White-label setup for a partner-managed SGEN site

For partner agencies running SGEN sites on behalf of clients, the white-label surface controls what the client sees when they log in. With white-label on, the SGEN admin wears your agency's branding — your logo in the admin chrome, your visual on the login page, your name in transactional emails — so the platform feels like an agency-owned product rather than a third-party tool the client is being routed through.

This walkthrough covers the full setup — what white-label changes, what it does not change, how to configure each surface (logo, login screen, sender identity, footer toggle), the optional custom admin domain, and the partner-discipline rules you should not break. White-label is per-site, so you can leave Your Store fully branded while another client keeps the default SGEN look.

White-label is a presentation layer, not a separate product. Every white-labeled site still runs on SGEN. If a client opens a support ticket directly with SGEN, the SGEN support team will see the site identity and know it is white-labeled. Tell your clients honestly — "it is white-labeled SGEN" — rather than pretending the platform is something else.

How to white-label a client site

The walkthrough below covers the full setup — the four core surfaces (logo, login screen, sender, footer) plus the optional custom admin domain — in the order an agency typically configures them after a new client site is built.

What is this for?

White-label removes SGEN-specific branding from a client's admin so the experience feels like an agency-owned platform. The visible changes are concentrated in five surfaces — admin chrome logo, login page background, transactional email "from name", the optional "Powered by SGEN" footer line, and the optional custom admin domain.

Use white-label when:

• Your agency sells SGEN-built sites as part of a larger service bundle and wants the admin to look like part of that bundle.
• A client expects to see only the agency's brand in every interaction, not a third-party platform's name.
• You manage many client sites and want each one to wear its own agency-or-client brand rather than the same SGEN default.
• You need to send transactional email (password resets, form notifications) from a sender the client recognizes — your agency's name, not "SGEN".

The mechanism is straightforward: a single Branding panel per site holds the agency logo, login visual, sender name, and footer toggle. Saved values apply immediately to the admin chrome and the login page; sender identity applies to any email SGEN sends on that site's behalf from the next event onward.

How white-label is scoped

White-label settings are stored per site. Every client site in your agency portfolio has its own Branding panel, its own Email panel, and its own optional admin domain configuration. Changing the white-label on one site does not affect any other site, even when both sites sit in the same agency account.

The scope choice matters for two reasons:

• Per-client visual control. Your Store wears the agency mark; a separate photography studio client can wear the studio's own logo; a law firm client can wear the law firm's seal. No cross-bleed.
• Per-client compliance. If one client's contract requires the "Powered by SGEN" footer visible and another grants the right to hide it, the per-site toggle handles both without you needing to remember which is which on every login.

Agency-wide profiles are a convenience layer on top — see Agency client portfolio setup for saved profiles you can apply on each new client provision. The profile applies a baseline set of values; per-client overrides happen on the individual site panels.

Good use cases

Agency-managed marketing site. An Your Store site runs on SGEN but is operated by a partner agency. The agency white-labels the admin so that when a Your Store marketing team member logs in to draft a blog post, they see the agency's logo in the corner and the login page background carries the agency's brand visual rather than the default SGEN look.

Reseller bundle with single login experience. Your agency sells a "site plus hosting plus support" bundle. The client expects one branded login experience — they should not have to think about which underlying platforms power which parts. White-label is the layer that makes the admin look like part of the bundle rather than a third-party admin they are being routed through.

Multi-client portfolio with per-client branding. Your agency runs sites for Your Store, a photography studio, and a regional law firm. Each gets its own white-label profile so each client's admin shows the appropriate brand — Your Store staff see the Your Store-or-agency mark when they log in, not the photography studio's brand and definitely not SGEN's.

Transactional email under the agency's name. A visitor submits the contact form on yoursite.com. SGEN sends the form-notification email to the inbox. With sender identity white-labeled, the email lands as "Your Store <hello@yoursite.com>" rather than "SGEN Notifications". The recipient never sees the platform name.

