What “white-label” actually means (and how it differs)
A white-label development partner builds products for your clients while remaining invisible to them. You own the client relationship, approvals, and branding; they deliver under your banner.
How this differs from other third parties:
- Traditional dev agency: Works under its own brand and may interact directly with your client. You’re a collaborator, not the sole owner of the relationship.
- Freelancers/contractors: Individuals you manage directly. Flexible, but quality and continuity can vary; you shoulder more delivery risk and management.
- White-label partner: A team operating behind the scenes with your processes and standards. You keep the client-facing role; they provide capacity, specialization, or both.
This guide isn’t a pitch for any model. It’s a practical look at trade-offs, costs, and questions to help you choose what fits your agency.
1. Understanding the real cost structure
A common starting point for agencies is comparing a partner's hourly rate to an in-house developer's salary, but this is only part of the picture.
What to consider:
Costs for an in-house team:
- Base salary + benefits (typically 1.3-1.4x salary)
- Recruitment costs (20-30% of annual salary)
- Training and professional development ($2-5K per developer annually)
- Software licenses and tools
- Management overhead (developers need technical leadership)
- Bench time during slow periods (the hidden killer)
- Severance and turnover costs
Costs for white label partnerships:
- Project rates (typically $75-150/hour depending on complexity)
- Communication overhead (more meetings, documentation)
- Less direct control over processes
- Onboarding time for each new project
- Potential misalignment on standards
An important financial perspective:
A senior developer earning $120K salary realistically costs about $156K with benefits. Adding recruitment costs, tools, and approximately 15% bench time, the annual cost moves closer to $180K for about 1,700 billable hours.
That translates to an approximate cost of $106 per hour, excluding management time. A white label partner charging $100–$120 per hour may be cost-effective only if you consistently sustain utilization rates above 80%, which isn’t always achievable.
Tip: Track your project pipeline and development hours over the past 18 months. If your workload varies more than 30%, flexible white label costs might be more advantageous than fixed internal salaries.
2. The specialization trade-off in agency growth
Few agencies discuss how balancing creative excellence and dev expertise presents challenges, though some agencies navigate this successfully.
The specialization dilemma:
When hiring developers internally, leadership needs to:
- Understand web architecture sufficiently to review and approve work
- Stay informed about frameworks, security, and performance best practices
- Support developer growth and satisfaction
- Make decisions about tooling and software choices
- Manage technical debt effectively
This does require a significant investment of time and resources. It can be a challenge to divide leadership bandwidth effectively between creative and technical excellence, and not every team balances both equally well.
Some reflective questions:
- Is there someone on your leadership team passionate about keeping pace with web development trends?
- Can your agency provide developers with a clear career path and mentorship?
- Do your projects provide enough technical challenges to engage developers?
Answering "no" to several of these may indicate potential challenges in retaining good developers, which can make the in-house route a more expensive and less stable option.
What tends to work well:
Agencies with an in-house technical co-founder or partner embedded in the dev community often navigate these challenges more smoothly. For others, it may be easier to define expectations and evaluate quality through trusted white label partners.
3. How to evaluate dev quality without being technical
A common concern is how to assess development quality if you aren’t technical.
Practical evaluation framework:
Before the project:
- Ask for details about their testing and QA processes.
- Request anonymized code samples from similar projects, checking documentation and clarity.
- Inquire about performance benchmarks such as PageSpeed, Lighthouse, and Core Web Vitals.
- Confirm their approach to accessibility, including use of screen readers and WCAG compliance.
During the project:
- Request frequent staging environments to test on various devices.
- Expect ongoing documentation updates.
- Encourage explanations of technical choices in plain language.
After launch:
- Monitor performance using tools like Google PageSpeed Insights.
- Check functionality across different connections, devices, and browser settings.
- Evaluate how easy it is to make content updates.
Watch out for potential issues:
- Limited staging environment access
- Lack of attention to browser compatibility or accessibility
- Over-reliance on proprietary platforms or tools
- Difficulty explaining technology in straightforward terms
- Sparse or unclear documentation
Positive signs:
- Proactive communication
- Transparent processes and documented standards
- Routine automated testing
- Clear project handoffs
- Respectful challenges to design choices when needed
4. Building a successful white label relationship
Many agency-white label relationships struggle because relationship structures are unclear or weak, more than because of code quality.
A practical partnership framework:
1. Define the handoff points clearly
Create a checklist:
- Who provides: design files, content, functionality specs, hosting, domain access?
- What format: Figma? Sketch? Interactive prototypes? Wireframes?
- When: How many days before dev starts?
- Who's responsible for: client approvals, feedback consolidation, change requests?
