I Build It. You Brand It.
Senior engineering for agencies and strategy firms that don't want another full-time dev hire. No subcontractor pool, no offshore relay — you brief me, I build it, you ship it.
What is white-label web development for agencies?
White-label web development is an arrangement where an agency subcontracts the technical build of a client's website to an outside developer, and delivers the finished work to the client under the agency's own brand. The developer stays invisible: no attribution, no footer credit, no direct client relationship unless the agency asks for one. For a marketing, creative, or strategy firm, it converts web development from a hiring decision into a per-project cost — the agency keeps the client relationship, sets its own retail price, and adds engineering capacity for overflow work without carrying a full-time developer between projects.
Why Agencies Stop Trying to Solve Development In-House
Every agency that sells websites eventually runs into the same six problems. Most of them cost more than the development did.
Hiring in-house dev doesn't pencil out
A senior developer is a six-figure salary plus benefits plus the months of pipeline it takes to keep them busy. Web work at most agencies is lumpy — three builds this quarter, none the next. You end up either paying someone to idle or scrambling when two projects land the same week.
The offshore shop was cheap until it wasn't
The quote looked great. Then came the 12-hour feedback loop, the code nobody on your side can read, the QA cycles that found the same bug three times, and the account manager translating your brief into something else. The savings evaporated in project management hours.
Junior shops build what you asked for, not what works
They'll execute the comp pixel-perfect and ship a site that fails Core Web Vitals, has no content model, and can't be extended. Nobody pushed back on the requirement that was going to cause problems, because nobody had the experience to see it coming.
Technical SEO gets sold, then can't get implemented
Your strategist delivers a solid audit. Then it sits, because implementing structured data, fixing render-blocking resources, and running a migration without losing rankings is engineering work — and the client's developer either can't or won't do it.
You're the one apologizing for someone else's delay
When the subcontractor slips, your client doesn't hear from the subcontractor. They hear from you. Every missed date spends trust you built over years on a vendor relationship that took a week to set up.
You need capacity, not a competitor
Plenty of dev shops will happily take the overflow — and the relationship. Handing a client to a firm that also sells strategy and creative is a real risk, and you shouldn't have to run that risk to get a site built.
A Technical Partner, Not Another Vendor to Manage
One senior engineer, working the way agencies actually operate — behind your brand, on your timeline, at your direction.
Capacity extension
Not competition
- You keep the client relationship and the margin
- Written non-solicitation, standard on every engagement
- I don't sell strategy, brand, or creative
- Scale up for overflow, scale down with no severance
Technical depth
The part you don't have in-house
- Next.js, React, Sanity, headless CMS architecture
- Technical SEO actually implemented, not just recommended
- Core Web Vitals, migrations, structured data
- Inherits and repairs existing codebases
Built for agency workflows
One senior point of contact
- Comms run through you by default
- NDA-friendly, subcontractor agreements welcome
- Staging links and review builds your client can see
- Clean handoff docs written for your team
Speed and reliability
Dates you can quote to a client
- Scoped timelines before you commit to the client
- Same-day or next-day turnaround on active-project tickets
- An honest no when a deadline isn't achievable
- No offshore chain, no handoff to a junior developer
The Partner Engagement, Start to Finish
Discovery & Scoping Under NDA
NDA first, details second. You send the brief, the comps, or just the client's problem, and I come back with a fixed scope, a timeline, and a wholesale quote you can mark up. If the request doesn't fit — wrong stack, wrong timeline, wrong budget — you hear that in the scoping call, not three weeks in.
White-Label Handoff Model
Before work starts you pick the comms model: fully behind the scenes, or on client calls under your agency's name and email. Everything routes through you for review by default. Nothing carries my brand, my footer credit, or my backlink, and your client never learns a second firm was involved unless you tell them.
Build in Whatever Fits the Client
Next.js and Sanity when the client needs a fast, structured, modern site. Custom WordPress when their team needs a familiar admin. Shopify for commerce. Their existing stack when IT has already decided. You get staging links throughout, so there's always something real to show the client instead of a status update.
QA, Accessibility & Launch
Cross-browser and device testing, Core Web Vitals, WCAG checks, redirects mapped, analytics and tracking verified against the client's existing setup. Launch is planned — DNS cutover, caching, monitoring — not improvised on a Friday afternoon. I stay available through go-live and the week after.
