By Hot take of the year: Your clients need white-label websites. Ok, you knew that a decade ago, but it’s STILL true. In fact, many agencies continue to underestimate the demand for SMB website solutions. The reality is that website design and white-label hosting is a US $65+ billion market, yet less than 75% of agencies offer website solutions, whether developing their own or utilizing white-label hosting.
That’s a huge missed opportunity.
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Actually, ‘underestimate’ may be the wrong word. Most agencies probably want to offer websites, but they just don’t realize that scaling their website services doesn’t require a team of developers and web design savants.
There’s another option out there. White-label websites exists to address this exact issue, allowing you to sell white-label website solutions to your clients without any knowledge of CSS, HTML, coding and the like.
Here’s the ultimate beauty of white-labeling: Your white-label partner will do all the work while you get all the credit.
Let’s take a closer look at how white-labeling works for website solutions and why it’s an essential service for agencies of all sizes.
Table of Contents
- Why agencies resell white-label hosting & white-label websites
- Why you need to seize the market opportunity in white-label websites Before your competition does
- 5 white-label website solutions you can resell
- White-label websites: choosing a provider, selling, and launching your client’s site
- Top white-label website builders available
- Start reselling websites
Why agencies resell white-label hosting & white-label websites
White-label hosting and website solutions are website-related products and services resellers can rebrand and sell at their own price point to business clients. This could mean reselling white-label hosting, web design and creation services, or even website add-on products like live chats or form builders.
The most common solution for white-label websites is a design & development service provided by a third-party provider. Companies can sell white-label websites designed by the white-label website provider under their own brand and at their own price-point.
Here’s a breakdown of how it works using web development as an example:
- A white-label web design provider, Company A, partners with a marketing services provider, Company B. Company A can create and design white-label websites that Company B resells under their brand.
- Specifically, a white-label team from Company A fulfills the web design needs for the clients of Company B.
- The website appears on the outside to be created by Company B, but behind the scenes, it was designed and created by Company A.
Here's a visual to help explain:
The best thing about the white-label model is it’s risk-free for the agency—ROI is built-in:
- Get white label solutions at wholesale prices from the supplier.
- Markup the cost at your desired margin and resell white-label website builders.
- Only pay for what sell.
Taking advantage of white-label hosting and website solutions can lead to huge gains for your agency without adding a ton of overhead or "losing face" by openly outsourcing your products and offerings.
Why you need to seize the market opportunity in white-label websites Before your competition does
Websites are a core aspect of any business' online presence and acts as the "home-base" for their virtual doorway. Every other aspect of digital marketing funnels back to your website, which acts as the foundation of your client's online presence and is generally optimized for making that final conversion or sale.
We've said it before and we'll say it again: if you don't build white-label websites for your clients then someone else will.
In order to stay competitive and meet the demands of your clients, your agency must offer a variety of local business solutions. Other agencies, freelance designers, and self-build tools are stealing valuable website solution clients away from your web agency. Differentiate your agency from the rest by offering local businesses the core ingredient to having success online, and add on solutions from there.
Historically, website solutions have made up a HUGE portion of the projected advertiser spend, and they remain a large part of the marketing budget (Harvard Business Review).
It’s clear that white-label hosting and website design/maintenance will continue to take up a large part of most SMBs projected marketing budgets.
Do the solutions agencies offer match the SMB market demand?
Not at all! According to SearchEngineJournal, social media and full-service digital are the two most common services agencies offer, with websites coming in 3rd. There’s a market opportunity here for you. Strike while the window is open. While social media and digital advertising are great, a solid website should be an SMB's number one priority, making white-label hosting and solutions a great addition to your lineup. What good is digital advertising if the traffic is being driven to a poorly constructed website?
Website solutions present a large market opportunity in digital, yet not all agencies sell them. Taking advantage of this avalanche of website spending by adding white-label hosting and website solutions will turn your business into that sticky agency that clients can depend on as their one-stop-shop for all their marketing solutions.
5 white-label website solutions you can resell
Adding some form of white-label website products or services is a great idea for any reseller that works in the marketing space. A no-brainer option is to offer a full website package through a white-label provider: website creation (design and development) and white-label hosting.
Here’s a deeper look at what you can offer:
1. Website Hosting
1. Website HostingWebsite hosting is a US $32 billion industry, yet offering white-label hosting internally as an agency may present some technical challenges. As an agency, the last thing you want to put your valuable time into is mastering the technical aspects of web hosting. Virus and malware protection, a secure connection for site visitors, site backups, and increased bandwidth are key aspects to consider in a hosting solution.
