White label email design means a partner designs, builds, or designs and builds Klaviyo emails that your agency delivers under its own name. Published pricing puts a single email at $200 to $1,500 per email depending on agency size. The partner does the production. Your agency still owns the brief, the QA and the client.
Most pages ranking for this term review white-label email software: builders and ESPs you can rebrand. Few cover the service side. That means what a Klaviyo agency should hand a design partner, how to check the work, and what it costs. This guide covers those three things.
What does white label email design include?
There are three common scopes. Pick the one that matches the gap on your team.
| Scope |
Partner delivers |
Your team keeps |
Best fit |
| Design only |
Figma or image mockups per email |
Klaviyo build, QA, scheduling |
You have a strong Klaviyo builder, no designer |
| Build only |
Your designs built in Klaviyo, tested |
Design, copy, strategy |
You have a designer, builds pile up |
| Design and build |
Mockup, Klaviyo template, test sends |
Strategy, copy approval, client contact |
You need full production capacity |
| Dedicated pod |
A named designer or builder on your queue |
Strategy, final QA, client contact |
Steady volume across several accounts |
Design only is the cheapest to try. It is also the scope with the most handoff risk. A mockup that ignores Klaviyo's block structure turns into a slow, heavy build.
Build only works when your designer already designs for email. If they design for web, expect rework on widths, fonts and image text.
Design and build is the scope most Klaviyo agencies buy once Q4 volume hits. One partner owns the file from mockup to test send, so fewer things fall between teams.
How much does white label email design cost?
Per-email prices vary by a factor of five or more. That spread comes from who does the work and what one "email" includes.
The retail rates above are what brands pay agencies. A white-label partner has to sit well under them, or your margin disappears.
A dedicated pod prices differently. Sorted's pods start at $21,600 per specialist per year, about $1,800 a month. The US comparison is $110,000+ all-in for one hire. Our senior hire cost breakdown shows where that number comes from.
For the full markup math across services, see white label marketing pricing.
What should a Klaviyo email design brief include?
A weak brief is the main cause of rework. Send these with every request:
- Goal and placement. Campaign or flow, which flow, which step. A welcome email 1 and a winback email 3 need different structures.
- Final copy. Subject line, preview text, headline, body, CTA text. Designing around lorem ipsum doubles the work.
- Brand kit. Logo files on light and dark backgrounds, hex codes, web-safe fallback fonts, button style.
- Product data. SKUs, image links, and whether blocks pull from a Klaviyo catalog feed or are static.
- Dynamic content. Conditional blocks, coupon codes, personalization tags and their fallbacks.
- Reference emails. Two or three past sends that performed, plus one the client disliked.
- Template rules. Which saved template or universal blocks to use, so header and footer stay consistent.
- Deadline and approval path. Send date, internal review date, client approval date.
Keep one brief template per client. A partner who sees the same format every time works faster and asks fewer questions.
How fast should a white-label partner turn around an email?
There is no published standard. Turnaround depends on four things you control.
First, completeness of the brief. Missing copy or assets stops the clock. Second, revision rounds. Agree how many are included, usually one or two, and what counts as a revision. Third, build complexity. A text-led campaign with one hero image is quick. A flow email with catalog feeds and conditional blocks is not. Fourth, time zone overlap. A partner who works your hours can fix comments the same day. Our time zone operations guide covers how to set that up.
Plan backward from the send date. Count business days for draft, revision, build, internal QA and client approval, then add a buffer for client delays. Put the agreed turnaround per email type in writing. The white label agency agreement guide lists the SLA terms worth including.
What should QA check before the email goes to your client?
QA is the step that keeps a partner invisible. If the client spots a broken render, they blame your agency.
Dark mode
Inboxes handle dark mode differently. Klaviyo's dark mode guide says Outlook on desktop partially inverts colors, while Apple Mail on desktop makes no direct content changes unless dark mode metatags are used. Klaviyo cannot control how each device applies it.
Check three things. Logos need a version that works on dark backgrounds, or a light shadow on a transparent file. Text should be live text, not text baked into images. Full-width images with colored backgrounds should fill the space, for example 600px wide.
Mobile and Apple Mail
Apple accounts for 76.56% of opens in Litmus's September 2026 data, including iPhone, iPad and Mail Privacy Protection opens. Gmail is 16.10%. Test on an iPhone first, then Gmail.
Size and clipping
Gmail clips emails at about 102KB of code. Klaviyo's clipping guide treats under 85KB as safe and over 95KB as likely to clip. A clipped email also clips the open-tracking pixel. Code-heavy headers, background images and pasted Word formatting are the usual causes.
Images count separately. Klaviyo's image reference recommends files of 1MB or smaller and full-width images between 600 and 1000px wide.
Accessibility
Klaviyo's accessibility reference asks for alt text on every image, no image-only emails, descriptive link text and strong contrast. For a number to test against, WebAIM's contrast checker states the WCAG AA minimum: 4.5:1 for normal text and 3:1 for large text.
How do you keep the partner invisible to your client?
Clients should see one agency. Set it up so that is true by default.
- Partner designers work in Figma files inside your team workspace, not theirs.
- Klaviyo access comes from user seats you add under your agency, named for your team.
- Test sends go to your internal list. Your account manager forwards proofs.
- Files, comments and Slack threads carry no partner branding.
- The NDA covers client names, data and the partnership itself.
Sorted's pods work this way: under the agency's name and NDA. For how a second-pass review fits in, see our guide to offshore quality control.
When is white label email design the wrong choice?
Three cases where it costs more than it saves.
Strategy and client relationships. Segmentation logic, offer calendars and the monthly call should stay with your team. A partner can draft. Your strategist decides.
Very small accounts. If a client sends two campaigns a month, briefing a partner takes about as long as building the email. A freelancer or your own builder is simpler.
No review step. If nobody on your side checks work before the client sees it, a partner's mistakes reach the client directly. Add the review step first, then outsource.
We cover more of these cases in when not to offshore agency work.
How should you price white label email design to clients?
Price on the deliverable, not the partner's cost. Here is a worked example with illustrative inputs.
A 15-person Shopify agency in Austin pays a partner $250 per designed and built campaign email. It sells email production inside a retainer at $500 per email equivalent. Gross margin on production is $250, or 50%. Add one hour of internal QA at a $60 loaded hourly cost and margin falls to $190, or 38%.
That QA hour is not optional, so price for it. At $600 per email equivalent, margin after QA is $290, or 48%. Our gross margin per account guide shows how to track this monthly. The white label playbook covers how email fits next to the other services you can resell, and our white label Klaviyo guide covers the full retention scope.
