What does white label SEO mean?
White label SEO is search engine optimisation done by an outside provider and sold by an agency to its own clients under the agency’s name. The provider is called a white label SEO provider or partner, and it stays out of sight: your client’s contract, invoices and conversations are all with your agency.
The name comes from goods made by one company and sold under another company’s label. In SEO the product is work: an audit, technical fixes, rewritten pages, new content, a monthly report. Your agency’s name goes on every piece of it.
The term covers one-time projects and monthly work. A one-time project has a fixed scope, such as an audit or a set of pages optimised. Monthly work is a retainer: a set of tasks or hours repeated every month. Ask a provider which one a price refers to before you compare it with another.
It also gets used for software. Search for the term and you’ll find SEO tools that put your logo on a dashboard, listed right next to teams that do the work. They’re different things, and we set out the difference below.
Who is involved
| Your client | Your agency | The white label provider | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Contracts with | Your agency | The client, and separately the provider | Your agency only |
| Pays | Your agency, at your price | The provider, at the provider’s price | Nobody |
| Does | Gives access, approves changes, supplies facts about the business | Sells, sets the strategy, presents the results | Audits, fixes, writes, reports |
| Sees | Only your agency | Everything | The site and the brief. Not your client, unless you ask |
| Owns | The site, the accounts and the data | The client relationship | Nothing, once the work is paid for |
If you’re deciding whether to build an SEO team or buy the work in, we’ve compared the two in in-house SEO vs outsourcing. For websites, the same model is explained in what is white label web design.
How does white label SEO work, step by step?
Your client asks you for SEO. You get a scope and a price from a white label provider, add your margin and quote your client. The provider works on the site through access you set up, and sends a report in your branding. You present it. The client relationship stays with you throughout.
Eight steps. Your agency handles the first four and the report at the end; the provider’s part is the middle.
Your client asks for SEO, and you scope it.
You hold the conversation: what the business sells, where, who it competes with and what it wants from search. The provider isn’t in the room.
You send the provider a brief and get a price.
A useful answer is in writing and lists the work: what is checked, what is changed, how many pages, what the report holds and when it arrives. A price with no list of work behind it can’t be compared with anything.
You quote your client at your own price.
The provider’s price is between you and the provider. What you charge is your decision. The maths is in the markup section.
You set up access.
The site, Search Console and analytics belong to your client. You create an account for the provider on your own domain and add it as a user. Access you created is access you can switch off.
The provider audits before it changes anything.
A crawl of the site and a read of Search Console give the starting point. Without a recorded “before”, nobody can show what the work changed.
The provider does the work, with your approval where it shows.
Technical fixes go in. Titles, descriptions, headings and new copy are your client’s words in public, so they should come to you for approval before they go live.
You get the report, and you present it.
The report arrives with your logo and name on it. You read it first, add your own advice and send or present it. Questions from the client come to you.
On monthly work, the cycle repeats.
Each month has its own list of tasks and its own report. On a one-time project the work ends with the report, and the next step is a new order.
On timing, Google’s own guide says this about changes to a site: “Some changes might take effect in a few hours, others could take several months.” (Google SEO Starter Guide). Tell your client that before the first report; it lands very differently afterwards.
What do white label SEO services include?
White label SEO services cover six kinds of work: technical SEO, on-page optimisation, local SEO, content, links and reporting. A provider may sell all six or only some. Each can be a one-time project or a monthly task. Ask for the list of work behind every price, because two “SEO packages” can share almost nothing.
Of these six, StudioPartner sells technical SEO, on-page optimisation, local SEO and reporting, as monthly plans and one-time work, plus audits and blog posts. Local SEO comes with every monthly plan: the local work on the site, the Google Business Profile (we’re added to it as a manager) and replies to reviews. Citations, listings and link building we leave to others.
