What is white-label?

White-label describes a product or service that one company produces and another company sells under its own brand. The buyer sees only the seller's name and logo. The company doing the work stays invisible. In agency work the term covers two different things, and it helps to keep them apart: White-label services (reselling or fulfillment). Your agency sells a service, such as SEO, PPC management, web development or content, and a partner delivers it. Reports, deliverables and emails carry your brand. The client's contract is with you, and you are responsible for the quality. White-label software. Your agency uses a third-party platform, such as a client portal, reporting dashboard or project tool, configured with your logo, colors and domain so clients see it as your system. That is covered in more detail under white-label portal. Worked example (white-label services): a 5-person marketing agency wants to offer local SEO without hiring a specialist. It sells a local SEO package at $1,500 a month and pays a white-label SEO provider $700 a month per client to deliver it. The agency keeps $800 a month per client, a 53% gross margin, but still spends time on account management, reviewing the provider's work and answering the client. If that takes 4 hours a month at a $60 loaded cost, the real margin is $560, or 37%. What a white-label services agreement should cover: • Scope and deliverables per client, with turnaround times • Quality standards and how revisions are handled • Branding: whose name appears on reports, emails and files • Confidentiality and a non-solicitation clause, so the provider cannot approach your clients directly • Ownership of the work and of client data • What happens if the provider misses a deadline or makes an error When white-label services make sense: when a client asks for something outside your core skills, when demand is too low to justify a hire, or when you want to test a new service before building it in-house. When they do not: when the service is central to your positioning, or when you cannot review the provider's work well enough to stand behind it. Disclosure is a business decision rather than a legal requirement in most client relationships, but check your client contracts. Some prohibit subcontracting without consent.