White label client portal: what to check before you choose
What a white label client portal changes for clients, how it differs from a file link, and a seven-point checklist.
A white label client portal is a signed-in place, on your own address and under your own name, where each client finds the files you shared with them. The client never sees the tool behind it. This guide explains what white labelling changes for the client, how a portal differs from a file link, and gives you a checklist to run against any vendor, Tarkle included.
Client portal or file link: what is the difference?
A file link is one page for one delivery. You send a link, the client opens it, downloads the files and moves on. A link can carry your logo and sit on your domain, but it has no memory of the client.
A client portal is a home the client returns to. They sign in, and they see what you shared with them over time: transfers, open file requests and their own details. Each client sees only what was shared with them. In Tarkle, a branded client portal is available on Pro, Agency and lifetime plans.
The practical test is repetition. If you deliver to the same client every week or month, a portal saves them from searching old emails for last quarter's link. If you deliver once and never again, a link is enough.
What a white label client portal looks like to the client
White labelling is about what the client does not see. The sign-in page shows your logo and colours, the address is yours (for example cloud.acme.com), and invitation emails come in your name. Where the tool would normally say "Powered by" the vendor, it says your agency name instead.
Sign-in matters as much as looks. Tarkle clients sign in with an emailed link, so there is no password to forget and no reset email to send them. Access is tied to the email address you invited.
Open your own portal in a private browser window and read it as a client would. Look at the address bar, the sign-in page, the invitation email and the footer. Any place the vendor's name shows up is a place a client may ask "what is this?"
The checklist: what to check before you choose
Run these seven checks against every portal you consider. Write the answers down, because vendors phrase the same thing in different ways.
Your own domain. Can clients sign in at an address you own, or only at a subdomain of the vendor? On Tarkle's Agency plan you can run the platform on your own domain, and clients log in there.
Logo and colours. Can you set a logo, a favicon and an accent colour that carry through the portal and the emails? Tarkle's custom branding covers logo, colours and favicon on transfer pages, request pages and the portal.
The "powered by" line. Ask whether it can be removed or replaced, and on which plan. In Tarkle, Pro keeps a "Powered by Tarkle" line on your pages. Only Agency, whether monthly, yearly or lifetime, replaces it with your agency name. Read white label for agencies for what changes.
How client accounts are created. Do you invite each client one by one, or can they register themselves? In Tarkle you create a workspace for each client from your partner console, enter the owner's email, and they receive an invitation in your agency's name.
How many clients are included. Count your active clients today and the ones you expect in a year. The Agency plan includes 20 workspaces for clients. If you will pass that, ask what happens next before you commit.
Who pays for storage. The Agency plan includes 6 TB, and your client workspaces draw from one storage pool that you control. A client's uploads therefore use your storage, not theirs. You can decide how much each client may upload, which stops one client from filling the pool.
What happens if you stop. Ask what the clients see on the day your plan ends, and how long you have to get files out.
What happens if you stop paying
This check gets skipped most often, and it is the one clients feel. Here is what Tarkle's terms and product say.
When a paid plan ends, the organization moves to the Free plan at the end of the paid period. The client portal is not part of Free, and the "powered by" line goes back to Tarkle, so your white label stops. If your content is over the Free limits you cannot upload new files, you can still download your files for 30 days, and after that content above the Free limits may be deleted, newest uploads first. Tarkle emails you before any deletion.
A lifetime Agency plan has no renewal, so this scenario does not come from a missed payment. The same question still applies to any vendor you compare: does the portal stay up, and for how long can you export?
Before you move a client onto any portal, ask the vendor for their cancellation and data retention terms in writing, and keep a copy of your own client files outside the portal.
When a plain branded link is enough
You do not need a portal for every agency. A branded link is enough when you deliver finished work once per project, when clients rarely come back, or when you have fewer than a handful of ongoing clients who are happy to receive an email each time.
In that case, put your logo and colours on the transfer page, serve it from your own domain and name your links so they read like part of your brand. Our guide to branded file sharing links covers the four layers of that setup. Move to a portal when clients start asking where an old file went.
Offering the portal to your own clients
There are two different jobs here, and it helps to keep them apart. On the Agency plan you serve your own clients under your name. If you want to run a platform for other businesses and set your own plans and prices, that is the Tarkle reseller program. See Resellers for what it includes and the reseller program article for how it works. Read the Reseller Terms before you promise anything to your customers, because they set what a reseller may say about the service.
Next step
Make a shortlist of two or three portals, run the seven checks on each and score them side by side. If Tarkle is on the list, start for free and open the client portal as a client would before you decide on a plan.