When a client asks your agency for a new store, the question is which parts of the build you can resell under your own name, and how to price them. This post breaks a real Shopify build of ours, Cultiver’s storefront, into the line items of our partner rate card, and says what stays with you.
What reselling a store build means
White-label delivery means we build and you present the work as your agency’s. You own the client relationship, set the retail price and keep the margin. We invoice you, not your client, and reporting goes out in your templates.
That works only if the build arrives as separate, priced pieces you can put into your own scope document. A single “eCommerce website” line is hard to resell: you cannot explain it, defend it or change one part without reopening the whole quote. The useful question is which pieces you can sell with confidence.
One build, broken into line items
Cultiver is a Sydney brand that makes bed linen and homewares in European flax, sold to homes and to hotels. We built its custom Shopify theme directly for the brand, not through an agency. We use it here because its scope is typical of what agency clients ask for, and every feature below is in the Cultiver case study.
The table maps that scope onto the current Shopify rows of our rate card. It shows how we would line-item the same work today; it is not Cultiver’s invoice.
| Cultiver’s scope | Rate-card line | What sizes the quote |
|---|---|---|
| A custom Liquid theme: product pages with variants, size guides and reviews, filterable collections, and templates for Account, Wholesale, Trade, Retailer and Hospitalize | Shopify custom theme build, fixed quote | Section count, and any Plus features such as B2B price lists or several market storefronts |
| Bundle products and a compare view, both configured through metafields | Part of the theme build | How many bundle types and product fields the team will configure without a developer |
| A gift-cart incentive in the cart drawer, with a spend threshold and progress bar the client’s team can change | Part of the theme build | How much of the logic is settings rather than code |
| Shopify apps for extended functionality | App audit inside the theme build: what stays, what theme code replaces | App count; subscriptions are billed to the client, never inside the fee |
| A connection to an outside system (not in Cultiver’s scope) | Custom app or integration, fixed quote | Direction of sync: a one-way stock feed is simple, two-way order sync is not |
| Changes and campaign support after launch | Shopify monthly retainer, three-month minimum | Campaign tempo: a store launching pages every week uses the hours |
Two things sit outside the Shopify rows on purpose. Design has its own row, so a client who arrives with finished designs is not paying for them twice. Product data entry and photography are extras, because they depend on the client’s catalogue more than on our engineering.
How the partner rate card works
Partner agencies buy at the partner rates published on agencies.pixelcrayons.com, which follow the ranges on our pricing page. Volume terms and the full partner card are agreed under NDA. There is no separate wholesale discount hidden behind a call; the published range is the starting point for both of us.
Three terms matter more than the number:
- Your margin is yours. You set the retail price. We never see your client invoices, and nothing in a report shows what you pay us.
- Proposals are itemised by deliverable, in the shape of the table above, so you can paste them into your own scope document.
- Client protection is written into the agreement. We do not approach the clients you introduce to us for direct business, through the work and for twelve months after the last assignment for that client ends.
Platform fees, app subscriptions and payment-provider charges are never inside our fee. Put them in your proposal as the client’s own costs, or the margin you planned will quietly pay for them.
- 01The build, line by lineTheme, app audit, integrations: each its own priced row
- 02Rows of their ownDesign on its own row; data entry and photography as extras
- 03Your marginYou set the retail price; no report shows our fee
- 04The client’s own costsPlatform fees, app subscriptions, payment charges: never in our fee
What you still have to own
Reselling a build does not mean handing over the client. Four things stay with your agency, and partnerships go wrong when nobody says so at the start:
- The brief. You know why the client wants the store. Cultiver needed a site premium enough for a hotel buyer and easy enough for a home shopper; that kind of brief comes from the account owner, not the developer.
- Approvals. Designs, templates and launch dates are signed off through you, on your timetable.
- Content and catalogue. Product copy, images and data come from the client, through you. Missing content delays more launches than code does.
- The relationship after launch. Decide before the build whether a retainer follows, and who the client calls when something breaks.
Our side is the build itself: theme under version control in the client’s accounts, preview environments, checkout tested from basket to order confirmation before launch, and a handover the client’s team can work from. The white-label web development page sets out how that runs under your brand.
When reselling is not the right answer
White-label is not always better than passing the work on. Refer the client instead when:
- You cannot own the conversation. If you would struggle to explain a redirect map or a checkout change to the client, reselling puts your name on decisions you cannot defend.
- The job is one-off and small. A single theme fix rarely justifies the paperwork of a resale, and a referral fee may be the honest return.
- The client needs the developer in the room every week. Some stores are run by their builders; adding a layer in between slows them down.
We compared the two routes in more detail in white-label or referral.
Written by
Parvessh Agarwal
Founder and Chief Executive, Vinove
Parvessh founded Vinove in 2004 with one idea: build focused technology companies that earn their place in real markets. His focus is on the long game, on companies that survive and serve real customers long after launch.
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