With white-label hosting the developer tools do the heavy lifting so you can stay focused on what makes you money—selling and designing beautiful white-label websites for multiple clients.
Vendasta website hosting services: WebsitePro
2. Website Creation Services
2. Website Creation ServicesOn the public-facing side, website design and maintenance is nearly a US $40 billion market. If you’d like to step out of the middle of the website creation process for your clients, a white-label website creation solution could be the answer. As the core of your client’s online presence, you’ll be providing a vital piece of your client’s business. Plus, pairing website creation with the other key services on this list will keep your clients locked in to ensure a longer and closer relationship.
Look for solutions that’ll take care of the website creation and design, as well as ongoing maintenance which includes security, backups, and optimization, all under your agency’s brand.
”Working with my partner Vendasta became that much better when website creation appeared into Marketplace. Budget is always a concern for small businesses as well as timing...well that has now been resolved! AMG has launched over 30 websites in the past year utilizing the website creation in Marketplace, ranging from simple and effective landing pages to 10 page fully custom designed websites. Here is the key, however—not only are these websites cost effective for the client, but are great looking sites with optimal functionality. At the end of day, my client has a website that they love completed in a timely manner that fits their budget."
AMG Branding Agency
Vendasta website creation services: Website Creation
3. Website Builders
3. Website BuildersWhite-label website builders give you and your clients the ability to create modern, responsive mobile-friendly websites that are optimized for all devices. These websites can be easily created for any type of business, in any vertical.
Building custom white-label websites for your clients is never going to be a snap fingers=get website situation, but most modern builders have an intuitive WYSIWYG editor with drag-and-drop capabilities. This makes the process much less cumbersome than in the past. Additionally, white-label website builders can be a great DIY offering for business clients with smaller budgets.
Vendasta website building services: White-label website Builder
4. Website Content
4. Website ContentMany of your clients are also going to want help with their website content - both on their product/service pages and blog. With white-labeled content, you can establish your client as a trusted expert in their field with fully-researched industry-specific content for their site and blog. The best part is that you don’t need writing expertise or any knowledge about your client’s industry.
If you’re already building a website for your client, selling content for the site as well is a no-brainer. It’s a great way to expand your agency’s services, add value, generate extra revenue, and become a stickier agency overall.
Vendasta website content services: White-label content essentials such as: blog writing and web content through Boostability
5. Website Add-Ons
5. Website Add-OnsAdd additional value to your website bundles through supplementary products to keep clients sticking around. This could be things like a website live chat, built-in appointment scheduling widget, or even a review generation service to get great reviews added on to your clients' site for their customers to see. The website is the core of your offering—add in the smaller widgets and services to really go the extra mile as a web agency.
Website add-on services in the Vendasta Marketplace: Appointment scheduling, instant white-label website builders, form builder, live chat, chatbot
White-label websites: choosing a provider, selling, and launching your client’s site
Now that we’ve discussed why to offer website solutions and which ones to offer, let’s take a look at how to actually offer them to your clients.
Choose a white-label partner
Your reputation is everything as an agency. The company and white-label team you choose to partner with will be representing you, so it’s essential to know exactly what you need as you research prospective partners!
Here are the 3 main elements of a great white-label partner:
- They're the right fit: Choosing a partner with similar goals and vision and one that provides a solid product or service that's right for your business is key. A partner who'll help you sell the products they’re supplying is a nice bonus.
- They have a stellar reputation: Don't waste your time on companies with a poor reputation and track record. You need a reputable partner with white-label experience and one that offers excellent service and support.
- They're transparent: Make sure you can test drive their product or service up front, and check that their contract terms are clear. You should also make sure they offer proof of performance through detailed reporting.
Bonus elements: Here are a few website solution-specific elements to consider:
- They have a portfolio of past websites across different verticals you can review
- They have specific security guarantees/parameters
- They offer free migration from one provider to the next
- They have minimum hosting speed requirements
Tip: For a more detailed look at what to look for in a white-label hosting and services partner, you should check out this post.
Selling white-label websites
Selling website services can be difficult. With a product like an iPhone or Laptop, the customer has a pretty good idea what they’re getting. Services like custom website creation have much more variability, uncertainty, and risk for your client.
Just like any other product or service that you’re selling, a prospective customer is only going to buy if they understand the value of the purchase and trust that you’ll do a good job.
When you sell white-label websites, your sales pitch comes down to communicating that value with your business clients. To sell website services you must:
- Get customers to buy-in: Show value in your agency’s services and build trust in your professionalism and expertise. Your salesperson will need to show local business prospects where to improve their current website or demonstrate the value of creating a website. Plus, they’ll need to offer social proof that you’re a trustworthy agency to work with.
