How do I resell CRM software to clients?
Four decisions, in order: the licence model, who holds the account, what you actually charge for, and what happens when a client leaves.
The short answer
- Reselling a CRM comes down to four decisions made in order: which licence model the vendor offers, who holds the billing account, whether you charge for software or for the service wrapped around it, and what a client takes with them when they leave.
- Vendors sell to resellers in two shapes: sub-accounts inside one platform subscription, where GoHighLevel's Unlimited plan at $297 a month includes unlimited sub-accounts, or one instance per client, where the agency pays a per-instance price and the isolation is real.
- Margin on reselling comes from the service layer, meaning setup, campaign work, reporting and support, and almost never from a markup on the software itself, because the client can look up the vendor's list price in a browser.
- Metered costs are the margin killer: model calls, SMS segments and call minutes are billed by usage, so a flat resale price with no pass-through means one heavy client month lands on the agency.
The four decisions, in the order they bite
The first decision is the licence model, and vendors offer two shapes. In the shared shape you buy one platform subscription and create a sub-account per client inside it. In the instance shape you pay a per-client price and each client gets their own deployment. The shared shape is cheaper per client and faster to open. The instance shape costs more and answers the data questions a bigger client will eventually ask.
The second decision is who holds the billing account. This is the one agencies skip and regret. Whoever holds the account can cancel it, export it and lock the other party out. If you hold it, write down in the client contract what happens to their records on the day the relationship ends, in what format and within how many days. If you do not write it down, you are negotiating it during an argument.
The third decision is what you are actually selling. A markup on software is a weak position because your client can find the vendor's pricing page in thirty seconds. What they cannot do themselves is the configuration, the campaign work, the reporting and being on the hook when something breaks at 6pm. Price that, and let the software line be visible or bundled as you prefer.
The fourth is the exit. A client who leaves either takes a clean copy of their data or they do not, and the answer is set by the vendor's architecture long before the conversation happens. In a shared database, an export is a set of files pulled out of a bigger table. In a per-client database, the export is the whole database.
How reseller-friendly CRMs are licensed
Vendor facts are taken from each vendor's own site, as of September 2026.
| Vendor | Reseller model | Entry price | What the reseller controls |
|---|---|---|---|
| GoHighLevel | Sub-accounts inside one agency subscription. The Agency Pro plan adds SaaS Mode and automated sub-account creation. | Starter $97/mo with 3 sub-accounts; Unlimited $297/mo with unlimited sub-accounts; Agency Pro $497/mo | The agency dashboard creates and configures sub-accounts. Its pricing page describes the ability to white-label the desktop web app so clients see the agency logo. |
| Vendasta | A partner platform for reselling third-party products under the partner's brand. | Starter has a $0 subscription with a $99/mo minimum spend; Professional $499/mo minimum spend; Premium $999/mo minimum spend | White-label from the Professional tier and above, described as displaying the partner's logo in Business App, renaming select products, and removing all mention of Vendasta branding. |
| SalesCrew | One instance per client, each on its own Supabase project with its own Postgres database, storage and edge functions. | Agency tier $1,200/mo per instance, unlimited seats | Full data isolation and export per client today. Branding, snapshots and partner billing are on the roadmap, so there is no reseller brand layer yet. |
Competitor facts verified on the vendors' own pricing pages as of September 2026: gohighlevel.com/pricing and vendasta.com/pricing. Vendor pricing changes; check the source before quoting a figure to a client.
Pricing the offer without guessing
Start from your floor, not from a multiple. Your floor is the licence cost plus the metered costs plus the hours you will spend each month. Metered means anything billed by usage: model calls, SMS segments, call minutes. Estimate those from a real month, not a quiet one.
Then decide the pass-through rule and put it in the contract. Three options work. Bundle a usage allowance into the monthly fee and bill overage. Bill the platform at cost and charge separately for your service. Or charge one flat fee set high enough that a heavy month still clears. All three are defensible; having no rule is not.
On SalesCrew specifically: the Agency tier is $1,200 a month per instance with unlimited seats, which includes marketplaces, data sources, the marketing module and every agent, with an allowance of about 60,000 model calls a month. Wholesale and partner billing are on the roadmap, so today every instance is billed at its published tier price. There is no reseller discount to build a margin plan around yet, and pretending otherwise would cost you when you priced a client.
Write the exit terms before the first client signs
Questions
- Should the client or the agency hold the CRM account?
- Whoever holds the billing account controls the data and the shutdown. If you hold it, you keep control and the client depends on you, which is why the exit terms must be written down before you start. If the client holds it and you are a user on their account, you lose the ability to bundle it into a single price, but the client can never accuse you of holding their records hostage. Agencies usually hold it; the ones that get sued usually did not write down what happens on the way out.
- Do I need a reseller agreement with the vendor to charge clients?
- Not always for the retail price you charge, since that is your contract with your client. What varies by vendor is whether they offer wholesale rates or a formal partner programme to you, and whether their terms allow you to present the product under your own brand. Those are two separate permissions and a vendor may grant one without the other, so read the terms rather than assuming.
- What is the most common way this goes wrong?
- Metered costs. Model calls, SMS segments and call minutes are billed by usage, and a flat monthly resale price absorbs every spike. One client running a heavy campaign month can erase the margin on three quiet ones. Either meter those costs back to the client or set the flat price high enough to survive a bad month.