| Work | What the provider does | One-time or monthly | Ask the provider |
|---|---|---|---|
| Technical SEO | Crawls the site and fixes what stops pages being found and listed: indexing, robots rules, canonicals, the sitemap, redirects, broken links, structured data | Mostly one-time, then checked again after site changes | Do you make the fixes, or only list them? Who has access to the site? |
| On-page optimisation | Keyword research for each page, then titles, meta descriptions, headings, image alt text and internal links rewritten to match | One-time per page. Monthly when new pages are added | How many pages? Do we approve the wording before it goes live? |
| Local SEO | Work on the Google Business Profile, on location pages, and on the name, address and phone number shown around the web | Set-up once, then monthly upkeep such as posts and review replies | Who owns the Business Profile? Who replies to reviews, and in whose name? |
| Content | Briefs and written pages or articles for searches the site doesn’t answer yet | Monthly, as a number of pieces | Who writes it? Who checks the facts about the client’s business? Who approves it? |
| Links | Outreach and digital PR to earn links from other sites, and a review of the links the site already has | Monthly | Where do the links come from? Is anything paid for? Can we see every one? |
| Reporting | A report in your branding: the work done, and the numbers from Search Console and analytics | With each project, or every month | Does it list the work, or only the numbers? Whose logo and domain is on it? |
- Links are where we’d be most careful. Google defines link spam as creating links “primarily for the purpose of manipulating search rankings”, and its first example is “buying or selling links for ranking purposes” (Google spam policies). If a provider sells a fixed number of links a month, it should be able to tell you how each one is earned.
- Local SEO can’t buy a position either. Google says “Local results are mainly based on relevance, distance, and popularity”, and that “There’s no way to request or pay for a better local ranking on Google” (Google Business Profile Help). What the work does is improve the information Google has about the business.
- On content, Google’s spam policies describe scaled content abuse as “when many pages are generated for the primary purpose of manipulating search rankings and not helping users” (Google spam policies). We wouldn’t pay for volume. Pay for pages that answer a question someone is really asking.
- Google’s own list of what SEOs provide includes site reviews, technical advice, content development, keyword research, SEO training and optimising for generative AI (Do you need an SEO?). The six rows above are the same work, grouped the way providers sell it.
What stays with the agency: the client, the strategy, the choice of what to work on first, and the conversation when results are slow. A provider can do the work; it can’t hold your client’s trust for you.
Who does what in white label SEO?
The agency sells, sets the strategy, approves anything public and presents the results. The provider audits, fixes, writes and reports. The client gives access, supplies facts about the business and approves changes to its own site. The accounts and the data stay with the client, and the provider works as an added user.
| Task | Your agency | The provider | Your client |
|---|---|---|---|
| Selling and pricing | Sells the work and sets the client’s price | Gives the agency a scope and a price | Buys from the agency |
| Strategy | Decides what the client needs and in what order | Supplies findings and recommendations | Says what the business wants from search |
| Access | Creates the provider’s account and adds it as a user | Works only through that account | Owns the site, Search Console, analytics and Business Profile |
| Audit | Reads it and decides what to act on | Crawls, tests and writes it up | Receives it from the agency |
| Changes to the site | Approves titles, headings and copy before they go live | Makes the changes and records them | Approves through the agency |
| Content | Approves briefs and drafts | Researches and writes, if content is in scope | Checks the facts about its own business |
| Reporting | Presents the report and answers questions | Builds the report in the agency’s branding | Reads it |
| When something goes wrong | Tells the client and owns the fix | Fixes its own work and explains what happened | Hears it from the agency |
Who should own the accounts
- Search Console. The client’s property, with the client or your agency as owner. Google’s documentation says an owner “Has full control over properties in Search Console”, and a restricted user “Has simple view rights on most data” (Search Console Help). Give a new provider the lowest level that lets it do the job.
- Google Business Profile. Google’s third-party policies say “all end customers must retain ownership or co-ownership of their Business Profile at all times”, and recommend making the business owner the owner and the agency a manager (Business Profile third-party policies). That applies to you, and to anyone you bring in.
- The website. A named user for the provider, created by you or your client, on your domain. Never a shared login. Remove it when the work ends.
- Analytics and reporting tools. The data sits in your client’s accounts. If the report is built in a tool the provider pays for, ask what you keep if you leave.
Google’s advice to site owners applies to agencies too: “Ultimately, you are responsible for the actions of any companies you hire” (Do you need an SEO?). Your client hired you. What the provider does on that site is yours to answer for.
How is white label SEO reporting branded?
The report carries your agency’s logo, colours and name, and nothing of the provider’s. It is sent from your domain or handed to you to send. A good one lists the work done as well as the numbers, so your client sees what they paid for even in a month when rankings didn’t move.
What “branded” should cover
- The document. Your logo, colours and agency name on every page. No provider name in the footer, the file name or the PDF’s properties.
