Cloud storage for agencies: five checks beyond storage size
Five checks for agency owners choosing cloud storage: client separation, who sees what, delivery without accounts, upload limits per client, and recovery windows.
Choosing cloud storage for agencies is rarely about the number of terabytes. Once you serve ten or twenty clients, the questions that matter are whether each client has a separate space, who on your team can see what, how clients receive and send files, how much each client may upload, and how long a deleted file can still be brought back. This article gives you those five checks, in the order agencies usually get stuck on them.
Why agencies buy cloud storage and then get stuck
Most agencies start the same way. Someone opens a shared drive, makes a folder per client, and it works for the first handful of projects. The trouble starts around the second year: a freelancer still has access to a client who left, a client emails a 4 GB video because your link asked them to sign in, and nobody can say who deleted the brand folder last month.
None of those problems is about running out of space. They come from how the storage is organized around clients. If you want the broader difference between a drive and a sharing tool first, read file sharing vs cloud storage, then come back to this list.
Before you compare any tool, write down your last three client mishaps in one line each. Score every tool against those lines, not against its feature page.
Check 1: Is every client in a separate space?
The first choice is one shared drive with a folder per client, or a separate space per client. A shared drive is fast to set up, but every folder lives under the same sharing rules, the same branding and the same storage pool. One wrong sharing setting on a parent folder and a client sees a sibling.
A separate space per client changes that. On Tarkle, the Agency plan lets you create a branded workspace for each client, each with its own storage, sharing and client portal. The plan has room for 20 client workspaces and 6 TB of storage, and the white label for agencies setup puts the platform on your own domain, so a client sees your name and not ours.
Folders are not workspaces, so ask any drive you are considering whether you can give each client a different logo, address and sign-in page. If the answer is no, you are running every client through one set of rules.
Check 2: Who can see what?
Separation between clients is half of it. The other half is separation inside your team. A designer who works on one account should not browse every other account, and a contractor should not be able to share files on your behalf.
Look for roles with real differences. Tarkle has Owner, Admin, Member and Viewer team roles: Owners and Admins see everything, Members see what they created or were given, and Viewers can open what is shared with them but not change it. For clients, you can limit a transfer or request to a single client organization, so a file meant for one company cannot be opened through another's portal.
Run a leaver test every quarter. Remove a test team member and check which clients they could still reach. If you cannot answer in two minutes, the setup is too tangled.
Check 3: Can clients receive files without an account?
Clients will not create an account to download a logo pack. If your tool forces it, they will ask you to email the files, and you are back to attachments. Check that a shared link opens and downloads with no sign-up, and that you can still protect it with a password, an expiry date or a one-click revoke.
For clients who work with you every week, a sign-in page is more useful than a stack of links. A client portal gives each client one branded place that shows everything shared with them. On Tarkle, clients sign in with a link sent to their email, so there is no password to forget. The client portal is available on Pro, Agency and lifetime plans.
A plain link and a branded place per client on your own domain are two different jobs. Check that the tool does both, because the second one is where many agencies outgrow a drive.
Check 4: Can you set upload limits per client?
Receiving files is where storage quietly fills. One client sends raw footage for a project that was meant to take 200 MB of PDFs, and your shared pool shrinks for everyone else.
Look for two kinds of limit. The first is how much each client may upload in total: Tarkle lets you assign storage to teams and clients and decide how much each client can upload. The second is a limit on a single request: with request deadlines and size limits you close a file request on a date and cap what each person can upload.
Per-file limits are a separate matter. Tarkle allows files up to 1 GB on Free and up to 200 GB on Pro and Agency, which matters if you deliver video. A per-file limit does not protect you from one client filling your storage, so check both.
Open every file request with a deadline. A request with no end date collects files for months and nobody remembers why it is still open.
Check 5: How long can you recover a deleted file?
Every agency has a story about a folder deleted by mistake. What matters is how long the recovery window stays open and who can restore.
On Tarkle, deleted items wait in a recovery bin for 30 days on Free and 90 days on Pro, and Agency includes everything in Pro. Only Owners and Admins can restore any item, while Members can restore what they created. If a client sends a corrected file and you replace the wrong one, file versions let you see the history and go back to an earlier one.
Ask any vendor for the exact number of days, and ask whether it differs by plan. A window you did not check is a window you will find out about at the worst moment. Note that a recovery bin is not a backup. Tarkle does not offer backup, so keep your own copy of anything you cannot lose.
What cloud storage for agencies needs that a drive may not give
A general cloud drive is built so one team can keep its own files in order, so folders and search are its strength. The client-facing side is where to test it hardest. Ask whether it gives you a separate branded space per client, a portal on your own domain, a cap on what each client uploads, and sharing limited to one client company. Plans differ between vendors, so test each point yourself instead of trusting a summary page.
If you are already leaning towards a one-time payment, the lifetime cloud storage for agencies article compares those deals separately.
Set this up today
List your active clients and decide which ones need their own space and portal.
Remove access for anyone who no longer works on each account.
Replace email attachments with a link or a file request that has a deadline.
Decide how much each client may upload, and write the number down.
Check the recovery window on your plan and tell your team how to restore a file.
When you want to test the client side of this list, you can start for free and send a first branded link to a client.