Option one: turn the work down

This is the option agencies discount too quickly, and it is sometimes correct.

If the project is a one-off, if it sits a long way outside what you do, and if the client has other suppliers who could deliver it, referring it on can be the right call. You keep the relationship intact, you avoid carrying risk you cannot manage, and you spend your capacity on work you are actually good at.

It is worth being clear-eyed about what turning it down costs, though. The client now has a relationship with another supplier, and that supplier is inside an account you built. Whether that matters depends entirely on how well you know the client and how much of their work you hold.

Turn it down when the project is genuinely isolated, when the technical gap is large, and when you would rather protect your delivery reputation than stretch it. Do not turn it down simply because the first quote you received seemed high.

Option two: hire or contract a developer

The instinct for many agencies is to find a freelancer with the right skills. Sometimes this works very well, particularly for a defined piece of work with a clear specification.

The difficulties tend to be practical rather than technical. Finding a genuinely experienced Umbraco developer at short notice is harder than finding a WordPress one, and the good ones are usually booked. You are also taking on the management burden: scoping, code review, QA, deployment, and whatever happens when something breaks three weeks after launch.

The larger risk is concentration. If one contractor holds all the knowledge of a build, and that contractor becomes unavailable, you are exposed and so is your client. That risk is manageable on a small project and considerable on a platform the client depends on.

Hiring or contracting works when the scope is well defined, when you have the internal capability to review the work properly, and when you are confident you can support the result afterwards. It works less well when the project is complex, when the timeline is tight, or when nobody in your team can tell good Umbraco code from bad.

Option three: work with a white label partner

A white label partner builds under your name. The client deals with you, the agency deals with the partner, and the work is delivered as yours.

The advantages over contracting an individual are mostly about depth and continuity. You are engaging a team rather than a person, which means the knowledge does not sit in one head, the work is reviewed internally before it reaches you, and support after launch is a service rather than a favour. For platform specialisms like Umbraco, a partner who works on it daily will also make better architectural decisions than a generalist working from documentation.

The trade-offs are real. It costs more than a freelance day rate, because you are buying a team and a process rather than hours. You are dependent on another organisation's capacity and priorities. And you have to trust them with an account you have spent years building, which is the part most agencies find difficult and which we deal with below.

Partnering makes sense when the project matters to the client relationship, when the technical requirement is genuinely specialist, when the timeline does not allow for a learning curve, or when you expect this kind of work to come up again and would rather have a route in place than solve it each time.

What to ask a potential partner

If you are considering a partner, these are the questions worth asking before anything is agreed. Any partner worth working with will answer all of them without hesitation.

Will you approach my client, during or after the project? The answer should be an unqualified no, and it should be in writing. If a partner hedges on this, that tells you what you need to know.

Who will actually do the work, and can I speak to them? You want to know whether the people who impressed you in the meeting are the people who will write the code.

What happens when something goes wrong after launch? Establish response times and who is responsible before you need to know, not afterwards.

What do I get at handover? Documentation, source code, access, and a build you could hand to another developer. If the answer leaves you dependent on the partner indefinitely, that is a commercial decision you should make deliberately rather than discover later.

Have you worked on projects like this specifically? Not similar in size, similar in nature. A partner who has done this exact kind of integration before will price it more accurately and hit fewer surprises.

What would make you say no to this project? A partner who has never turned work down is telling you something about how they scope.

How to protect the client relationship

This is the concern that stops most agencies from partnering, and it is a reasonable one. A few things make it manageable.

Put non-solicitation in writing. It should be a standard term rather than something you have to negotiate. Most established partners will already have it in their agreement.

Decide early how communication works. Some agencies want everything routed through them. Others prefer the partner to join technical calls directly, under the agency's name, because it is faster and reduces the risk of requirements being lost in translation. Either is fine, but agree it before the project starts rather than during it.

Choose a partner with no competing services. If your partner also sells brand, campaign or marketing work, there is something for them to cross-sell your client. If they only build software, there is not. This single factor removes most of the risk.

And be honest internally about what you are protecting. The relationship is protected by the quality of what gets delivered and by your handling of it, far more than by controlling access. A project that goes badly because you kept the specialist at arm's length damages the relationship more than an introduction ever would.

Working with 16i

We work as a white label development partner for agencies and web design companies, primarily on Umbraco and .NET. Our clients through partners include projects we cannot name and several we can, and in every case the agency has kept the relationship.

We do not offer marketing, brand, PR or campaign services. There is nothing for us to sell your client. Non-solicitation is standard in our partner agreements, and we would think less of a partner who did not ask for it.

If you have a project you cannot build in-house, or you would rather have a partner in place before one arrives, we would be glad to have the conversation. No obligation.

Get in touch at hello@16i.co.uk or call +44 (0)1242 654 000.