What to ask a white-label partner before your name goes on the work

A white-label partner is easy to praise in a proposal and awkward to explain after a client finds a second logo in the repository. Ask these before the statement of work is signed. The useful answers are specific. “We are fully white-label” is not an answer.

Whose name is on the accounts?

The repository, the hosting project, the analytics property, and any app store listing should already be in the agency’s or the client’s name on day one. Moving them later is how credits leak. If a partner needs to publish from their own developer account “just for the beta,” that is the moment to stop.

Will you contact our client?

The default should be no. Reviews happen with the agency. A partner joins an end-client call only when the agency invites them and stays in the thread. Put that in the statement of work, not in a slide.

What will you refuse?

A serious studio can name work it will not automate and screens it will not pretend are in scope. Money movement, customer messages, and filings need a person in the loop until someone has measured the errors. If the partner agrees to every sentence in the proposal, they have not read it.

Who is actually in the codebase?

Ask for the name of the lead who will still be there next month. Staffing marketplaces hide behind a rotating cast. You are putting your brand on this person’s pull requests.

What happens to access on the last day?

You should be able to remove the partner from GitHub, hosting, analytics, and chat in an afternoon, and they should already have a checklist for it. Secrets belong in a vault you own. They do not belong in a personal password manager on another continent.

How do you move a date?

On-time delivery is a date in the statement of work, plus a rule for what happens when the date is wrong. You want to hear about a slip before the day arrives, with the cause. A partner who only reports status when you ask is already late.

Can we operate it without you?

Ask to see a runbook from a previous engagement, even a redacted one. If the only way to understand the system is a call, you do not own the work yet. Our working agreement is written so this list is boring. That is the point.

If the brief is an operations product rather than a brochure, start with white-label AI automation or send the brief with the proposal you already sold.