Guide · 12 October 2026 · 7 min read
White-label design for agencies: how it works, what to ask and the margin maths
What white-label design means in practice for a development or marketing agency, the five questions to settle with a partner before the first task, where a partner's name leaks, and a worked margin example.
By Daniel Makhamreh, lead designer at Recast
The short answer: white-label design is design produced by an outside team and delivered under your agency's name, so your client deals with one company. It works when five things are settled in writing before the first task: an NDA, who talks to the client, whose brand is on the files, who may show the work in a portfolio, and how capacity is shared across your clients. The margin is what you bill your clients for design, less the partner's fee and the hours you spend managing it. With a flat-fee partner that sum is healthy in a busy month and negative in a quiet one, so the right to pause matters as much as the price.
Provider terms below are quoted from their own sites as we read them on 12 October 2026.
What is white-label design?
White-label design is a subcontracting arrangement in which a design team works for an agency, and the agency presents the work to its own clients as part of its service. The contract, the invoice and the relationship are between the client and the agency.
It differs from a referral, where the client knows the second company and usually contracts with it. It differs from hiring a freelancer mainly in what is promised: a white-label partner commits to staying out of sight, in files and in person.
Two kinds of agency use it most. Development agencies with engineers and no designers use it to stop turning down projects that begin with "we also need the app designed". Marketing agencies with a design bench use it for overflow, and for work the bench does not do, such as product screens.
How does it work day to day?
The agency files a task in the partner's workspace, in a folder for that client. The partner designs it. The agency reviews it, presents it and relays the feedback. The client never deals with the partner.
Calls run one of two ways. The partner's designer stays behind the agency and briefs the account lead beforehand, or joins client calls introduced as part of the agency's team. Decide which before the first call, and tell the designer how they will be introduced.
A partner's name most often leaks through things nobody thinks to check:
- the owner and editor names on a shared Figma file, and the names on its comments;
- the account name on a recorded walkthrough;
- the author field of an exported PDF;
- an invitation email sent from the partner's domain;
- a file name or cover page that carries the partner's template.
The fix is structural. Work is delivered into the agency's own Figma team and shared from the agency's accounts, so everything the client opens belongs to the agency.
What should you ask a white-label partner?
Five questions, answered in writing before the first task.
| Question | Why it matters | What a good answer looks like |
|---|---|---|
| Will you sign an NDA before the first task? | Your client list is your business, and a brief often contains unreleased product plans. | Yes, as standard, covering your clients' names and materials, with a clause that the partner will not approach them. |
| Who talks to my client? | One unplanned email from the partner undoes the arrangement. | Nobody from the partner contacts the client. Joining calls is your choice, under your name. |
| Whose brand is on the files? | Files, specs and videos get forwarded and outlive the project. | Yours on every deliverable, the partner's nowhere, in files you own. |
| Who may show the work? | A case study on the partner's site tells your client who did it. | The partner does not show white-label work without your written consent. |
| How is capacity shared across my clients? | Two client deadlines will land in the same week. | A stated number of tasks worked at once, across any number of clients, in an order you control. |
What do real providers' terms say?
Three things are worth checking on the provider's own pages, because the default applies unless you change it.
The portfolio default. ManyPixels' terms of service, effective 15 October 2026, say: "Unless the Client requests otherwise in writing, ManyPixels may display Deliverables in its portfolio, on its website, on social media, and in marketing materials". Under terms like that, an agency needs its written request on file before the first deliverable.
The plan white-label sits on. Penji lists a "White-label Agency Platform" on its Agency Partner plan at $1,995 a month, with "3 Active Workstreams", and says "Everything can be delivered white-label under your agency."
What "unlimited brands" means. Designjoy's plan lists "Unlimited brands" beside "One request at a time". The first is how many clients you may bring. The second is how many of their tasks move at once, and all of them share it. What "unlimited" gets you in a month has the arithmetic.
Recast includes white-label delivery in its one plan at no extra charge: an NDA as standard, no contact with the agency's clients, the agency's brand on every deliverable, and no white-label work in its portfolio.
What does the margin look like? A worked example
This is an example with round numbers, not a forecast. Replace every figure with your own.
An agency runs three client projects through one flat-fee partner in a month. The partner fee is $3,900, which is Recast's price; use your partner's. The agency bills design at $4,000 to the first client for a product flow, $3,500 to the second for a marketing site and $2,500 to the third for a design system clean-up. An account lead spends 20 hours briefing, reviewing and presenting, at an internal cost of $50 an hour. In a quiet month there is one project at $4,000 and 8 hours of management.
| Line | Busy month | Quiet month |
|---|---|---|
| Design billed to clients | $10,000 (three projects) | $4,000 (one project) |
| Partner fee | $3,900 | $3,900 |
| Your management time | $1,000 (20 hours at $50) | $400 (8 hours at $50) |
| Margin | $5,100, or 51% | A loss of $300 |
The busy month: $10,000 − $3,900 − $1,000 = $5,100. The quiet month: $4,000 − $3,900 − $400 = −$300.
Three things follow. Break-even is the partner fee plus your management time: $4,900 of billed design in the busy month, $4,300 in the quiet one. The management line is real, and leaving it out makes every month look better than it is. And a flat fee you cannot pause turns a quiet month into a loss, so ask what happens when a client project ends. On Recast you can pause in any month, and the unused days are banked.
How should you price it to your clients?
Price the deliverable, not the capacity. Your client is buying an app design or a website, at a price that reflects what it is worth to them and your responsibility for it. They are not buying a share of your partner's queue, and "unlimited" is not yours to resell, because the number of tasks worked at once is shared across all your clients.
Three structures work:
- A fixed project price for a defined scope, with the revision rounds named.
- A monthly design retainer for clients with continuous product work, sold as a number of deliverables or a response time.
- Design bundled into the build, as one line of a development quote.
Whichever you use, keep the queue order in your own hands. Put the partner's turnaround, plus a day for your own review, into every date you promise.
What goes wrong, and how do you prevent it?
- Feedback degrades in relay. Pass the client's words on verbatim, with the recording where you have one. Do not summarise.
- Deadlines collide. Two clients, one set of slots. Keep one slot free for the urgent thing.
- Nobody at the agency can judge the work. Then the partner's own review layer is your only quality control. Ask who it is. How to check a provider's scope lists what to look for.
- The partner goes away. Hold every source file in your own workspace from the first delivery.
Test the arrangement on one client before you sell it to five. How to test a design partner has a one-week checklist.
Where Recast fits
Recast is a product design studio in Amman, Jordan, led by Daniel Makhamreh, lead designer. White-label delivery is included in the plan at no extra charge: per-client folders, your agency's brand on every deliverable and an NDA as standard. Recast never contacts your clients and does not show white-label work in its portfolio.
The plan is $3,900 a month, billed monthly, with unlimited tasks and five worked in parallel. Front-end build hours are included, in React, Next.js, Webflow or Framer. Work is delivered in English and Arabic.
The detail is on the page for agencies. To try it, book the free 20-minute pilot call, run one client's task through the $490 pilot, or read the plan.
Services
Case studies
See it on your own product, in one week.
The $490 pilot is a test run of the plan: up to three active tasks from your product, worked by the same team to the same standard and delivered by the week's end. Credited against your first month if you continue.
$3,900 a month. 14-day full refund. Pause any month — unused days carry forward.