# Client onboarding checklists for agencies Client onboarding checklists for agencies is a SaaS idea for marketing, web and social media agencies that sign several clients a month, priced to test at $39 a month per agency. Kicking off a client means weeks of chasing logos, answers and access over email. With it, a guided checklist collects brand files, answers and access from new clients, with reminders until it’s done. _Published 19 Oct 2026. A starting point we wrote, not market research: run the 7-day test before you build._ ## What problem does it solve? Kicking off a client means weeks of chasing logos, answers and access over email. Projects start late, and the first impression is a mess. **Why now:** Agencies keep clients by showing results in the first month, and a slow kickoff eats into it. ## What do they use today? Most agencies send a long email asking for logos, access and answers, then follow up by chat or phone. Replies arrive in pieces, and someone keeps a shared document to track what is still outstanding. ## How does it work? When a new client signs, the account manager picks the onboarding template for that service and emails the client a checklist link. The client answers questions and uploads logos and brand files on one page, and automatic reminders chase anything still missing until it arrives. Everything is stored under that client, whether brand files or answers, and the owner sees every client’s progress on one screen. ## What goes in the first version? - Onboarding templates per service - A client checklist link with uploads and questions - Automatic reminders for anything missing - Brand files and answers stored per client - Every client’s progress on one screen ## Who pays, and how much? - **Who pays:** Marketing, web and social media agencies that sign several clients a month - **Price to test:** $39 a month per agency One flat price per agency suits an owner who signs several clients a month, since the bill never rises with each new client. It replaces the shared documents and email threads the team keeps by hand. ## How to test it in 7 days 1. Ask in r/agency how owners collect assets and access from new clients. 2. Interview five agency owners about their last slow kickoff. 3. Run one onboarding for a friendly agency with a shared doc and time the delays. ## Where to find the first customers - r/agency - Agency owner groups on Facebook and LinkedIn - Newsletters about running an agency ## What are the risks? - Clients may ignore yet another link. - Don’t store client passwords: point clients to a password manager instead. ## How to build it on shipanysaas 5 of the parts it needs are already in the kit. Get the kit, open it in Claude Code, Codex or Cursor, and paste the starting prompt. **Already in the kit:** Sign-in, Teams and roles, Billing, Emails, In-app notifications **You build:** - Checklist templates - Client upload and question pages - Reminder schedule [Get the kit](https://shipanysaas-demo.vercel.app/pricing) ### The starting prompt ```text You are in a fresh copy of the shipanysaas starter kit, a pnpm and Turborepo monorepo: the Next.js web app is in apps/web and the Supabase database, with its migrations, in apps/web/supabase. Help me build the first version of Client onboarding checklists for agencies. Read AGENTS.md first, then the AGENTS.md in every folder you work in: the kit's rules there win over your defaults. When a skill in .agents/skills (also in .claude/skills and .cursor/skills) matches a task, use it. ## The product - What it does: A guided checklist collects brand files, answers and access from new clients, with reminders until it’s done. - Who pays: Marketing, web and social media agencies that sign several clients a month - Their problem: Kicking off a client means weeks of chasing logos, answers and access over email. Projects start late, and the first impression is a mess. - Price to test: $39 a month per agency (a plan in apps/web/config/billing.config.ts) ## Build only this first version 1. Onboarding templates per service 2. A client checklist link with uploads and questions 3. Automatic reminders for anything missing 4. Brand files and answers stored per client 5. Every client’s progress on one screen ## Already in the kit: reuse it, never rebuild it - Sign-in: email and password or Google, plus magic links and passkeys you can switch on - Teams and roles: team accounts with members, roles and invitations - Billing: Stripe or Lemon Squeezy subscriptions, per seat or usage-based, and one-off payments - Emails: transactional email through Resend or Nodemailer - In-app notifications: a notifications bell in the web app ## New code it needs - Checklist templates - Client upload and question pages - Reminder schedule ## How to work 1. Plan first: list the database tables (with row-level security, so each team only sees its own rows), the pages and the server actions for the first feature. Then stop and wait for my OK. 2. Build one feature at a time with the kit's own UI and form components, with a migration for every schema change and user-facing text in the translation files. 3. After each feature, run the verification steps in AGENTS.md, fix what they find, and tell me what you built and what comes next. ## Rules - Ask me before you add a dependency, delete a file, or change sign-in, billing or the admin panel. - Leave the parts of the kit this product doesn't use as they are. Done when every first-version feature works for a signed-in team and the AGENTS.md checks pass. ``` ### Guides for the parts it uses - [How to add Google sign-in to a Next.js + Supabase app](https://shipanysaas-demo.vercel.app/blog/nextjs-supabase-google-sign-in) - [How to add Stripe embedded checkout to a Next.js + Supabase app](https://shipanysaas-demo.vercel.app/blog/nextjs-supabase-stripe-embedded-checkout) - [Multi-tenant SaaS architecture: teams, roles and invitations done right](https://shipanysaas-demo.vercel.app/blog/multi-tenant-saas-teams-roles-invitations) ## More ideas: Agencies - [Weekly capacity planner for small agencies](https://shipanysaas-demo.vercel.app/saas-ideas/agency-team-capacity-planner): Agency owners see who is booked on which client for the coming weeks, so they know if they can take new work. - [Scope change requests for agencies and freelancers](https://shipanysaas-demo.vercel.app/saas-ideas/agency-scope-change-requests): Agencies turn a client’s extra asks into priced change requests the client approves before any extra work starts. - [Client feedback and testimonials for agency projects](https://shipanysaas-demo.vercel.app/saas-ideas/agency-client-feedback-testimonials): Agencies send a short survey at each project milestone, catch unhappy clients early, and turn happy answers into approved testimonials. - [All SaaS ideas](https://shipanysaas-demo.vercel.app/saas-ideas) - [Try the free generator](https://shipanysaas-demo.vercel.app/saas-ideas#generator)