Agency mode

Agency mode is for running channels for clients. Each client gets a workspace of its own under yours — its channels, accounts and data kept apart from every other client's — and a portal in your brand, where its people approve videos, connect their accounts and read their reports. Each month you get a statement per client to bill from, with your retainer and your markup on the work it used.

What it does#

 Your agency workspace ── your people, your credits, your plan, the agency console
   ├── Client: Acme Bakeries ── its own workspace (projects, channels, accounts)
   │      └── its portal, in your brand ── its people: approvals, accounts, reports, billing
   ├── Client: Beta Bikes ── …
   └── each month: a report and a statement per client

• The agency console — Agency, in your workspace: your clients, their money, your white label and rebilling. It carries ChannelForge's own brand: it is yours, not your clients'.
• Client workspaces — ordinary workspaces, on your plan, worked in by your owners and admins.
• The client portal — everything a client sees carries your name, logo and colours, and never names ChannelForge: the portal, connect links, review links, reports, statements and every email to the client.

Turn it on#

Agency mode comes with the Agency plan (and Enterprise). Paid checkout is not open yet, so for now an agency plan is set up with us — contact us.

In an agency workspace, its owners and admins see a bar at the top of every page reading Agency with the number of clients, Open a client (once there is one) and Manage clients — the way into the console. Owners and admins of the agency run clients; only owners change money: how a client pays, credits moved, retainers, markups, the cost per credit and removing a client.

Add a client#

1. Open the console with Manage clients.
2. Under Add a client, type the Client name, and optionally a Contact name and Contact email (reports and connect links go there).
3. Press Add the client. Nobody is emailed yet.

The client's workspace is ready at once: open it with Open its workspace to start a project or a channel, exactly as in your own. It is on your plan and its limits, with no trial and no members of its own; its projects and channels count towards your plan's, across the agency and all its clients. An agency can have up to 200 clients.

Work in a client's workspace#

Your owners and admins work in every client's workspace without being its members, with the role you choose under White label → Your owners and admins in client workspaces:

• A bar at the top of a client's pages says whose client it is and the role you work with, with Switch client and the way back to the console.
• Everything you do there is recorded in the client's audit log, with you as the actor.
• Through this access nobody adds members or API keys to a client's workspace: access that would outlive their place in your agency.
• Your agency's editors and viewers, and anyone else, cannot open a client's workspace.
• This access follows your agency: a person who leaves it, or becomes an editor there, loses every client at once.

White label#

Agency → White label:

What clients see, beside the form, previews the portal with your logo and colours. Your colours are checked for readable contrast. Emails to clients come from your brand's name at our sending address, with replies going to your support email (else your billing email).

The client portal#

The console shows Your client portal with its address and Copy. A client's people sign in there and see only their own client:

Each person sees only the tabs their permissions open. Your owners and admins can open any client's portal (Its portal on the client's page) as a preview: everything is visible, and approving and connecting stay the client's.

The client's people#

On a client's page, The client's people lists who can open its portal.

1. Type their Email and, if you like, a Name (optional).
2. Tick what they may do: Approve, Connect accounts, Reports.
3. Press Invite. They get an invitation in your brand; its link works for 7 days.

• Money (credits used, statements, the Billing tab) is per client, not per person: tick Let the client's people see money in the client's Money card.
• They sign in with Email me a sign-in link: a link that works once, for 15 minutes — no password to keep. An account with two-step sign-in still asks for its code.
• A client's people are never members of any workspace: nothing else in ChannelForge lists them or lets them in.
• Up to 50 people per client. Save changes a person's permissions; Remove takes their access away; an open invitation can be turned off.

Connect links#

A connect link lets a client connect its own accounts without an account of its own, in your brand.

1. On the client's page, under Connect links, tick the Platforms to offer (none ticked: all of them).
2. Choose how long it stays Open for: 1, 3, 7 (the default), 14 or 30 days.
3. Optionally pick For channel — when a single account arrives through the link, it is linked to that channel — and a Label only you see.
4. Tick Email it to the contact, in your brand, if you like. Press Make a link.
5. Copy the link: it is shown only once. Whoever has it can connect accounts to this client until it expires; Turn off stops it sooner.

The link opens one plain page in your brand listing each platform, with its consent screen explained in plain words — for Facebook and Instagram: select ALL Pages, every time (see Facebook and Instagram). A link offers YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, Threads, LinkedIn and X — each where it is available for the client; one that is not yet says so. Bluesky and Pinterest are connected from the client's workspace. Each account lands in the client's workspace, and your owners and admins are told, in the app and by email; the client's page lists them under Arrived lately, with Link them to channels. At most 20 links are open per client at once.