What NOT to use this for

• Hiding that SGEN is the underlying platform from a client who asks directly. White-label is a presentation layer. If a client asks "what is this built on?" the honest answer is "white-labeled SGEN, the platform we use to build sites efficiently". Pretending the platform is something else is a partner-terms violation and breaks trust the first time the client opens a support ticket directly with SGEN.
• Disabling the "Powered by SGEN" footer when the contract requires it visible. Some partner tiers require the footer line to remain visible as part of the partner agreement. Check the agreement before flipping the toggle. The toggle controls visibility on the public site footer chrome, not legal attribution in your contract.
• White-labeling a client site you do not own. Branding settings should reflect the agency that holds the partner agreement for that site. Applying your agency's white-label to a site you are subcontracting on, without the owning agency's consent, violates partner terms.
• Substituting the SGEN domain on the technical URL without the custom admin domain feature. The admin lives at a SGEN-hosted address by default. If the client sees admin.sgen.com and you want them to see admin.yoursite.com, that requires the optional custom admin domain (CNAME-based) — you cannot achieve it by editing labels in the Branding panel alone.
• Storing client passwords or payment card numbers in the Branding panel. Branding holds visual assets, sender names, and toggles. It does not hold credentials. Anything you upload becomes part of the client's site assets — treat the panel as a public-facing asset library, not a secure store.

How this connects to other features

• Partner agency role onboarding — the foundational read for partner agencies setting up SGEN sites on behalf of clients. Covers account roles, billing, and the order in which you provision a new client site. Run that walkthrough before this one.
• Launch a marketing site — the broader launch checklist. White-label is one of the late-launch steps, after the site itself is built and before you hand login credentials to the client.
• Site rebrand workflow — covers the public-facing brand swap (logos, colors, fonts). White-label is the admin-side counterpart — the rebrand workflow handles what visitors see; this walkthrough handles what the logged-in client sees.
• Agency client portfolio setup — if you manage many client sites, the portfolio setup guide covers saved white-label profiles you can apply on each new client provisioning, so you do not retype the same agency branding five times a month.

Before you start

• You have agency admin access to the SGEN account that owns the client's site. The Branding panel is gated on agency role — site-level Editor and Contributor roles cannot reach it.
• You have your agency logo ready in two variants — a light-background version and a dark-background version. PNG or SVG, transparent background, roughly 240 by 60 pixels for the admin chrome. The same files work for the login page at a larger render size.
• You have a login page background visual — a single image, roughly 1600 by 900 pixels, that carries the agency or client brand without being so busy that the login form is hard to read. A muted product photograph or a brand-coloured gradient works well.
• You have a sender email address that has been verified for the site (see Configure email sending). White-label changes the display name on outbound mail but does not bypass sender verification — without a verified sender, transactional mail will not deliver.
• You have read the partner agreement sections on white-label rights, especially the "Powered by SGEN" footer clause. Some partner tiers grant the right to remove the footer; others require it visible. Flipping the toggle when your tier does not grant the right is a contract violation.
• For the optional custom admin domain only: you have DNS edit access for the client's domain, so you can add a CNAME record pointing the subdomain (typically admin.yoursite.com) at the SGEN admin host.

Where to go

You move between four panels during setup, all under the same client site:

All four panels are scoped to the single client site. If your portfolio has six sites, you configure six times — or apply a saved white-label profile from the agency dashboard on provisioning. The portfolio guide covers profile reuse.

Steps — set up white-label

The five steps run in order. The first two (logo, login screen) take effect the moment you save. The third (sender identity) takes effect on the next outbound email. The fourth (footer toggle) is a one-click flip. The fifth is optional and adds a couple of hours of DNS propagation time.

1. Upload the agency logo

Open Settings → Branding and upload the agency logo in two variants — one for light-background contexts (the admin chrome top bar) and one for dark-background contexts (the login page header, hover states). Both variants render at the same intrinsic size, so prepare them at the same aspect ratio.