Ambiguity in these areas is a primary cause of project friction.
2. Establish communication cadence
What works for most agencies:
- Brief kickoff call (1 hour)
- Async daily updates (Slack or project management tool)
- Weekly check-in calls (30 minutes)
- Staging environment reviews (as needed)
- Post-launch retrospective (30 minutes)
Frequent early check-ins can help avoid surprises, depending on your team's style.
3. Create a shared quality bar
Before your first project together:
- Share 3 examples of sites you love (and why)
- Share 3 examples of sites you'd never want to ship (and why specifically)
- Define your performance minimums (load time, mobile scores, accessibility)
- Agree on browser/device testing scope
This becomes your shared quality contract.
4. Plan for the "gray zone" decisions
Every project has moments where design intent meets technical reality:
- "This animation will slow page load by 30%"
- "This layout breaks on tablets"
- "This feature needs 15 extra dev hours"
Decide upfront: who makes the call? Usually it's your PM, but they need authority and clear parameters.
5. Build knowledge transfer into the process
Good white label partners should make you smarter:
- Ask them to explain technical trade-offs during the project
- Request documentation that your team can reference later
- Have them do a walkthrough of the admin/CMS
- Get a "how to maintain this" guide for your team
Partners who share knowledge help your team get stronger over time.
5. The hybrid model as a balanced option
One approach worth exploring is hybrid staffing, blending in-house and white label for flexibility, not always better, but useful for some.
What this looks like:
- Hire one strong full-stack developer internally
- Use white label partners for overflow and specialization
- Your internal dev becomes the technical translator and QA lead
Why this works:
- Your internal developer can evaluate white label work quality
- They handle urgent small changes and maintenance
- They bring technical perspective to creative conversations
- White label partners handle the heavy lifting
- You maintain technical credibility without a full dev team
When to use each:
- Internal developer for:
- Small updates and emergency fixes
- Technical discovery and scoping
- Quality assurance on white label work
- Direct client technical conversations
- Platform/tool selection guidance
- White label partner for:
- New site builds
- Complex feature development
- Specialized work (e-commerce, apps, integrations)
- Large redesigns
- Projects requiring multiple developers
This model gives you technical capability without the overhead of a full team.
6. Questions to ask before committing
Reflect on these points when choosing between internal hires, white label partners, or a hybrid:
Strategic questions:
- What percentage of our revenue comes from work that requires development? (If under 40%, white label probably makes more sense)
- Do we want to be known for technical innovation, or creative excellence? (You can be good at both, great at one)
- What's our 3-year vision: more clients or deeper services? (More clients = white label, deeper services = in-house)
Operational questions:
- How consistent is our project pipeline? (Variable = white label)
- Do we have technical leadership on our team currently? (No = white label will be easier)
- How important is immediate availability for client changes? (Very important = consider hybrid)
Financial questions:
- What's our current profit margin on projects? (Under 30% = you need efficiency, might favor white label)
- Can we afford 6 months of reduced margins while we hire and train? (No = white label)
- Do we have capital reserves for slow periods with full-time staff? (No = white label)
7. Making the transition smooth
If you decide to work with a white label partner, here's how to set yourself up for success:
Start small:
- Don't hand over your biggest client first
- Pick a mid-sized project where you can learn their process
- Give yourself buffer time to account for the learning curve
Set clear expectations with clients:
You don't need to disclose your partner (that's the point of white label), but do:
- Pad timelines slightly for your first few projects together
- Set clear staging review milestones
- Communicate more proactively than usual
Document everything:
After each project, document:
- What worked well
- What communication could improve
- What technical decisions you'd make differently
- How accurate the timeline and budget were
This becomes your playbook for future projects.
Build the relationship:
Treat your white label partner like an extension of your team:
- Include them in relevant internal discussions
- Give honest feedback (good and bad)
- Pay on time, every time
- Refer other work to them when you can
The best white label relationships become long-term partnerships where both sides invest in each other's success.
The bottom line
There's no universal right answer. Some agencies thrive with in-house dev teams. Others build incredible businesses entirely on white label partnerships. Most successful agencies end up somewhere in the middle.
The key is making an intentional choice based on your specific situation. Consider your pipeline consistency, leadership strengths, growth goals, and your team's capabilities.
White label partnerships aren't about admitting you can't do something. They're a business model choice, just like deciding whether to own your office space or lease it, whether to hire a CFO or work with an accounting firm.
What matters is that you make the decision deliberately, structure the relationship thoughtfully, and execute with clarity.
The agencies that struggle are the ones that drift into partnerships reactively, without clear processes or expectations. The ones that succeed treat it as a strategic capability they're intentionally building.