What is white label Squarespace development?

It's when a developer takes a website you've already designed and builds it out inside Squarespace, without ever talking to your client or being visible on the front end in any way. It's essentially a silent partnership: they handle the technical back end, and you stay the face of the project the whole way through.

How is white label different from just hiring a freelancer?

There's a lot of overlap, and plenty of freelancers are essentially operating as white label developers already. The clearest distinction is specialization: a true white label partner tends to stay in one lane, such as Squarespace only, instead of spreading across design, branding, and multiple platforms the way a generalist freelancer often does. They also usually prefer staying fully behind the scenes, without site credit or direct client contact.

Will my client know I outsourced the build?

Only if the designer decides to tell them. The site is designed inside the developer's own Squarespace workspace, transferred to the designer, and then transferred to the client, with the developer removable from permissions entirely once the project is done. Most clients don't mind either way, since they hired the designer for their design capability, not the technical backend.

How much does white label Squarespace development cost?

Pricing varies by provider, but as a reference point, HJM Studio charges $300 per page for a standard page, $500 per page for longer pages with 10 or more sections, a flat $500 sitewide fee for custom CSS, or $700 flat for both CSS and JavaScript, with duplicate pages at $50 each. A typical 5-page site with CSS runs around $2,000 total.

What do I need to provide to get started?

A finished mockup for every page, in Figma, XD, or another design tool, with the client's actual content and images already placed in it or provided separately. It also helps to include SEO page titles, meta descriptions, and any specific Squarespace settings that need to be configured.

Who owns the finished website and the client relationship?

The designer owns it entirely. Once development is complete, the finished site is handed back to the designer, who presents it to their client directly. The developer never contacts the client, and any post-launch tweaks go back through the designer.

What's the difference between hourly, per-project, and subscription pricing?

Hourly billing means paying for actual time spent, so the total cost isn't fixed upfront. Per-project pricing means agreeing on one price before work starts, which stays fixed regardless of how long the work actually takes. Subscription pricing means paying a flat monthly fee for a set amount of availability, whether it's fully used or not, and unused time typically doesn't roll over.

White Label Squarespace Development | A Website Designer's Guide

Okay, so you've heard the term "white label" thrown around in some Squarespace designer Facebook group or on a podcast, and you nodded along like you knew exactly what it meant. But if someone stopped you and asked you to actually explain it, would you be able to?

Here's the simple version: white label Squarespace development is when another developer builds out your client's website for you, based on your design, and your client never finds out anyone else was involved. You do the part you're good at (the design, the branding, the whole creative vision) and someone else does the part that turns it into a real, working website. You hand over a finished Figma or XD file, they hand you back a live Squarespace site, and from your client's side of things, you built the whole thing yourself.

That's really it at its core. But there's a lot more worth unpacking here if you're actually considering this for your business, so let's get into it.

In this post:

How It Actually Works, Day to Day
Who This Is Actually For
What It Costs: The Three Common Pricing Models
But Will My Client Know I Outsourced It?
Is W h ite Label Development Right for You?
FAQs

‍What does this look like in practice?

I think a lot of designers picture outsourcing as this vague, complicated thing, so let me walk you through what an actual project looks like, start to finish, because it's honestly a lot simpler than you'd expect.

It starts with you sending over your finished mockup, whether that's in Figma or XD, with your client's real content already dropped into it. Not placeholder text. The real copy, the real images, the real everything. Along with that mockup, you'll want to include a few extra details that a static design file just can't show:

Where each button or link is actually supposed to go, if it's not a linked doc
SEO page titles, meta descriptions and alt text for any images on the site
The actual image files themselves, in case they're not already embedded cleanly in the mockup

From there, I get to work. I'll start a brand new Squarespace site (or hop into an existing one, if that's what the project calls for) and build it out to match your mockup as closely as possible. Every link works. The SEO gets filled in properly. Any Squarespace settings you've flagged as important for your client get set up exactly how you want them. Basically, I'm handling every bit of the technical, behind-the-scenes stuff so you don't have to think about it.

Once the build's done, it comes back to you for review and approval. And after that gets signed off, I'm not finished yet, there's still mobile styling to do, because a site that looks perfect on a laptop and janky on a tablet or phone isn't actually done. That's the last step before it's truly ready to launch.