Save the panel. The admin chrome refreshes on the next page load — the client will see the Your Store mark in the top bar the next time they navigate anywhere in the admin.

2. Replace the login page visual

Open Settings → Branding → Login screen and upload the background visual plus a short headline that appears above the login form. The visual sets the tone — a product photograph for a retail client, a workspace photograph for a service business, a brand-coloured gradient if the client has no obvious photo asset.

The headline is one line, no more than about sixty characters. "Your Store admin" works. "Welcome back" works. "Sign in to manage your online store" is too long and crowds the form.

Notice the small "Powered by SGEN" line at the bottom of the form. That is the footer toggle in Step 4 — leave it on, hide it on, depending on your partner tier.

3. Set the email sender identity

Open Settings → Email and set the display name and reply-to address that SGEN uses on every outbound message — form notifications, password resets, ecommerce order confirmations, push notification summaries.

Sender identity affects mail SGEN sends on this site's behalf. It does not affect mail sent through external services (Mailgun, SendGrid, Postmark) wired through your own integration — those services have their own sender configuration. If your client uses one of those services for marketing campaigns, this setting only governs the transactional mail SGEN sends directly.

After saving, the next outbound email carries the new sender. Send yourself a test from the Email panel to confirm — the test email arrives within a minute under the new sender.

4. Toggle the "Powered by SGEN" footer

Open Settings → Branding → Footer and flip the toggle. Two values: visible or hidden. The default is visible. Hiding requires that your partner agreement grants the right — check before you flip.

The toggle controls one footer line on the public site (the chrome below the site footer the page builder owns) and the same line on the login page form. It does not affect any other surface — admin chrome, dashboards, emails are unaffected. If the toggle is unavailable in your panel, your partner tier does not grant the right and you should not pursue further.

5. Optional — point a custom admin subdomain

If the client expects to see admin.yoursite.com rather than the SGEN-hosted admin address, set up a custom admin subdomain. This is the highest-touch white-label level and adds two changes:

1. A DNS edit on the client's domain — add a CNAME record from admin to the SGEN admin host (the host value appears in the panel; copy it precisely).
2. A reverse confirmation in the Branding panel after DNS propagates (typically thirty minutes to two hours).

Once both sides agree, the client lands on admin.yoursite.com/login rather than the SGEN-hosted address. The login form, the admin chrome, and every internal admin link are unchanged — only the address bar swaps.

The custom admin domain is the only white-label step that touches DNS. If your client controls their own DNS and you do not have edit access, send them the CNAME instructions and ask them to add the record — then verify resolution from the Branding panel once they confirm.

What does NOT change

The white-label surface is concentrated on visible branding plus sender identity. A few things stay the same regardless of how thoroughly you white-label:

• The underlying platform behaviour. Every feature works the same way on a white-labeled site as on a default-branded one. The admin chrome looks different; the dashboards, lists, edit forms, and publish flows are identical.
• The SGEN help links inside the admin. Contextual help links inside the admin point at docs.sgen.com because that is where the documentation lives. If your client follows one of those links, they will land on the SGEN-branded docs site. The Branding panel does not redirect help URLs.
• Direct support escalation to SGEN. If your client opens a ticket directly with SGEN support, the SGEN team will see the site identity and know it is white-labeled. They will respond to the client as SGEN, not as your agency. Route support through your own intake if you want to mediate.
• The technical URL on default admin domains. Without the optional custom admin domain, the address bar reads the SGEN-hosted admin host. The chrome inside looks like the agency, but the address bar reveals the underlying platform to anyone who looks. The custom admin domain is the only way to change that.
• Outbound mail headers and DMARC alignment. White-label changes the display name and reply-to, not the technical sending domain. Email-deliverability folks who read full headers will see the SGEN-side sending infrastructure. For complete header-level white-label, route mail through a third-party service (Mailgun, SendGrid) under your own domain.
• Billing and account-level emails. Invoices, plan-change notifications, and trial-expiry alerts go to the account holder under SGEN's billing identity, not the white-labeled per-site identity. If your agency is the billing contact, this matters only to you; if the client holds the billing relationship directly, they will see SGEN-identified billing mail.