- The sender. An address on your domain, or the report comes to you and you send it. An email from another company’s domain tells your client who did the work.
- The links. A live dashboard should sit on your own domain or subdomain. A link to the provider’s tool with your logo on the page is only half branded.
- The screenshots. Tool names inside screenshots are normal. The provider’s account name or email address in the corner is not.
- The words. “We” means your agency. Ask to see a sample and read it as your client would.
What a report should hold
| Part | What it shows | What it’s for |
|---|---|---|
| Work done | Every fix and change, page by page, with dates | It is the one thing the provider controls, and the proof of what was paid for |
| Before and after | The crawl or check before the work, and the same check after | It separates what the work changed from what the market did |
| Search Console numbers | Clicks, impressions and the searches the site appeared for | They come from Google, in the client’s own account, so anyone can check them |
| Rankings | Positions for an agreed list of searches, recorded with the date | Useful as a trend. Positions differ by place, device and day |
| What is still open | Problems outside the scope, and decisions the client has to make | It sets up the next piece of work in the open |
| What comes next | The tasks for next month, or the recommended next project | The client knows what they are paying for before the invoice |
We don’t think a report should forecast anything. Rankings, traffic and leads depend on the client’s market and offer as much as on the site. A report that lists the work and shows Google’s own numbers lets your client judge for themselves.
Keep the raw data in your client’s accounts. Then you can change provider, or bring the work in-house, and lose nothing but a template.
White label SEO vs an SEO reseller program vs SEO software: what is the difference?
White label SEO services are people doing SEO work under your name. A white label SEO reseller program is a provider’s standing terms for agencies that resell that work: set packages and a price list. White label SEO software is a tool with your logo on it. Your own team still does the work.
| White label SEO services | SEO reseller program | White label SEO software | |
|---|---|---|---|
| What you buy | Work: audits, fixes, pages, content, reports | The same work, sold as fixed packages on standing terms | Access to a tool: an audit crawler, a rank tracker or a reporting dashboard |
| Who does the SEO | The provider’s team | The provider’s team | Your own team, using the tool |
| What carries your brand | The reports, the emails and the documents | The reports, and sometimes a client dashboard | The dashboard, the PDF exports and the login page |
| How it’s priced | Per project, per deliverable or per month | A trade price list, sometimes with volume tiers | A subscription, by seats, sites or keywords tracked |
| Fits an agency that | Has clients asking for SEO and no team to do it | Sells the same package to many similar clients | Has people who can do SEO and needs reports under its own name |
| Ask first | What exactly is done each month, and by whom | Whether a package can change for a client that doesn’t fit it | What happens to the data and the client logins if you cancel |
The words overlap. A provider can call its services a “reseller program”, and a software company can call its dashboard “white label SEO”. So ask one question of anything with the label: who does the work?
Some agencies use both: software for reporting across every client, and a services provider for the work the team can’t take. The same split exists in web work, where a reseller program can mean a team that builds sites or a website builder with your logo on it. See web design reseller program.
How does white label SEO pricing work?
White label SEO pricing follows one of five models: a monthly retainer, a price per deliverable, a fixed price for a one-time project, an hourly rate, or a software subscription. We’d look at the model before the figure, because it decides what you can promise your client and who pays when the work takes longer.
| Pricing model | What you pay for | Who carries an overrun | Check |
|---|---|---|---|
| Monthly retainer | A set list of tasks, or a set number of hours, every month | Shared. You pay for the month whatever was done in it | The task list for each month, the notice period and the minimum term |
| Per deliverable | A unit of work: one article, one page optimised, one location set up | The provider, per unit | What counts as one unit, and how many rounds of changes are included |
| Fixed price, one-time | A defined project, such as an audit or a set of pages, at a price agreed before work starts | The provider, as long as the scope holds | The scope in writing, the delivery date and what happens if it is missed |
| Hourly | Time spent | You | An estimate before work starts, and a cap |
| Software subscription | Access to a tool, by seats, sites or keywords | Nobody. The work is still yours to do | Whether your branding and your client logins are in the plan you are buying |
We haven’t put market rates for white label SEO here, because we couldn’t find any we’d trust. They change with the country, the amount of content and links in the package, and how competitive the client’s market is. Send the same brief to two or three providers and compare the written answers.