The best part? You never have to open the Squarespace backend if you don't want to. Not once.

Who is white label development for?

Here's something I want to clear up right away: white label development isn't just some enterprise-y thing for big agencies with a whole team on payroll. Honestly, it might be even more useful for solo designers and small studios, because you're the one wearing every hat already.

A few scenarios where this tends to click for people:

You're drowning in client work and something's gotta give. Maybe you took on more than you should have (we've all done it), and now you're staring down a deadline that isn't going to happen if you're also the one coding the site. This is the "get me out of this hole" use case, and it works great for that.

You keep saying no to good clients because you don't have room to say yes. This one's a little different. You're not overwhelmed exactly, you're just capped. You know that if you could hand off the build, you could take on more work without burning out or hiring someone full-time, which, let's be honest, is a whole other level of commitment most solo designers aren't ready for.

You don't actually know Squarespace, but you know the vibe you're going for. This might be the most common one I run into, honestly. You're already designing the client's brand identity, their logo, their whole visual world, and then the client asks about a website and you have to decide: turn down that revenue, or scramble to figure out a platform you've never touched. With white label development, you don't have to do either. You design the whole thing, you mark up the development cost however you see fit, and you keep the entire relationship (and the entire project) in your hands.

Whatever bucket you fall into, the underlying idea is the same. You keep doing the thing you're actually good at and enjoy, and the technical build stops being the wall you keep hitting.

White label development isn't just for agencies with a full team behind them. It's just as helpful, or perhaps even more helpful, for the solo designer or small studio trying to grow without hiring anyone. ‍

What It Costs: The Three Common Pricing Models ‍

If you start shopping around for a white label partner, you're going to run into three main ways people structure their pricing. None of them is objectively "the best," it really depends on what you need.

Hourly. This is exactly what it sounds like, you pay for the actual time spent working on your project. It's a solid option if you only need something small handled, like you've built most of a site yourself and just need one tricky section coded that you can't crack on your own. Where hourly gets tricky is predictability. You genuinely don't know what the final number is going to be until it's done, which makes it a lot harder to confidently quote a client. And if you're trying to scale your business by outsourcing more of the build work, hourly billing can quietly eat into your margin faster than you'd expect.

Per-project, or flat fee. This is where you agree on a set price upfront, usually based on page count or the features involved, before any work starts. Honestly, this is the model I think makes the most sense if you're trying to grow. You know exactly what your cost is, which means you know exactly what to charge your client (plus whatever markup feels right to you), and you can decide in advance whether a project is even worth outsourcing in the first place. No surprises.

Subscription or retainer. With this model, you're paying a flat amount every month for a certain number of hours or a certain level of availability, whether you actually use all of it or not. Think of it kind of like part-time hiring, minus the payroll headaches. This tends to make the most sense for agencies with a steady, predictable stream of work. If you're a solo designer without that kind of consistent volume, it's usually not the right fit, since you could end up paying for time you don't have work to fill.

but will my client know i outsourced it?

Let's talk about the thing I think actually keeps most designers from trying this in the first place. It's not really about trust in the developer's skills. It's the fear that somehow, some way, the client will find out, and it'll make you look less capable.

So here's the honest truth: your client will only ever know if you tell them. I never talk to your client directly, not once, during the entire process. My name doesn't show up in the site credits. It doesn't appear anywhere your client would see it. And once the project wraps, I can be removed from the site's permissions completely, so there's no lingering trace anywhere.

Now, I also want to say this: there's genuinely no shame in being upfront about it either. A lot of designers include a line in their contracts letting clients know that some parts of a project may be handled by trusted collaborators. And honestly? That's not so different from how an agency works, where a designer, a copywriter, and a photographer might all touch the same project. You're still the one running the show. You're still the person your client hired, trusted, and is paying. All a white label developer does is take the vision you already built and turn it into a working website.

In my experience, most clients genuinely don't care either way, because they were never hiring you for backend development to begin with. They hired you for your eye, your taste, the way you translate their brand into something that feels like them. The build itself is just the mechanism that gets that vision live. It's not the reason they picked you.‍ ‍

Is White Label Development Right for You?