Knowing the limits upfront prevents over-promising to clients. White-label gives you most of the visible branding control; it does not make SGEN invisible at the technical layer.

What success looks like

A correctly white-labeled site produces all of the following:

• The admin chrome top bar shows the agency logo, not SGEN's default mark.
• The login page at yoursite.comyour admin area shows the agency background visual and the agency or client name above the form.
• A form-notification or password-reset email arrives in the recipient inbox under the agency display name, with reply-to pointing at the agency or client inbox.
• The "Powered by SGEN" footer is visible or hidden according to your partner tier — and your partner agreement notes are aligned with what is shown.
• If the optional custom admin domain is configured, the address bar reads admin.yoursite.com/... after sign-in, and the certificate panel shows a valid (non-expired) Let's Encrypt cert.
• A new admin user invited to the site sees the white-labeled login screen on their first visit — confirmation that the change is live for fresh sessions, not only cached for existing ones.

A list view of three sites in your agency portfolio, each at a different white-label completeness, makes the difference obvious:

The Your Store row is fully white-labeled. The photography studio row is missing the custom admin domain — visible to the client, but their admin address bar still reads the SGEN-hosted address. The law firm row is default — they signed up recently and the agency has not yet pushed white-label settings to them.

What to do if it does not work

• Logo uploads but does not appear in the admin chrome. Hard-refresh the browser (Ctrl+Shift+R or Cmd+Shift+R). The admin chrome caches the previous logo aggressively to avoid flicker on every navigation. If the new logo still does not appear after a hard refresh, confirm the upload completed — the panel shows the file name plus the byte size if the upload succeeded.

• Login page background visual looks stretched or pixelated. The recommended size is 1600 by 900 pixels. If the source image is smaller, the browser upscales and the result looks soft. Re-export from the source at the target size, or pick a different image — there is no in-panel image editor for the background visual.

• Email arrives with the SGEN default sender even after saving the new sender identity. Two common causes: the new sender address has not been verified for the site (check the Email panel — unverified senders fall back to the default), or the email in question is sent by an external integration (Mailgun, SendGrid) which has its own sender configuration and ignores the SGEN-side sender identity.

• Footer toggle is greyed out. Your partner tier does not grant the right to hide the footer. The toggle is hidden or disabled based on agreement type. If you believe your agreement should grant it, contact your partner-account manager.

• Custom admin domain shows "DNS not resolving" hours after the CNAME edit. Confirm the CNAME points at the exact target shown in the Branding panel (no typos, no trailing dot mismatches). Some DNS providers cache aggressively — try a third-party DNS lookup tool to confirm the record from outside your own network. Propagation can take longer than two hours in rare cases, especially across provider boundaries.

• Custom admin domain resolves but the certificate panel shows "Pending". The certificate issues after DNS resolves cleanly. Wait fifteen minutes after DNS confirms, then refresh the Branding panel. If the certificate is still pending after an hour, contact support — most cases are intermittent issuance delays that clear on retry.

• Client reports the admin still shows SGEN branding after the white-label setup. They are probably looking at a cached session. Ask them to sign out, clear the browser cache for the admin host, and sign back in. Fresh sessions always pick up the latest branding.

Examples in context

The three scenarios below show how partner agencies wire white-label for different client shapes.

Example 1: Single-client white-label — Your Store retail site.

The agency project manager has just finished building the Your Store retail site. The client expects to see only their own brand once they log in. The four-step white-label setup runs as follows:

1. Uploads the Your Store mark (light + dark variants) and sets the agency display name to "Your Store".
2. Replaces the login background with a product photograph from the Your Store brand library and sets the headline to "Your Store admin".
3. Sets the email sender to "Your Store <hello@yoursite.com>" (the address was already verified during site setup).
4. Hides the "Powered by SGEN" footer — the agency holds a partner tier that grants the right.