Ongoing Fulfillment & Retainer
After launch, most partners keep me on a monthly retainer for the work that keeps arriving: SEO implementation, iterative development, performance monitoring, and the small client requests that would otherwise interrupt your team. You bill it as your maintenance or SEO service line.
What Your Client Ends Up With
White-label work runs under your brand, so the numbers below come from direct engagements I'm able to name. The engineering standard is the same either way.
Metrics represent client results across engagements. Individual results vary.
Two Ways Agencies Use Me
White-Label Web Development
The full delivery model: how handoff works, what your client sees, deliverables, IP ownership, and timelines for a build shipped under your brand.
Technical SEO Fulfillment
Execution for firms whose service line is strategy: Core Web Vitals, structured data, technical audits, and migrations actually implemented in the code.
The LAB Framework™
Every Black Lab Dev engagement follows the same structured methodology — so outcomes are predictable, not dependent on who gets assigned to the project.
Learn
Understand your business goals, target buyers, and technical constraints before touching a line of code or a single design element. Discovery isn't billable overhead — it's the work that makes everything else cost less.
Architect
Define the information architecture, content strategy, integration map, and conversion paths. Decisions made here prevent expensive course-corrections later — and produce websites that scale.
Build
Develop, optimize, and launch. Clean code, measurable performance, and a handoff your team can actually maintain. Measurement is in place before go-live, not added as an afterthought.
Frequently Asked Questions
Yes — that's the default for partner engagements. The work ships under your agency's brand: no Black Lab Development credit in the footer, no backlink, no logo, no attribution in the repository or the CMS. Deliverables are handed to you, and you present them to your client as your team's work. I don't publish white-label builds as case studies or name the end client anywhere unless you explicitly approve it in writing.
Only if you want me to. The default is communicate-through-you: you own the client relationship, I work from your briefs, and everything goes back to you for review before it reaches the client. If it's more efficient, I'll join client calls as a member of your team, under your agency's name and email — plenty of partners prefer that for technical scoping sessions. Either way, I never contact your client outside a channel you set up, and I don't solicit your clients for direct work. That's a written term, not a handshake.
Yes. I sign agency NDAs and mutual NDAs before scoping calls, and I'm happy to work under your standard subcontractor agreement including non-solicitation and IP assignment clauses. As an independent practice there's no offshore subcontractor chain and no one else with access to your client's credentials or code — it's one person under one agreement, which is a materially smaller surface than a dev shop that routes work to a team you never meet.
I hold capacity for one to two active partner projects at a time alongside direct work, so I can usually start a scoped build within one to two weeks. Typical turnarounds: a landing page or template build in 3–7 business days, a marketing site of 8–15 pages in 3–6 weeks, and a technical SEO audit with a prioritized remediation plan in about a week. Small fixes and bug tickets from an existing partner project are usually turned around same-day or next-day. If I can't hit your deadline, I say so before you quote the client — never after.
Next.js and React for custom front-ends, Sanity and headless CMS setups for structured content, WordPress with custom themes (no page builders), Shopify for commerce, and Drupal or Laravel where the client's requirements call for them. I also take over existing codebases — inheriting a client's WordPress install or a half-finished Next.js build is normal partner work. If your client's stack is fixed by their IT team, I build inside it rather than pitching you a migration you didn't ask for.
Partner pricing is wholesale: you get a fixed quote per project at a partner rate below my published direct rates, and you set your own client-facing price and keep the margin. Most partner builds are quoted as a flat project fee; ongoing work — SEO fulfillment, maintenance, iterative development — runs as a monthly retainer, typically starting around $1,500/month. Rush work is quoted separately rather than silently marked up. You invoice your client; I invoice you.
Michael Beasley
Senior Web Developer & Founder — you work directly with me on every engagement. No account managers, no bench of junior developers.
Let's Talk About Partnering
Send me the project you're trying to staff — or just the shape of the work you keep turning away. I'll tell you whether I'm the right fit, what it would cost you at partner rates, and how fast I could start.
NDA first if you need one. No pitch deck, no reseller program to enroll in, no minimum commitment. One senior engineer you can put on the work and take off it.