My approach to white-label development partnerships

When I started Innatus, the plan was to work directly with end clients. That's still a significant part of what I do, but over the past two years, white-label partnerships with other agencies have become roughly half the revenue. It happened organically, a design agency needed development support, the project went well, they came back with more, and I've since built deliberate processes around it.

The model is straightforward: an agency wins a project, handles the client relationship, strategy, and design, and I handle the development. The end client may or may not know we exist, depending on the partner's preference. My name doesn't appear anywhere in the deliverables unless the partner wants it to.

Why agencies work with me

Most of my partners are design or branding agencies with small or non-existent development teams. They're excellent at their craft but don't want to hire and manage full-time developers for work that fluctuates in volume. Others have developers but need specialist skills for a specific project, a headless CMS integration, a complex e-commerce build, or performance optimisation on an existing site.

The alternative is hiring freelancers project by project, which works until the freelancer is unavailable when you need them, or until a project needs a small team rather than one person. Having a reliable development partner like me solves the availability problem and means the agency can take on more technically ambitious projects with confidence.

What makes it work

Clear communication is everything. I've learned this the hard way. The three things that cause problems in white-label relationships are: unclear scope (what's included, what isn't, who handles what when something's ambiguous), mismatched expectations on timeline (the partner has told their client a date without checking with me), and feedback loops that go through too many layers (the end client tells the account manager, who tells the project manager, who tells us, and the original context is lost).

My process now includes: a technical scoping call before we quote, where I walk through the designs with the partner and flag anything that needs clarification; a shared project board (I use Linear) where both teams can see progress; and direct access between the dev team and the partner's designers for day-to-day questions. That last one makes a huge difference, waiting for answers to filter through three people adds days to a project.

How I price it

I offer two models: fixed price per project (based on my scoping) or a retained hours arrangement for ongoing partnerships. Fixed pricing works best for well-defined projects with complete designs. Retained hours suit partnerships where work flows in continuously and scope is more fluid. I apply a partnership discount to my standard rates, the exact figure depends on volume, but it recognises that the partner is handling client management, which is a significant part of any project's overhead.

What I don't do

I don't compete with my partners. If an end client approaches us directly for services my partner provides, we refer them back. I don't use partner projects in my portfolio without explicit permission. And I don't cut corners because the end client isn't our direct relationship, the work represents my partner's reputation, and I take that seriously.

If you're an agency looking for a development partner, or you've been burned by unreliable freelancers and want something more consistent, you should talk, reach out and I'll set up an introductory call.