Agency client portfolio setup in SGEN
How to run an agency account that hosts many client sites
Agencies running SGEN at scale converge on a similar pattern after the first few client projects: one agency account, one house style, many client sites, scoped permissions, predictable onboarding. This guide pulls together what those agencies do — the patterns, the templates, the audit habits — into a single playbook you can copy.
The pattern works for two-person studios with five clients all the way up to mid-size agencies with twenty or more active client sites. The shape is the same; only the volume changes.
What is this for?
An agency client portfolio is the multi-site account configuration that lets an agency:
- Onboard a new client site in under an hour, design-language-ready. A house-style starter site exists; clones are clean.
- Scope access so each client sees only their site. Agency team sees all clients; clients see their own.
- Run cross-client reporting without exposing one client to another. The agency lead sees all clients; per-client stakeholders see just their numbers.
- Bill the agency account, not the client. The agency owns the SGEN relationship; client billing is invoiced separately by the agency.
- Hand off cleanly when a client engagement ends. The site transfers to the client's own account, or the agency archives.
The pattern is intentionally simple. Most agencies start more complex (per-client accounts, per-client billing) and migrate to this shape after a few months because the cross-client visibility is worth more than the per-client billing flexibility.
Good use cases
All clients on the same agency account. Agency team sees everything via account-level admin. Client staff are per-site members on their own site. Cross-site reports answer "which clients are performing well" weekly.
Building a "client starter" site once and cloning for every new engagement saves hours of repeated structural work. Each client site evolves from the same starting point, so the agency's quality bar carries.
Each client has their own SGEN site; the agency operates them like a campaign pod. Cross-site reporting answers "is the campaign portfolio growing as expected" without per-client cross-tabs.
All three disciplines need access to most client sites. Account-level admin for the staff; per-site exceptions only for sensitive clients.
Clients pay the agency, the agency pays SGEN. Each client gets their own site, the agency owns the operational chrome.
Same shape as agency: one operator (franchisor), many sites (per franchise location). Each location's staff scoped to their own site.
What NOT to use this for
That model works for some agencies but loses the cross-client visibility and the unified billing relationship. If you have specific reasons (e.g., a client demands their own account from day one), use it — but the patterns in this guide assume one agency account holding many client sites.
If a client needs heavily custom work that breaks the house style, that is fine — but build it on the client's site and document the divergence so onboarding the next agency staff member is not a guessing game.
The agency owns the SGEN account and billing. The agency invoices the client separately on whatever schedule and rate fits. Do not try to use SGEN's billing as a passthrough to the end client.
Client sites with ecommerce belong to the client. The agency operates the site; the merchant of record is the client. Configure the client's payment processor to settle to the client's account, not the agency's.
Clients should be per-site only. Account-level admin gives them visibility into other clients, which is a confidentiality breach. Per-site admin gives them all the site-management power they need without crossing that line.
How this connects to other features
The agency provisions each client site as a second/third/Nth site under one agency account.
The house style starter site exists once and is the clone source for every new client engagement.
Agency staff at account level; client-side staff per-site only. Inheritance default-on so new client sites auto-include the agency team.
Cross-site reports give the agency lead a portfolio-wide view. Client-side views show only their own site.
One invoice for the agency, with per-site line items. Agency invoices clients separately.
Records every action on every client site. Useful for accountability and for client end-of-engagement handovers.
Before you start
A short checklist before adding your first client site:
- Build the house style starter site. Spend a day on it. Include the structural patterns you use most — hero, pricing, contact, footer, testimonial. This site is the clone source forever.
- Define your role pattern. Decide upfront: which agency roles see all client sites? Which see only specific ones? Document it in your team's shared docs.
- Plan the client-side roster. Who from each client gets per-site access, and at what role? Get this from the client during onboarding, not after they ask "where can I edit?"
- Decide on tier defaults. Starter for new client engagements unless the client expects high day-one traffic. Upgrade as the site grows.
- Plan the onboarding checklist. A two-page checklist for the agency operations manager listing the steps to provision a new client site. The checklist makes onboarding repeatable.
- Pick a domain pattern. Each client uses their own domain. Decide whether the agency provisions DNS or hands the records to the client for their registrar.
