Agency overview
Agency mode is how Active Reach handles multi-brand operators. Whether you’re a holding company with three independent restaurant concepts, or a marketing agency managing ten clients, the structure is the same: one agency organization with relationships to N client organizations — each client org is itself a complete Active Reach brand.
Why agency mode (and not multi-workspace)
| Scenario | Model |
|---|---|
| One brand, many outlets (same loyalty, same chatbot persona, same legal entity) | One org with one workspace and many locations |
| Many brands (each its own loyalty rules, persona, legal entity, fiscal setup) | One agency org with N client orgs (each its own brand, each its own workspace) |
Mixing the two — cramming multiple brands into a single workspace, or treating each outlet as its own brand-tenant — looks possible early on but breaks down the moment you need different loyalty rules, different bot configs, or different legal entities per brand. The product model (canonical hierarchy revised 2026-05-26) routes all multi-brand operators through agency mode. See workspace vs organization.
Agency org structure
An agency org itself has no workspaces. It’s a holding-company shell. All operational work happens inside the client orgs it manages.
| Layer | Lives at |
|---|---|
| Agency org | actii.me/dashboard after sign-in (your agency cockpit) |
| Client org A — Brand A | Switch into Brand A via Clerk org-switcher; their dashboard appears |
| Client org B — Brand B | Switch into Brand B via Clerk org-switcher; their dashboard appears |
Audit trail is preserved: every action an agency operator takes inside a client org is logged with delegated_from_org_id = <agency_org> so the client can see who did what.
What you see on the agency dashboard
The agency cockpit is not a client dashboard. It shows aggregate state across the brands you manage:
| Surface | What it shows |
|---|---|
| Portfolio | All client brands with one-line health (MAU, MRR, last activity) |
| Performance | Cross-brand comparisons — best-performing channel, highest-converting playbook, top revenue contributor |
| Billing | Per-client plan tier, consumption, unpaid invoices, your agency margin |
| Shared playbooks | Templates you’ve authored once and can deploy to any client org |
| Throughput controls | Per-client send-rate caps (prevents one noisy client from saturating shared infrastructure) |
To actually configure something inside a client brand, you switch into that client’s org and work in their dashboard with their data.
Switching into a client
In the top-right user menu, the Clerk org-switcher lists every org you have access to:
- Your agency org (selected by default)
- Each client org you manage
Select a client org → the URL switches to /dashboard/{client-slug}/... and you’re inside that brand. The agency cockpit is no longer visible from here; you’re operating as that brand’s admin. The bottom-left sidebar shows a badge (via {agency name}) to remind you you’re delegated in.
Onboarding a new client
Get an org invite
The client creates an Active Reach org of their own (or one is created on their behalf). You receive an admin invite via your agency email.
Accept the invite
Click the invite link. The client org appears in your Clerk org-switcher. You now have admin scope inside their brand.
Set up their workspace and channels
Switch into the client org and follow the workspace setup guide. Each client gets one workspace (one brand-tenant); add locations per outlet inside it. Channel registrations (WhatsApp WABA, DLT, DKIM) are per-workspace and per-business — you cannot reuse your agency’s WhatsApp number for the client.
Apply shared playbooks (optional)
From the agency cockpit’s Shared playbooks tab, push selected templates into the client’s playbook library. They retain your authorship; the client can edit, instantiate, or remove them.
Add the client to billing
In the agency Billing surface, link the client to their billing plan and (optionally) set your agency margin.
Agency-only features
| Feature | Where |
|---|---|
| Cross-brand benchmarks | Portfolio dashboard |
| Shared playbook library | Agency cockpit → Shared playbooks |
| Per-client throughput caps | Agency cockpit → Throughput |
| Agency margin / re-billing | Agency cockpit → Billing |
| Impersonation audit trail | Settings → Audit log (in each client org) |
What’s next
- Workspace vs organization — the underlying account model
- Agency billing — per-client invoicing and margin
- Impersonation — switching into clients and the audit story
- Portfolio dashboard — the cross-brand aggregate surface for agency operators