The custom admin domain is skipped for now (the client did not request it). The branding panel shows all four green checkmarks. When the Your Store marketing team logs in for the first time, they see the Your Store mark in the chrome and the product photograph behind the login form — no mention of SGEN anywhere visible.

Example 2: Portfolio rollout — one branding profile across three new client provisions.

The agency operations lead has three new client sites being provisioned this week — Your Store phase two (an ecommerce subsite), a photography studio, and a regional law firm. Rather than configuring each white-label step three times, a portfolio-wide branding profile is saved on the agency dashboard that carries the agency mark, a neutral login background, and the agency sender identity.

On each new site provision, the saved profile is selected from the dropdown and the four-step setup completes automatically. Per-client overrides — the Your Store site swaps the neutral background for the Your Store product photograph, the law firm keeps the default monogram fallback for the favicon — take five minutes each instead of the full configuration round.

The bulk-rollout summary shows what the profile applied:

The portfolio approach saves about fifteen minutes per provision and ensures every new site lands with consistent agency branding from the first client sign-in.

Example 3: Custom admin domain cutover — admin.yoursite.com.

The agency's technical operations lead sets up the custom admin domain on the Your Store site after the client requested that the admin live under their own domain rather than the SGEN-hosted address.

The CNAME target is copied from the Branding panel, the Your Store DNS is updated to add admin pointing at that target, and the process awaits confirmation. Forty-five minutes later, the panel confirms DNS resolution and the certificate issuance starts; within another fifteen minutes the certificate is valid and the custom address is live.

The client is notified that the next sign-in will happen on the new address — there is a brief sign-in re-prompt because the session cookies are scoped to the new host, but everything else continues to work. The client signs in at admin.yoursite.com/login, lands on the dashboard, and the address bar reads the Your Store address from then on.

The cutover took under two hours from CNAME edit to active certificate, with one brief sign-in re-prompt as the only client-visible disruption.

Common follow-up adjustments

Two adjustments come up often after the initial white-label setup. Both are quick once you know where to look.

Adjusting the logo render size. The Branding panel renders the uploaded logo at a fixed aspect ratio (roughly 4:1 — 240 wide by 60 tall). If your agency mark is closer to a square (say 80 by 80), it renders smaller than expected in the chrome top bar because the panel scales to fit the height while preserving the source aspect ratio. The fix is to re-export the logo at the panel's preferred ratio with transparent padding on the sides — the logo stays visually centred and reads at the expected size in the chrome.

Adjusting the login headline length. The login page headline is constrained to a single line at the rendered width. Long phrases wrap to a second line and crowd the form below. If your headline wraps, shorten it (about sixty characters is the working ceiling) or split into a primary headline plus a smaller subheading.

A common pattern: agencies start with "Welcome back" or the agency name as the headline, then adjust to a client-specific phrase once the client signs in and gives feedback. The headline is a save-and-refresh — no propagation wait — so iterate cheaply.

Maintenance — what to revisit and when

White-label is mostly set-and-forget, but two cadences are worth knowing about:

• Quarterly — review the portfolio status table. Every quarter, open the agency dashboard and skim the white-label column on the client portfolio table (the same shape as the "What success looks like" mock above). Any row showing default branding on a long-running client site is a missed agency-touch opportunity. Apply the saved profile or schedule a per-client override session.

• Annually — verify the partner-tier footer right. Partner agreements can change at renewal. Re-confirm whether your current tier grants the right to hide the "Powered by SGEN" footer before you renew, and whether any new client sites brought on under a different tier are subject to a different rule. A misaligned footer toggle on a client site is a minor partner-terms infraction that compounds quietly if no one checks.