- Eliminate the fear of one-time website design: Freelance web design contractors have created a stigma around websites where web design is simply the one-off creation of a site with zero assistance offered after the site is built. Show your clients that your agency (and white-label partner) are able to help them with maintenance and any future updates, additions, or re-designs they may want.
- Offer a variety of website services for their business: If your client prefers WordPress, no problem! Enable your clients who are already using WordPress to import their sites to your white-label hosting. For the clients who want simple solutions that they can control, offer drag-and-drop website building tools. Do they want more pages? eCommerse options? Conversion-optimized landing pages? Make sure you offer these options.
Note: Want to learn more about this step? Download our 6-Step Guide on Selling Website Services to Local Businesses
Website creation with a white-label team
Working with a white-label website creation team should be a communicative, collaborative process, just as it would be for any contract work you purchase.
Here are the basic steps that go into working with your white-label team:
- Consultation: The process should start with a consultation call to discuss the client’s needs and details about the project, like the color scheme and logo, domain name preferences, check out some sample sites, marketing materials, homepage layout requirements, tabs and pages, features, images and graphics ideas.
- Website creation: Next, the team will start working on the website, checking in to determine that the site’s branding and design elements and industry-specific content are coming together as agreed.
- Launching the website: After everything has been submitted and approved by you, your white-label team will complete the look and feel of the site with some final site optimization tasks. After that final work is completed and approved, your client’s website will go live and be ready for business!
Note: Direct contact between your white-label team and your client will be essential to make all this happen! This is why it’s essential to choose a company that’ll represent you well. For example, Vendasta’s white-label teams act on behalf of our partners and we always use a toll-free number and a white-labeled email to reach out to our partner’s clients.
After you go live, your clients will inevitably have some feedback and requests. The completion of work on a website should not end when the first iteration of the site goes live! This is a great time to suggest maintenance packages and design upgrades if you haven’t done so already.
For an agency to be successful, it's not just about how to sell websites—it's also about how to develop long-term client relationships and grow a valuable business relationship. Providing ongoing value will be beneficial to both parties, and keep your agency making money and growing.
Top white-label website builders available
White-label website builders give you the opportunity to resell web design and add your branding to the sites you sell to your customers. Instead of the website builder brand it’s replaced with your branding colors, logo, and features unique to your brand. This might sound small but really it gives the reseller more control over the narrative they want to share with prospects. Showing the branded back end of a white-label website builders to clients can give resellers automatic authority on the topic in the customers eyes at least, and that’s what matters. From that authority and controlled narrative, trust can be built and grown into a successful business relationship making it easier to expand your customer base.
There are a lot of benefits to reselling a white-label website builder solution. Because it’s white label you control the margins. Your clients don’t know what builder tool you’re using, therefore they don’t know how much of a profit you are turning as a white-label website reseller. This gives you the option to increase profits.
There are so many white-label website builder options available, and we want to make it easier for you to find the one that best suits your unique needs as a reseller that wants to serve clients only the best solutions. We’ve compiled the top white-label website builders in this list to help you make your decision and offer clients a memorable experience!
1. Vendasta
We have our own white-label answer to all the other white-label website builders on this list. Vendasta has a host of products and services available for white-label website builders to take advantage of. From a white-label team of digital marketing fulfillment experts, to secure managed WordPress hosting, design, domain registration and management.
With our solutions you can make your clients’ white-label websites interactive points of communication for their customers and establish businesses as the local expert in everything they do. Make your clients websites stand out with design and functionality.
Benefits include:
- Partner dashboard
- Partner resources: Community forum & community sessions
- Design templates
- 24/7 support
- A marketplace of over 250 products and services beyond white-label websites
- Chatbot
- Cloud-based white-label website builder
2. Wix
This well-known white-label website builder has brand power, which means it has staying power. It’s easy to use with drag and drop functionality, and has a Wix Partner program for agencies and freelancers that adds the white-label piece to their white-label website builder offering. Wix isn’t automatically a playground for any white-label website builder, but the partner program adds the option and their affiliate program sweetens the deal.
As a Wix partner you get access to account management, revenue sharing, professional resources, and priority support. The partner program tracks points. These points are earned by selling premium sites, and the more premium sites sold, the more benefits and perks are unlocked. Essentially, you level up through five levels as you sell more.