Where to go
The agency portfolio lives at the account level on SG-Dashboard.
SG-Dashboard → Sites lists every client site. This is where the agency operations manager spends most of their day.
SG-Dashboard → Analytics → Cross-site Report is the cross-client view for weekly check-ins.
Account → Team is where agency staff get added at account level.
Site → Settings → Team on each client site is where client-side staff get added per-site.
Steps — Onboard a new client end-to-end
1. Confirm the engagement details
Before clicking provision, confirm with the client:
- The client's brand name and the site name your team will use internally.
- The domain the site will live on (client-owned, ideally).
- Which client-side staff need per-site access, at what roles.
- Whether the site has special requirements (custom integrations, sensitive content) that affect the default house-style clone.
The five-minute pre-flight saves an hour of "wait, can we add this?" later.
2. Provision the new client site
Open SG-Dashboard → Sites → + Add New. Fill the form:
- Site name following your agency naming convention.
- Domain that the client owns. SGEN provisions a temporary subdomain immediately while DNS propagates.
- Starter content: Clone from existing site with the agency house-style site as the source.
- Inherit team access checked so the agency team appears on the new site by default.
- Plan tier at the default (usually Starter).
Click Create Site. Provisioning runs for about 60–120 seconds. The new site appears in the agency's Sites list.
3. Configure the client's domain
Once provisioning completes, the next screen shows the DNS records needed. Two options:
- Agency-managed DNS. If the agency has access to the client's registrar (common for white-label managed-SGEN engagements), the agency operations manager enters the records directly.
- Hand records to the client. Send the records (A record and CNAME) to the client with instructions to add them at their registrar. Set expectations: DNS propagation can take up to an hour.
The temporary SGEN subdomain works the same as the custom domain while DNS resolves, so admin access is unblocked.
4. Add client-side staff per-site
Open the new site's Site → Settings → Team → + Add Member. Enter each client-side staff member's email. Pick a per-site role:
- Site admin for the primary client contact.
- Editor for additional client staff who will create or edit content.
- Viewer for stakeholders who only need to look (e.g., the client's board, the client's marketing director who wants to see numbers).
Per-site adds do not give the client visibility into other clients' sites. The agency portfolio stays confidential.
5. Customize the cloned content for the client
The site cloned from the agency's house style. Most pages will need:
- Replace the agency placeholder logo with the client's brand logo.
- Update the primary colour, secondary colour, and fonts to match the client's brand.
- Edit the placeholder copy on each page.
- Replace placeholder images with client-provided media.
- Adjust navigation labels to match the client's content structure.
The agency design team typically does this work in one or two sessions. The structural patterns (hero, pricing, contact, footer) stay; the brand-specific surface evolves.
6. Walk the client through their site
Before the public launch, walk the client through:
- The admin URL pattern and how to sign in.
- The Pages section and how to create or edit a page.
- The Forms section (if applicable) and how to view form submissions.
- The Analytics section and how to read traffic data.
- The team list, so they know who from their side and the agency has access.
The walkthrough is usually a 30-minute call. Record it; future client staff can watch the recording instead of getting another live tour.
7. Launch the site publicly
Once the site is ready and the client has approved, switch the domain to the live custom domain. The site is now public.
Two configuration steps to do at launch:
- Submit the site to search engines. Use Google Search Console and Bing Webmaster Tools to register the new domain.
- Configure analytics goals. Decide which form submissions count as leads, which actions count as conversions, and set the goals up in the site's Analytics settings.
8. Set up the quarterly review cadence
Schedule a recurring 30-minute monthly check-in with the client and a 60-minute quarterly business review. Use cross-site reporting to prepare for both:
- Monthly check-in. Quick walkthrough of last 30 days' traffic, lead count, top pages. Surface anything unexpected.
- Quarterly business review. Last 90 days with previous-period comparison. Goal review. Plan for next quarter.
The cadence keeps the client engaged and surfaces problems early.
9. Document the engagement in your agency's notes
A short paragraph per client in your agency's shared notes, with:
- Engagement start date.
- Site domain and SGEN site name.
- Primary client contact and role.
- Agency lead.
- Plan tier and any tier-change history.