• At certificate renewal — confirm the custom admin domain is still healthy. For sites using the custom admin domain, the Let's Encrypt certificate auto-renews every ninety days. The Branding panel shows the remaining days; if it ever shows "expired" or "renewal failed", investigate within the day. An expired certificate breaks admin sign-in for that site until reissued.

• On every agency staff change — rotate the access list. White-label settings change the visible branding but not the access-control list. When agency staff join or leave, update each client site's user list through the standard SGEN user-management workflow. White-label has no bearing on who can sign in.

Tips for a smooth rollout

Save a portfolio profile if you white-label every client identically. If your agency uses one mark, one login background, and one sender across every client, the saved profile reduces a four-step manual configuration to a one-click apply. New client provisions land already white-labeled — your client never sees the SGEN-default look.

Per-client overrides for clients that bring their own brand. Not every client wants the agency mark. Some clients have their own brand and the white-label should reflect their identity, not yours. Apply the portfolio profile for the structural fields (login layout, email sender format) and override the visual fields per-client.

Verify the email sender before flipping anything on. White-label sender identity does not bypass verification. If the sender address is not verified for the site, transactional mail falls back to the SGEN default sender silently — your client never knows the new identity did not stick. Send a test from the Email panel after every sender change.

Document the footer-toggle decision per client. Whether the "Powered by SGEN" footer is shown or hidden depends on your partner tier and the client contract. Record the decision in your client onboarding notes so future agency staff know whether to flip it during a rebrand. Flipping mid-engagement without re-checking the agreement is the most common source of partner-terms missteps.

Use the custom admin domain only when the client asks for it. It adds DNS work, a propagation wait, and a one-time sign-in re-prompt. If the client is content with the SGEN-hosted address (most are), skip it. Reserve the custom admin domain for clients who explicitly request it or for premium tiers where it is part of the service bundle.

Refresh both sides after a logo change. The admin chrome caches the logo for performance. After uploading a new logo, hard-refresh the browser yourself to confirm, and tell the client to do the same on their next sign-in — otherwise they may see the old logo for a day until the cache expires naturally.

Frequently asked questions

Can a client see that the site is white-labeled SGEN?

Yes, if they look at the page source, the address bar (without the optional custom admin domain), or the email headers, they will see SGEN identifiers. White-label is a presentation layer, not a disguise. The honest answer when a client asks: "It is white-labeled SGEN, the platform we use to build sites efficiently."

Can two agencies share white-label on the same client site?

No. White-label is scoped to the site and applies one branding identity at a time. If two agencies collaborate on a single client site, agree on which agency owns the white-label slot — typically the agency holding the partner-tier agreement for that site.

Does white-label cost extra?

Logo, login screen, email sender, and footer toggle are included in every partner tier. The custom admin domain is included in higher partner tiers; check your agreement for tier-specific availability. Pricing changes happen at renewal — read the current terms before promising a feature to a client.

Can I undo white-label and revert to default SGEN branding?

Yes. Remove the uploaded logo (the panel falls back to the SGEN default mark), clear the login background (the panel falls back to the SGEN default visual), reset the sender display name to the default (or to a different value), and switch the footer toggle back to visible. Reverting is symmetric to setting up and takes the same number of clicks.

Will existing signed-in client users see the new branding immediately?

The admin chrome refreshes on the next page navigation after save. Open admin tabs need a hard refresh (Ctrl+Shift+R) to pick up the new logo and chrome styling. The login page picks up the new visual on the next sign-in. Sender identity applies on the next outbound message. The custom admin domain, if configured, requires a fresh sign-in because the session cookie is host-scoped.

Related reading

• Partner agency role onboarding — the foundational walkthrough for partner agencies setting up SGEN sites on behalf of clients. Run this before white-label setup.
• Launch a marketing site — the broader launch checklist; white-label is one of the late-launch steps.
• Site rebrand workflow — the public-facing brand swap (logos, colors, fonts visible to site visitors). White-label is the admin-side counterpart.
• Agency client portfolio setup — saved white-label profiles for agencies running many client sites.