Unfortunately, with Wix you can only achieve white-label website reseller status once you’ve reached the fourth out of five levels. Before then, the sites you resell will be Wix branded.
Benefits include:
- Partner dashboard
- Partner resources
- Shared media library
- Partner blog
- Partner forum
3. Squarespace
Similar to Wix, Squarespace requires users to join a program called “Circle” if they want a white-label website reseller experience. To become a Circle partner you need to build or contribute to three websites.
The Circle partner program includes a number of learning opportunities including a community similar to Vendasta’s, member only forum access, and weekly release notes.
Benefits:
- Extended trials for any website
- Discounts on new annual subscriptions
- Referral payments for bringing in clients
- Product beta testing participation
4. Weebly
Weebly is a part of the Square product suite that gives freedom to sell anytime and anywhere because Square takes care of the payments. This white-label website builder is a good starter to get step-by step guidance on how to create and launch a website. There are guides and tools to walk you through the DIY process.
This free website builder allows for customizations, order management, shipping, and payments. Plus it comes with a big library of webpage designs and tools to build client sites.
Benefits:
- Library of templates and design ideas
- Build for free
- Drag and drop editor
- Dynamic elements
- Custom HTML/CSS & Javascript
5. HubSpot
HubSpot offers a flexible editor and website security in a space where you can grow your website visitors. Build and resell white-label websites optimised for any screen size and integrate with your existing marketing tools. This platform offers multi-language content, a drag and drop editor, and is easily customizable without coding.
The biggest perk with Hubspot is their CRM, which stores interactions customers have with all websites built in their white-label website builders. You can use this stored information for marketing campaigns and grow your clients business with increased sales.
Benefits:
- Fully integrated CRM
- Drag and drop editor
- Custome SEO recommendations in the building process
- Templates and themes
- Cloud-based white-label website builder
6. Duda
This white-label website builder takes pride in being white-label. It supports high productivity and cuts down build time with automated workflows. Reduce the stress of website revisions using integrated tools to collect content and collaborate with clients inside the platform.
Duda specializes in white-label websites and customization in their design. Features are constantly being updated to give you and your clients the best they can offer.
Benefits:
- Design templates
- 24/7 support
- Built-in upsells
- White-label marketing resources
7. Ecwid
This white-label SaaS solution specializes in graphic design, marketing, and software development. It’s a less affordable option in this list, but a powerful tool. So depending on your clientele this might be a great option! If you don’t want full control you can co-brand the white-label websites you resell. For top tier members the WordPress plugin comes free but for all other tiers you have to pay an additional one time fee.
Ecwid has narrowed their partner program to two pricing tiers with a big difference in their offerings and their prices. Both include white label reselling as an option.
Benefits:
- Enables automation with their API
- Big discounts
- Cloud-based white-label website builder
- Co-brand or resell as one brand
8. Strikingly
Trusted by millions of users Strikingly has simplicity and style. It’s specifically a white-label website builder with built-in ecommerce that has tools meant to cultivate your client’s audience. Strikingly focuses on design with galleries, video backgrounds, custom colors, and media sliders integrated into their editor.
Much like the majority of this list, every site comes with analytics built in to see what kind of traffic is visiting your client’s sites. Use this information for targeted re-marketing campaigns to loop in already interested customers.
Benefits:
- 24/7 support
- Domain names
- Simple store and blog features
- Social feed
- Analytics
9. Brizy
This self-proclaimed next-gen white-label website builder boasts that once you go Brizy, nothing else feels easy. This easy to use builder gives you the option of either Brizy WordPress hosted by you the reseller, or Brizy Cloud hosted by them.
Brizy is “agency ready” with white label websites, domain publishing options, and an unlimited number of team members for easy collaboration between your own team and your client. You can also integrate marketing apps you already rely on so you don’t have to start over completely.
Benefits:
- Knowledge base and documentation
- Email support
- Video tutorials
- Free Forever plan
10. Simvoly
Simvoly specializes in websites, ecommerce, funnels, email marketing and automation, CRM, and appointment booking. They claim to be the first platform that combines both websites and funnels under one roof seamlessly.
With detailed analytics, custom checkout designs, and the option to become a white-label websites partner this platform is worth a look. Like Vendasta the whole platform can be white labelled to resell web design under your own brand.
Benefits:
- Drag and drop editor
- A/B testing
- 1-click upsells
- Custom checkouts
- Templates
Start reselling white-label websites
White-label hosting and website products truly open the door to new options and multiple streams of revenue without the knowledge, time, and staffing commitments that traditional agency growth requires.
Note: Post updated in 2022 by Emily Dyrland