When you compare, line up the work and ignore the package names. Count the pages, the articles and the hours. Check whether tool costs, content and links are inside the price or on top.
Then check the terms around the price. A retainer with a twelve-month minimum is a different commitment from one that ends on 30 days’ notice, even at the same monthly figure.
How much should you mark up white label SEO services?
There’s no standard markup, and we won’t make up an average. Work it out from your own costs: the provider’s price, plus the hours you spend on sales, strategy, review and client calls, plus the profit you need. Then check the result against what the client can pay.
Working out your price
- Start with the provider’s price, per month or per project, and add any tool cost that’s yours alone.
- Add your own hours (selling, scoping, reviewing the work, presenting the report, answering questions), priced at what your time costs you.
- Add your profit. What’s left after both costs is the reason to offer the service at all.
- Check the total against the client. If it’s more than they’ll pay, change the scope; don’t cut the hours you need to review the work.
Markup and margin are not the same number
Markup is your profit as a share of what you pay. Margin is your profit as a share of what you charge. The table below is just arithmetic; we’re not recommending any row of it.
| You charge | Markup on cost | Margin on price | Of each 100 the client pays, you keep |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1.5 times the provider’s price | 50% | 33% | 33 |
| 2 times | 100% | 50% | 50 |
| 2.5 times | 150% | 60% | 60 |
| 3 times | 200% | 67% | 67 |
These figures are before your own time. If the account takes four hours of your month, take the cost of those hours off the last column.
A worked example, with one of our prices
Our one-time SEO optimisation, at the three multiples our reseller page uses. It’s there to show the maths, so please don’t read it as a suggested price.
| Item | Our price | Client price at 1.5× | Client price at 2× | Client price at 2.5× |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| SEO optimisation, done once | $400 | $600 | $800 | $1,000 |
On monthly work the difference repeats every month, on every client you put on the service. That’s the case for a retainer, and also the risk: a retainer you can’t deliver well costs you the client as well as the margin. The same maths for websites is on the web design reseller program page.
What are the risks of white label SEO, and what should you check?
The main risks are a provider that promises rankings, builds links Google treats as spam, publishes thin content, reports numbers without work, or holds your client’s accounts. Each one lands on your agency, because your name is on the work. Check the method, the access and the contract before the first client goes on.
| Risk | What to check | The control |
|---|---|---|
| A ranking promise | Google says “No one can guarantee a #1 ranking on Google” (Do you need an SEO?). A provider that guarantees positions is selling something it doesn’t control | Sell the work and report it. Put “no promise of rankings, traffic or leads” in your own client contract |
| Paid or automated links | Buying links for ranking purposes is the first example in Google’s definition of link spam (Google spam policies) | Ask how links are earned. Ask to see every link in the report. Say no to packages that sell a number of links |
| Content at volume | Articles produced to fill a quota, with nothing a reader would use | Approve every brief and every draft. Have the client check the facts about its own business |
| A report with no work in it | Charts of rankings and traffic, and no list of what was done | Ask for a sample report before you sign. The work list should come first |
| Accounts the provider holds | Search Console, analytics or a Business Profile set up in the provider’s name | The client owns every account. The provider is an added user on an address you created |
| Changes nobody approved | Titles, copy or redirects changed on a live site without a record | Approval before anything public changes. Google’s question to ask an SEO fits here: will you share all the changes you make and the reasoning behind them (Do you need an SEO?) |
| The provider and your client | A provider that also sells SEO to businesses directly, in your client’s market | A non-solicitation clause that covers the company and its staff, with a stated duration |
| A long minimum term | A twelve-month retainer you have sold to a client on a monthly contract | Match the terms. Your notice period with the provider should be no longer than your client’s with you |
The contract questions are the same for any white label supplier. Our partner vetting checklist lists them with what a good answer sounds like, and it works for an SEO provider as well as a web one.
Then start small. Give a new provider one audit or one small site before a retainer, and read the result as your client would. If you are weighing a provider against a freelancer, the trade-offs are in white label partner vs freelancers.
Who is white label SEO for?
It suits an agency whose clients ask for SEO and that has nobody in-house to do it, or more SEO work than its team can take. That includes web, design, PPC and marketing agencies, and freelancers who resell. It doesn’t suit an agency whose own SEO method is the thing clients buy.
- Web and design agencies. You build the site and the client asks who will look after search. See StudioPartner for web agencies.
