Curious how other agencies handle this. Do you add clients as guests? Export PDFs? Send weekly emails manually?
I got tired of the “can you send me an update?” emails so I built a client portal app that gives them their own login to see project status, approve work, and upload files. No extra monday seats.
If anyone wants to try it, I’m giving 10 agencies free lifetime access. Just comment or DM me.
Hi @willsamadi interested! Shoot me an email- renae@upstreamtech.io
Done! @Renae-JTsCloud
Sounds promising.
Thanks Steven!
We’re constantly developing the app and you can claim a free life-time access account now.
Would you like to give it a try?
Hello @willsamadi We’ve seen a few setups work well. Some teams add clients as guests to a clean, high level board or dashboard. Others rely on shareable boards or dashboards so clients can check status without logging in. For more hands off clients, automated weekly status emails still go a long way.
Your portal idea makes a lot of sense. Giving clients visibility, approvals, and file uploads without extra monday seats removes the constant “can you send an update” loop.
For anyone exploring native options, these are worth a look
https://support.monday.com/hc/en-us/articles/360001276465-Guests-on-monday-com
https://support.monday.com/hc/en-us/articles/360002197259-Shareable-boards
https://support.monday.com/hc/en-us/articles/360002197639-Dashboards
Really appreciate you laying out the native options - super helpful reference for anyone exploring this.
I’ve tested all three paths with agencies, and here’s where they each hit friction:
Guest accounts work well for ongoing collaborators, but the 4:1 billing ratio on Standard plan adds up fast when you have 20+ clients. And every guest needs their own monday.com login, which some clients find clunky.
Shareable boards are great for transparency, but the tradeoff is exposure - you often end up duplicating boards to hide internal notes, margins, or team chatter. That’s more boards to maintain.
Shared views/dashboards solve the read-only visibility piece nicely. But the limitation I kept running into: clients can’t do anything. No approving deliverables, no uploading files, no commenting. So I’m still fielding emails asking “looks good, approved” or “here’s the asset you needed” - the loop doesn’t close. And still, if your business has a big number of clients, creating a view for each by hand at best is very tedious.
The portal I built specifically addresses those gaps: clients get their own branded login (not a monday.com account), can approve work with one click, upload files that land directly on items, and ask questions in context. Zero guest seats on our end.
Happy to show anyone how it works - the 10 free lifetime spots are still open.
hi @willsamadi !
Nice approach, giving clients visibility without adding seats definitely solves a big pain point.
One thing we’ve seen work well alongside client portals is keeping client communication and updates fully traceable inside monday. For teams that still get “quick update” emails or files sent outside the portal, we’ve used Email to Tasks for monday.com to automatically turn those emails into items or updates, so nothing gets lost and the client timeline stays complete.
Always interesting to see different models agencies use for client access and reporting.
Hey @Mariia. Thanks! Email capture is definitely valuable when clients go that route.
The goal with the portal is to eliminate the “quick update” emails at the source - when clients have a place to check status, approve work, and upload files directly, they stop emailing because they don’t need to. The portal becomes the path of least resistance.
Different approaches for different workflows though. Some teams prefer to meet clients where they are (email), others prefer to give clients a better destination. We’re in the second camp.
Hi, interesting thread. I work in a environment where providing some form of interactive engagement on my initiatives would be of value but have hit the same obstacles listed earlier on this thread. Would welcome seeing you solution - can you shoot me a mail at kmason8282@yahoo.co.uk
Hey Kevin, welcome to monday community!
Just sent you an email. Happy to walk you through how it works for your use case.