Here's a question worth sitting with for a second: are you holding back on your own designs because of what you're technically capable of building?

If the answer is yes, even a little, that's worth paying attention to. If you're quietly simplifying a design because you don't have the CSS chops to pull off what you actually envisioned, you're not just limiting yourself, you're giving your client less than what you're capable of imagining for them. And they hired you specifically because they trusted your vision.

But here's the other side of it, and this one matters too: maybe you do have the skills. Maybe you could technically build the site yourself if you had to. But you dread it. Every single time. I'll be honest with you, I'm a little different here, the development side is actually my favorite part of the whole process. The coding, the problem-solving, figuring out how to make something Squarespace "shouldn't" be able to do, that stuff genuinely lights me up. But I know that's not everyone, and honestly, a lot of designers I talk to feel the exact opposite. They love shaping a brand, they love the strategy and the storytelling, and then they hit the development phase and just want it to be over.

If that's you, outsourcing isn't admitting defeat. It's just being honest about where your energy is best spent, and letting someone who genuinely loves the technical side handle that part instead.

I'm Heather of HJM Studio — custom Squarespace development for other designers is basically my favorite thing to do. My design work has earned me a few nice nods along the way: CSSDA's Best Innovation, Best UX Design, and Best UI Design awards, and a CSSW Star Award for design excellence. I mention that not to brag, but because it's part of why I get it — I understand the design side, I know how deliberate every choice you made was, and I know how important it is that it comes through in the build, exactly as intended.

Ready to Stop Holding Back on Your Designs?

If you've been quietly scaling back your designs because you're not sure Squarespace can actually pull off what's in your head, that's exactly where I come in. I genuinely love the part of the process a lot of designers dread, so let's split the work that way: you focus on the vision, I'll handle the technical side, quietly and completely behind the scenes, so your clients only ever see your name on the finished site. Curious what this would actually cost for your next project? Send over your mockup and I'll send back a clear, per-page quote.

Find out more

Frequently Asked Questions

It's when a developer takes a website you've already designed and builds it out inside Squarespace, without ever talking to your client or being visible on the front end in any way. Basically, a silent partner. They handle the technical back end, and you stay the face of the project the whole way through.
Honestly, there's a lot of overlap, and plenty of freelancers are essentially operating as white label developers already, they just don't call themselves that. The clearest thing that sets a true white label partner apart is specialization. They tend to stay in one lane (Squarespace only, say) instead of spreading across design, branding, and multiple platforms the way a generalist freelancer often does. They also usually prefer staying fully behind the scenes, without site credit or any direct client contact.
Only if you decide to tell them. The site gets designed inside my own Squarespace workspace, transferred over to you, and then you transfer it to your client, so I can be removed from permissions entirely once it's done. Most clients genuinely don't mind either way, since they hired you for your design capability, not the technical backend. If you'd rather just be upfront about it, a quick line in your contract is always a good idea.
It varies a lot depending on who you're working with, but for reference, my own pricing runs $300 per page for a standard page and $500 per page for longer, section-heavy pages (10 or more sections). There's a flat $500 sitewide fee if custom CSS is involved, or $700 flat if you need both CSS and JavaScript. Duplicate pages, like a repeated services template, run $50 each. All told, a typical 5-page site with CSS lands around $2,000 total.
A finished mockup for every single page, whether that's in Figma, XD, or honestly even a well laid-out Canva file works, with your client's real content and images already placed in where you want them. You'll also want to include SEO page titles, meta descriptions, and any specific Squarespace settings you'd like configured for the client.
You do, completely and entirely. Once development wraps, the finished site gets handed back to you, and you're the one who presents it to your client. I never reach out to your client directly, at any point. If something needs tweaking after launch, you come back to me, I handle it, and it goes right back to you.
Hourly means you're paying for actual time spent, so your total cost isn't locked in ahead of time. Per-project means you agree on one number before work starts, and that's what you pay no matter how long the work actually takes on the back end. Subscription means a flat monthly fee for a set amount of availability, whether you use every bit of it or not, and unused time usually doesn't carry over to the next month.