- PPC agencies. You run the ads and the client wants organic traffic as well. See for PPC agencies.
- Marketing and social agencies. SEO is one line in a wider retainer, and not enough work to hire for. See for marketing agencies.
- Creative and branding agencies. A rebrand changes page titles, URLs and content, and someone has to protect what the old site ranked for. See for creative agencies.
- Freelancers and consultants who resell. You sell the project and want a team behind you for the parts you don’t do. See for freelancers.
Who it doesn’t suit
- An SEO agency whose method is the product. Keep the strategy and the links in-house. What you may need from outside is a developer to carry out the fixes, or a team for the monthly on-page work or blog posts under your name. We do both. See for SEO agencies.
- A business that wants SEO for its own site. White label providers sell to agencies. A business should hire an agency or a consultant directly.
- An agency that can’t review the work. Someone on your side has to read the audit and the report well enough to answer a client’s questions.
- An agency whose client contract forbids subcontracting. Read the contract first. If it names the people who do the work, you need the client’s consent.
Where StudioPartner fits
So where do we fit? StudioPartner is a white label web design and development studio that works only for agencies and people who resell. Our SEO offer is monthly plans for one client site, blog posts, and one-time work at a fixed price, each with a report or a file in your branding.
| Item | What it covers | Our price | Timeline |
|---|---|---|---|
| Website audit | SEO, performance, accessibility and security checked. Current rankings for up to 20 keywords. Findings ranked by severity. A fix and its price for each finding. White label PDF in your branding. Optional: skip it if you already know what the site needs. | $250 | 3 business days |
| SEO optimisation | Technical basics fixed across the whole site. Broken link check. Keyword research for 10 pages. Titles, descriptions and headings rewritten. Image alt text and internal links. Schema markup on those pages. Structured for AI search (AEO and GEO). Before-and-after report in your branding. | $400 one-time | 5 business days |
| Extra pages | More pages optimised in the same order, in sets of 5. | $100 per 5 pages | +1 business day per 5 pages |
| Monthly SEO plans, from SEO Essentials | Three plans, each for one client site. SEO Essentials: 4 pages optimised a month. 15 keywords tracked. Monthly crawl and technical fixes. Local SEO for local businesses. Monthly report in your branding. | $400 per site / month | Month to month, 30 days’ notice |
| Blog post | One post of up to 1,000 words. In your agency’s name, never ours. Or 4 or 8 posts a month. Written and edited by people on our team, not by AI. | $100 per post | 5 business days |
Not part of SEO optimisation today: content writing (a separate service), link building (we don’t sell it), template or theme rebuilds, speed work (quoted), monthly reporting (a monthly plan does that), ranking promises.
Monthly work is sold too. Three monthly SEO plans, each for one client site, start at $400 a month, and content writing is $100 a blog post. Local SEO comes with every plan, for clients with a local business. Two things stay with you: outreach and digital PR (we don’t sell link building), and citations, listings and asking customers for reviews.
What comes with it
| Point | What we do | In writing |
|---|---|---|
| On time, or a full refund | The website audit and SEO optimisation are fixed-price orders, each with a delivery date written into it. If we miss the date for a reason on our side, the full fee comes back. Monthly plans are ongoing, so they have 30 days’ notice instead. | How the guarantee works |
| Never in front of your client | We never contact, pitch or quote your client, during the work or after it. If they contact us, we decline and tell you within 1 business day. | Read the zero-poach terms |
| Inside your agency | We work from an account on your domain and in your tools. Every report carries your logo, and nothing we send mentions us. | How it works |
| On your hours | Your assigned Project Manager works during your business day, within the working hours written in your order. | See hours by region |
| No promise of a ranking, or “page one” | Search engines decide where a page appears, and they change how they decide without telling anyone. What you get instead: the list of what was fixed and changed, page by page, in the report. | What we don’t promise |
New to us? Your first project is paid through escrow (an independent account that holds the money) and released milestone by milestone as you approve the work. How escrow works.
- White label SEO The service page: the work, the report and the price.
- White label SEO audits What the audit checks, and a sample report.
- Fixed prices Every package, unit and plan, published.
- How a project runs From the first call to handover, and who does what.
Related: In-house SEO vs outsourcing · Website care plans · What is white label web design? · Website redesign checklist · Guarantees and policies · Partner vetting checklist