Charge for Your Team, Never for Your Clients: Why Client Portals Are Free and Unlimited in Droova

Let me be precise about something, because I got the framing wrong in an earlier draft and it matters: Droova does charge per seat - for your team. If you are a five-person agency, you pay for those five people, the same as most serious tools. What we will never charge you for is your clients. You can have ten clients or a thousand, each with their own branded portal, and that number never touches your bill. Here is why we drew the line exactly there.

The line that actually matters: your team vs your clients

There are two very different groups of people who touch an agency's software. Your team lives in it every day - creating projects, moving tasks, running the business. Paying per team member for that is fair; they are getting daily value from the tool. Your clients are different. They dip in to check progress, approve something, or grab a file. Charging per client for that light, occasional access punishes the one thing a client portal exists to provide: transparency. So we charge for the first group and never for the second.

What per-client pricing quietly does to an agency

The moment a tool charges you for each client who gets access, a bad habit starts, and I have watched it happen again and again. You begin rationing portals. 'Does this client really need access, or can I just email them?' The big retainer client gets a portal; the three smaller ones get status emails because a portal each felt like money you did not need to spend. Before long, client access - the entire point of the tool - has become a premium you dole out selectively instead of the default every client gets. You bought transparency and quietly turned it back into email, to save on seats.

Why we made clients free and unlimited

We wanted giving a client a portal to never be a cost decision - because the second it is, agencies choose email. So in Droova, client access is free, full stop. A thousand clients, a thousand branded client portals, still zero on the client line of your bill. Win a new client on a Tuesday? Spin up their portal the same afternoon - no seat maths, no 'is it worth it' conversation. That single pricing decision is what lets the portal actually be the default front door to every engagement instead of a perk for your biggest accounts.

So what do you actually pay for? (the honest version)

To be completely straight: you pay per team member - the people in your agency who use the app to run the work - plus any optional modules you switch on. That is it. Your clients, and the portals you give them, are always free and unlimited. You can see exactly how that works on our pricing page. I would rather you know precisely where the meter runs than be surprised later.

Who this matters most for

If you run a lot of client relationships, or your client list turns over quickly, per-client pricing hits you hardest - every new logo is another charge across every tool that meters client seats. Those are exactly the agencies for whom 'clients are free' stops being a nice line and starts being real money and real transparency. If that is you, it is also worth reading why bolted-on portals go quiet after a couple of weeks - free access only helps if the portal is the client's home from day one.

The one-sentence version

Charge for the people who run the work, never for the clients who just need to see it - because the moment client access has a price, agencies ration it and fall back to email, which defeats the whole point of a client portal.

Want to see what your current stack (and its seat maths) is really costing you? Run our free agency stack audit, or book a 30-minute demo and I will show you unlimited client portals in a real workflow.

Frequently Asked Questions

Does Droova charge per client?

No. Client access is always free and unlimited. You can give ten clients or a thousand their own branded client portals and it never appears on your bill. You are only charged for your own team members who use the app.

What does Droova actually charge for, then?

Per team member - the people in your agency who use the app to run projects and clients - plus any optional modules you choose to switch on. Clients and their portals are free and unlimited.

Why is per-client (per-seat) pricing a problem for agencies?

Because it makes giving a client access a cost decision, so agencies start rationing portals: the big client gets one, smaller clients get status emails. Client access - the whole point of a portal - becomes a selective premium instead of the default, and transparency quietly reverts to email.

Can I really create unlimited client portals for free?

Yes. Every engagement can have its own branded, no-login client portal at no extra cost, no matter how many clients you have. Only your internal team seats are paid, so you never have to weigh up whether a client is 'worth' a portal.