How much does a client portal cost?
What portal software rents for, what a custom portal costs to own, and the status calls and email threads a good one quietly deletes from your week.
Updated July 2026
Client portal software rents for roughly $20 to $500 a month depending on users and modules, and a custom-built portal costs $2,000 to $30,000 to own; ours start at $2,000. The right tier depends on one question: how much of your week currently disappears into where are we at emails.
A portal is not really a login page. It is every status call you do not get, every file that stops living in an email thread, and every client who feels looked after at nine at night without anyone picking up a phone. We run our own client portal for exactly these reasons, so when we build yours, we are building the tool we use every day.
What the market charges for a client portal
| What you buy | Typical price | What you get |
|---|---|---|
| Portal features in tools you may already pay for (HoneyBook, Dubsado) | $20 to $80 a month | Client-facing views bolted onto invoicing and proposal tools. Convenient if you already live in those tools; limiting the moment you need more than invoices and contracts. |
| Dedicated portal software (SuiteDash, Copilot, Moxo) | $40 to $500 a month | Real portals with files, messaging, and payments, priced by users and modules. Their layout, their branding tier, their roadmap, and your data on their servers. |
| Website plugins | $100 to $500 a year, plus setup | WordPress portal plugins are cheap to buy and fiddly to keep secure. Fine for simple file sharing; a risk as the place your client records live. |
| Custom portal | $2,000 to $30,000 to build | Your brand, your workflow, your data. Clients log in to exactly what they need, status, files, approvals, and invoices, with nothing extra to learn. |
What actually moves the price
What clients can do inside
Viewing status and downloading files is the simple end. Approving work, signing documents, uploading photos, and paying invoices each add real engineering and real value.
Logins and security
Password accounts, text message codes, or invitation links; plus who can see what when a client brings in a colleague. Getting permissions right is half the build.
Files, size, and history
A portal that shares this month's PDFs is light. One that stores years of large files, photos, and versions needs proper storage and a plan for growth.
Integrations
Invoicing, e-signing, messaging, and your internal tools. Every connection removes a copy-paste step for your team and a wait for your client.
How many clients and staff
Rented portals meter this and charge as you grow. A custom portal costs the same to run whether you serve ten clients or two hundred.
What we charge
The checkup is free, the plan comes before the bill, and the quote is the bill. If a portal feature inside a tool you already pay for genuinely covers you, we say so.
Client portals and custom tools
from $2,000A portal in your brand where clients see status, files, and approvals, built around how you already work.
A booking system that fills your calendar
from $250 a monthIf scheduling is the heart of your client experience, the portal and the booking system can be one thing.
Common questions
Keep reading
The service behind these numbers, and what everything else costs.
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