- Significant customizations or non-standard configurations.
The document is invaluable when a teammate covers for another, when a client engagement ends, or when an audit comes around.
What success looks like
A working agency portfolio feels like: For an agency operations manager: the daily experience is "open the portfolio, scan, drill into anything that looks unusual." Most days, nothing needs deep attention. For an agency lead: the cross-portfolio view tells the story of the agency's overall performance. Trends, churn, growth — all visible at the account level without per-client digging. For an agency owner: the SGEN account is one of the agency's stable operational assets, not a fragmented set of one-off relationships.
- New client onboarding is a one-hour process, not a one-week project.
- The agency team logs in and sees the full portfolio. Client staff log in and see only their site.
- The agency's house style is visible across the portfolio — clients look like agency clients, not like a mash-up of unrelated sites.
- Weekly cross-site review surfaces issues before clients complain. The agency stays ahead.
- Quarterly reviews prepare in 20 minutes per client instead of an hour.
- Client engagement endings happen cleanly — site transfers or archives without scramble.
- Billing arrives in one invoice with clean per-site line items. Reconciliation is easy.
What to do if it does not work
Less-obvious cases:
Most likely the house-style site had references to media or Custom CSS that did not export. Check the new site's media library and Custom CSS list. Re-upload media; copy Custom CSS snippets manually.
Critical confidentiality issue. Check the offending member's role. They are likely incorrectly set as account-level admin or have a per-site override on the second client's site. Remove account-level access; remove the per-site override.
Archived sites still appear in historical reports. Use the Sites to include filter to exclude them from current views.
Account-level removal asks about per-site cleanup. If you skipped that step, the per-site memberships remain. Go to each affected site and remove the member explicitly.
Open Site → Settings → Billing → Change tier. Tier changes apply at next billing cycle. Upgrading is reversible.
Schedule a quarterly maintenance pass on the house style. Update the source so future client clones land at the current quality bar.
If the client wants their domain back at their own registrar after an engagement ends, walk them through the DNS record updates. The site can remain on the agency account, or transfer with the domain.
Worked example — Acme Studio agency onboarding playbook
Acme Studio runs SGEN for eight clients. The agency operations manager's playbook, refined over two years:
- Day -3 (three days before kickoff). Schedule kickoff call with client. Send agency's standard pre-kickoff questionnaire (brand assets, content priorities, key staff who need access).
- Day 0 (kickoff). Run kickoff call. Confirm domain, primary contact, content priorities. Set the launch target date.
- Day 1. Operations manager provisions the new site from SG-Dashboard. Clone from the house style. Inherits the agency team. Adds the client primary contact as site admin.
- Day 1. Send the client an email with: their admin URL, the launch target, the cross-site reporting expectations, and a link to a 5-minute orientation video.
- Day 2–5. Design team customizes the cloned site to the client's brand. Logo, colour, fonts, hero copy. Content team starts drafting top-priority pages.
- Day 6. Walk client through the site in a 30-minute screen-share. Confirm their primary contact can sign in and edit a page.
- Day 7. Public launch. Domain switches from the temporary SGEN subdomain to the client's custom domain. Site is publicly live.
- Day 7+. Schedule the monthly check-in (first one at Day 30) and quarterly business review (first one at Day 90).
Eight clients later, the playbook is in the agency's shared docs as a checklist. Every new client follows the same path; the agency knows the timeline; the client knows what to expect.
Worked example — Agency house style stays current
Acme Studio runs a "house style audit" quarterly. The agency lead's process:
- Open the house-style starter site. Walk through every page as if seeing it for the first time.
- Compare against current best work on client sites. If a client site has a better hero pattern, port the improvement back to the house style.
- Update the house style. Save the improvements. The next new client will start from the updated source.
- Document the change. A one-paragraph note in the agency shared docs: what changed, why, when.
- Decide on retroactive propagation. Usually, existing client sites stay on their current designs unless the client specifically requests an update. The audit is forward-looking by default.
After two years: the agency's house style has evolved through eight quarterly audits. Each iteration is incremental; the cumulative effect is a much stronger starting point for new clients.