Each platform's own consent screen names the publishing app it is granting — ChannelForge's — rather than your agency. The page tells the client so in advance: "It names the publishing app your agency works with — that is expected." Nothing is posted until you schedule it, and the client can disconnect at any time.

Approvals and storyboards#

• With approvals on for a client's channels, its videos wait in its portal's Approvals, and so do its films. Its approvers approve or ask for changes, and get one email a day, from 07:00 their time, while videos wait.
• With storyboard approval on, the client's waiting storyboards appear there too — the hook, the scenes, what is said and shown — and each is emailed once to each approver, in your name. Asking for changes sends the topic back and the next storyboard follows. See The editor and storyboards.
• A review link you share from a client's episode opens in its portal. See Review links for clients.

Reports#

Each client gets a report per calendar month (UTC): read it, print it or download a PDF, from the client's page (View, PDF), from the portal, or by an emailed link that works for 60 days (Turn its link off stops it).

YouTube's numbers are YouTube's own, post by post, newest first: no totals, averages or rankings made from them until Google approves those for ChannelForge. Facebook's and Instagram's are summed and ranked. The platforms whose numbers ChannelForge does not read — X, TikTok, Threads, Bluesky and Pinterest — have their posts listed without numbers. One client's data is never combined with another's.

On the 1st, from 06:00 UTC, the month before's report is emailed to the client's Report addresses (up to 10, comma separated; else the contact) — untick Email the monthly report on the 1st to stop that. Email it sends any of the last six months' reports again.

Money and rebilling#

Who pays for a client's work#

In the client's Money card (owners), Who pays for its work:

• Your balance (default) — the client's jobs are paid from your agency's credits. Its usage and credit history stay the client's own; credits you are granted for it land on your balance.
• Its own balance — you move credits to the client (Move to the client) and back (Take back); each moved piece keeps its original expiry. How a client pays can be changed only while nothing is held for its work.

Monthly cap (credits) limits one client. Your own workspace's cap, in your Settings → Billing, covers your agency and every client together; the alerts at 80 % and 100 % reach your owners and admins. If your agency is suspended, its clients are too within minutes, and they come back with it.

What you bill#

Agency → Rebilling holds Your cost per credit (Dollars per credit): what one credit costs you — your plan's price over its credits, or what your packs cost. It can never be set below ChannelForge's own lowest price for one credit (the page states it), so a client is never billed below what the credits cost.

A month's statement for a client is its retainer, plus its production credits × your cost per credit × (1 + its markup), rounded once. For example, a $500 retainer and 1,200 credits at $0.069 with a 25 % markup:

 production   1,200 × $0.069 × 1.25  =  $103.50
 retainer                            =  $500.00
 total                               =  $603.50

Statements#

On the 1st, every client's statement for the month before is made. Rebilling lists the last six closed months, each with a CSV of all clients, and the month's statements with a PDF each; Make them now closes a past month that has none yet. Your copy shows your cost; the client's copy, in its portal's Billing, shows only what it is billed.

Remove a client#

On the client's page, an owner types the client's name under Remove this client and presses Remove the client. Its workspace is retired — schedules off, running work cancelled — its portal, links and invitations closed, and any credits of its own come back to you. Its statements stay. Its connections and the data read from its platforms are then deleted within 7 days, as for any deleted workspace; see Your account and sign-in.

To delete the agency's own workspace, remove its clients first.

Credits and plans#

Agency mode is on the Agency plan and above. Client work costs what it costs in any workspace on that plan; the console, the portal, connect links, reports and statements cost nothing. An agency that moves to a smaller plan keeps working in its clients' workspaces — their work is still paid from its balance — while the console, portal, links, reports and statements wait until it is back on a plan with agency mode.

Troubleshooting#

A client's person cannot sign in. The sign-in link goes only to someone who accepted their invitation; it works once, for 15 minutes, and is used by pressing the button on the page it opens. Check the address under The client's people, and invite them again if the invitation expired.

An account connected through a link does not post. An account arrives in the client's workspace without a channel unless the link named one. Open Link them to channels (or the client's Settings → Connections) and pick it under Which account each channel posts as.

A client's Facebook Page stopped working. Someone connected Meta again without ticking that Page. Send a new connect link and ask them to tick every Page.

Related#

• Workspaces, projects, teams and roles
• Billing, invoices and caps
• Approvals on your phone
• Facebook and Instagram — the Pages rule clients need to know