Client portal software for agencies and growth teams

Most agencies still run client delivery over email threads, shared drives, and ad-hoc Slack channels. That works until a second stakeholder asks for status, a file goes missing, or an invoice sits unpaid while the team digs for the latest PDF. A client portal gives every engagement a durable home: projects, tasks, documents, and access rules in one branded surface.

Problems with email and Drive sharing

• No single source of truth. Status lives in inboxes; clients ping multiple people for the same update.
• Permission chaos.Shared folders rarely match who should see which client's work.
• Brand inconsistency.Clients bounce between your tools, your contractor's Notion, and a Stripe invoice link with no continuity.
• Ops fragmentation. CRM notes, delivery work, and billing rarely share the same tenant model.

What Trellis portal includes

Trellis Client Portal is a module inside a multi-tenant operating system — not a standalone file drop. Agencies get:

• Secure client access to projects, tasks, and documents
• Role-based permissions for external stakeholders vs internal seats
• Space-scoped isolation so Client A never sees Client B
• White-label options (subdomain / hide branding / custom domain by plan)
• Adjacent modules: Lead Generation, CRM, Invoicing, Automations, and Analytics

Roles and multi-tenant access

Trellis organizations contain spaces (client workspaces). Internal teammates and external clients receive different roles. PostgreSQL Row Level Security scopes data by membership — so portal access is not just a UI filter. System admins and org admins manage seats; clients stay on the delivery surface they need.

The practical effect is that adding a client is a routine operation rather than a security review. You create the space, invite the stakeholder with a client role, and the database enforces the boundary for every query behind the portal. Internal roles (delivery, manager, admin) stay separate from client roles, so a client can never discover other engagements by guessing a URL. Privileged operations — changing roles, removing users, editing billing-relevant records — run through server-side APIs with the service role, never from the browser.

What clients can see

• Projects and their current status for their space only
• Tasks assigned to or visible for their engagement
• Documents you publish to the space
• Invoices addressed to them, including Stripe Checkout links

What clients never see

• Other clients' spaces, contacts, or documents
• Internal pipeline, lead scoring, or CRM notes
• Your organization-wide analytics and billing totals
• Admin surfaces such as user management or automations

Branding: subdomain vs custom domain

A portal that looks like a generic SaaS login undercuts the work. Trellis handles branding in two steps. On Growth you get an organization subdomain and the option to hide Trellis branding, which is usually enough for agencies that want a professional, consistent client experience. On Enterprise you can verify a custom domain so the portal lives on your own hostname.

Custom domains are verified before they route, so a competitor cannot claim your hostname. Once verified, the same application serves your branded host while tenant isolation continues to apply. Marketing pages stay canonical on the Trellis domain, so branded client hosts do not compete with your own site in search results.

Migrating from Drive and email

Most teams do not migrate everything at once. A workable sequence:

1. Pick one active engagement as the pilot and create its space. Do not start with your most political account.
2. Move only the current artifacts — active SOW, latest deliverables, live task list. Historical files can stay in Drive; link them if needed.
3. Invite the two people who ask for status most often. Their behavior change is the signal that the portal is working.
4. Send the next invoice through Trellis so billing and delivery share one system from the start.
5. Roll out to remaining clients once the pilot has run through a full billing cycle.

The failure mode to avoid is running the portal and email in parallel indefinitely. Pick a date after which status updates live in the portal, and tell clients.

How portal ties to invoicing and CRM

Delivery without billing creates another handoff. Trellis keeps invoicing in the same org: create invoices, track payment status, and send Stripe Checkout for clients. CRM profiles and lead pipelines (on Growth+) sit beside the portal so relationship context does not live in a separate silo. For the full narrative, see Agency Ops.

Who should choose Trellis for a portal

• Agencies replacing Drive + email status updates
• Growth teams that need branded client access plus ops tools
• Teams evaluating HubSpot-only or Notion + Stripe stacks — see Compare agency stacks

Who should not

Trellis is a poor fit if you need deep inbound marketing automation as the primary product, if a single shared document genuinely covers your client communication, or if your delivery lives inside a specialized vertical tool that clients already log into. In those cases a portal adds a surface without removing one.

Evaluation checklist

Questions worth answering before you commit to any portal, including this one:

• Can each client be isolated at the database level, not only in the UI?
• Can you brand the login and the portal itself without custom engineering?
• Does billing live in the same system as delivery, or is it another handoff?
• Can external users be invited without consuming internal seats?
• Is there an audit trail for privileged changes?
• What happens to client data if you cancel?

Trellis answers yes to the first five today; see Security for how deletion requests and retention work during beta.

Private beta honesty

Trellis is in private beta. Features and entitlements can evolve before general availability. We do not claim SOC 2 or ISO certifications on this page — read Security for current controls, and Pricing for plan limits.

Prefer a step-by-step rollout? Follow the agency client portal setup guide.