Notes on agency-specific patterns
A few patterns that show up across agencies running this shape:
The "client-starter" naming convention. Most agencies use a clear prefix or suffix to name client sites. Examples: Acme Coffee — Site, Studio Client: Acme Coffee, [ACME] Coffee Brand. Consistency matters more than the specific choice.
The agency's own portfolio site lives in the same account. Treat the agency's own site as one of the sites. Cross-site reports include it; the agency team has admin on it just like on client sites.
Onboarding-document templates pay back fast. A pre-kickoff questionnaire, a walkthrough script, a launch checklist — each saves time on every new client. Build them once, refine over a few engagements.
A "client-archived" tag on sites that ended. When an engagement ends but the site is not deleted, archive it. The Sites list filter shows or hides archived sites. Quarterly cleanup removes truly inactive archives.
SGEN role separation matches agency role separation. Agency content lead = account editor. Agency operations manager = account admin. Agency founder = account owner. The platform's role model maps cleanly onto agency roles.
Billing reconciliation runs monthly. The agency's bookkeeper exports the billing line items from SGEN, marks which client each line belongs to, and invoices the client. The platform's per-site line items make this straightforward.
Client-end-of-engagement decision tree. Three outcomes when an engagement ends: site transfers to the client's own SGEN account, site stays on the agency account in archived state, or site is fully deleted. The decision belongs to the client; the agency executes.
Common questions
Should I run each client on a separate SGEN account? Most agencies migrate to one agency account holding many sites because cross-client visibility and unified billing outweigh per-client account flexibility. Exception: clients who explicitly demand their own account from day one.
Can a client see other clients' sites? Only if you configure their access incorrectly. Per-site members do not see other sites under the agency account. Account-level admin sees all sites — never grant this to a client.
How do I bill clients separately? SGEN invoices the agency account; the agency invoices clients separately on whatever schedule and rate fits. Per-site line items on the SGEN invoice make per-client reconciliation easy.
What happens when a client engagement ends? Three options: transfer the site to the client's own SGEN account, archive on the agency account, or delete the site. Discuss with the client; execute their choice.
Can my staff have different access on different client sites? Yes — per-site overrides handle this. Most agency staff are account-level admin and access all sites; per-site exceptions exist only for sensitive clients.
How many client sites can one agency account hold? Determined by your account's plan tier. Growth and Pro tiers support multi-site; Enterprise can negotiate higher caps.
Can I clone an old client site to start a new one with the same design? Yes — clone-on-create works from any site in your account. The new site is a snapshot; subsequent edits are independent.
Should I give every agency staff member account-level admin? Most agencies say yes for content and design staff who work across clients. Finance staff get account-level viewer plus billing access. Junior staff start as account-level editor and graduate.
Can a client move their site away from my agency? Yes — site transfer to the client's own account. Discuss the handover details with the client (domains, custom integrations, team access) and execute together.
How do I report cross-client performance to my agency leadership? Cross-site reports with CSV export. Filter to client sites only (exclude the agency's own portfolio site). Aggregate the CSV in your preferred BI tool or spreadsheet.
Can I share a single design system across all client sites? Use the house-style starter site and clone-on-create. Pair with manual quarterly audits to keep the house style current. Live cross-site sync is not supported.
Are there any agency-tier features? Some plan tiers include agency-specific features (white-label, client-handoff workflows, agency dashboard). Check your plan's features list. If agency-tier features are not part of your plan, the patterns in this guide still work — they require slightly more manual operations.
Should I document each client engagement in my agency notes? Yes. A one-paragraph engagement summary per client saves hours of "wait, who set that up?" later. Update at engagement start, at major milestones, and at engagement end.
Agency portfolio setup rewards consistency. Build the house style once, document the playbook, train the team. The marginal cost of onboarding the eleventh client should be lower than the marginal cost of the third. If it is not, the playbook needs a refresh.
Related reading
This concludes the Multi Sites guide series. From here, the closest next reads are the individual feature guides — Templates, Theme Editor, Forms, Analytics — that the agency team uses inside each client site.
Add a second site to your account — the provisioning entry point.
Cross-site template sharing — house-style reuse across client sites.
Multi-site permissions and roles — agency vs client-side access scoping.
Consolidated reporting across sites — cross-client portfolio reports.