 2,900 €, an online store from 4,500 €, brand identity from 1,800 €, and reserved monthly capacity from 2,900 €. Thirty days of fixes are included, and we take two or three agency projects at a time.
That is well below the US ranges above, which is the point — the margin the table leaves you is the reason this arrangement exists at all.
Common questions
What margin should an agency keep on white label work?
Between fifty and seventy percent of the total delivery cost is the working benchmark. If a partner charges you 2,500, billing the client 5,000 to 7,500 covers your project management, client communication, quality review and profit without pricing you out of the market.
Is per-project or retainer better?
Per-project suits unpredictable pipelines and protects you from paying for idle capacity. A retainer makes sense once you are sending work every month, because it buys priority and a known cost. Start per-project and move when the volume is steady.
What should already be included in the price?
Development time, quality assurance, project management, a staging environment, handover documentation and a post-launch bug-fix period of two to four weeks. If any of those are line items rather than inclusions, the quote is lower than the real cost.
