Many of us dream of becoming our own boss. We’re constantly thinking of ideas that would succeed and bring wealth, but it feels like everything has already been done. Consequently, entrepreneurship can often seem impossible, as the market is already oversaturated with various products and services.
On the other hand, creating your own set of products or services takes years of research, development, and hard work. And even when you complete the task, nothing guarantees it’ll pay off.
That’s where white-label SaaS reselling businesses come in. We know that’s a mouthful, but they’ll be the topic of our discussion today, so stay with us as we explore the software as a service (SaaS) world. We’ll investigate how rebranding existing services instead of making your own from scratch can bring you profit without hassles.
What is white-label SaaS reselling?
At its core, white-label SaaS reselling refers to purchasing, rebranding, and reselling existing software. A SaaS provider creates white-label software, which is a version of their software without their brand name, and the reselling agency purchases access to it at a specific price.
The agency, an intermediary in the process, then adds its own brand, polishes the software, increases the price, and finds the right market to sell to, creating profit.
How white-label SaaS reselling works
Succeeding in the white-label SaaS reselling business can be a challenging task. The intermediary agency, or reseller, must do thorough market research and find the right SaaS product and providers. Then comes the rebranding, marketing, and website building, creating an online presence for your business which can be the most time consuming part.
With that out of our way, let’s dive deeper into these white-label SaaS reselling steps and discuss what each pertains to.
Doing your market research and finding the right niche
Starting any business, including white-label SaaS reselling businesses, requires research initially to set you up for long term success. Determining your niche and doing marketing research is an important piece of that.
Researching the market beforehand is an absolute must because it’ll help you determine which business areas can become profitable and should be further investigated. You’ll also learn about the type of ready-made solution the consumers need and what you want to focus your brand on.
While white-label reselling businesses can be divided into physical and digital products, in the case of SaaS, your business model will strictly focus on digital products and services. However, you’ll need to figure out what those are, and that’s where the above mentioned thorough market research can help.
Finding the right SaaS products to sell
The next step in your business venture is finding a quality product. By now, you should know the market situation in detail and be able to safely determine the type of product or service your potential customers will need. You should have a rough idea of what will sell well and bring profit so you can focus on a particular SaaS product or service.
There are dozens of SaaS products to choose from during this step. Content creation and marketing agencies, advertising services, website design companies, accounting firms, SEO agencies, website hosting services, and so much more exist in the white-label SaaS reselling business sphere.
However, you’ll also need to consider several crucial factors, such as product features, business scalability, and customer support. These factors will be detrimental in helping you choose a high-quality product you can later rebrand and resell.
In addition to this, it’s essential that you determine what type of SaaS product fits with your background and knowledge.
Many popular online providers in varied niches offer white-label SaaS platforms like online learning platform Thinkific, e-commerce giant Shopify, email marketing platform HubSpot, and marketing automation platform HighLevel.
Finding the right reseller program
Once you have a particular product, niche, or vertical in mind, it comes down to finding the right provider. During this step, you’ll seek a company with a fully developed and tested product. Of course, your goal is also to obtain this product at an affordable price. Otherwise, the balance between affordability and profitability of your SaaS product will be off, and your new business will likely struggle.
Finding the right provider will require further research, and you’ll need to extensively explore reseller programs until you find one that seems favorable to your needs. Once you find one that sells a product you want to rebrand, you’ll need to investigate the provider’s business model and look into their product development strategies and support system.
After all, it’s not just the product, and such thorough research can help you determine whether a business relationship between you as the reseller and a particular SaaS provider makes sense.
As part of this process, it’s important that you extensively test the product yourself. You need to be very familiar with the product, who it can benefit, what it can do, and maybe more importantly, what it can’t do.
Understanding the limitations of any SaaS product before you start marketing your brand ensures that you’ll be advertising it accurately.
Reaching out to SaaS providers
Once done with research and targeting a particular SaaS provider, you can move to reaching out to potential SaaS providers. While forging a symbiotic alliance and collaborating on a high level is crucial for succeeding as a white-label SaaS reseller, you mustn’t forget about your end goal – profit.
For some SaaS providers, simply reaching out with your questions or concerns will be enough to determine whether they are the perfect fit for your venture. For others, the process might require approval and negotiation.
Start by creating a detailed and well-thought-out business proposal. Ensure that you mention your thorough research and highlight the possible benefits of your collaboration. Make a compelling offer that showcases how your business goals align with each other.
From here, you can finally reach out to a particular SaaS provider you’ve researched and ask to set up a meeting. Negotiating favorable terms for both the provider and you as the reseller at this meeting will be challenging, but it’s undoubtedly possible.
Even if the terms are unfavorable, you can always return to the previous step and repeat the process with another SaaS provider.
Marketing and branding
Once you’ve identified your specific Saas product, the next step is building out your brand and getting a marketing plan in place.
Your brand should fit the SaaS product you’re selling – otherwise, your marketing efforts won’t resonate with your audience. This step will require a bit more research, and you’ll need to familiarize yourself with digital marketing techniques and come up with a marketing plan.
After all, you’ll want to brand the platform as your own, just being seen as a mere reseller won’t benefit your white-label SaaS business. Positioning yourself as a reputable company that can be trusted is critical, and that’s precisely where branding plays a significant part.
This is a great time to think about creating a formal business entity, like an LLC or S Corp, for your white-label reselling business to legally protect yourself as you move forward with building your business.
If you’re not familiar with how to go through this process, there are affordable services that will set up your LLC for you.
Creating a brand identity
The importance of a brand identity can’t be overstated, as it’s crucial for success in the white-label SaaS reselling business world. Consequently, your brand must leave an unforgettable impression on your potential customers. It’s what sets you aside among the noise of the internet.
There’s a reason why brand identity is at the core of a white-label SaaS reselling business. From logos to the message you’re sending to the fonts you use, making a powerful brand image is an art and science. It requires storytelling that captures the attention of your audience. In simple terms, it needs to evoke emotions.
A successful brand image is pivotal to your reselling business. It creates trust in your business, helping you position yourself as a reputable company. Without it, you’ll be regarded as merely a reseller of an unbranded product, with customers clicking away faster than you can say cheese.
As your brand awareness and business grows, you’ll also want to think about trademarking or copywriting your business name and logo, again to protect your assets and hard work.
Using the right marketing strategies
Regardless of the quality of the unbranded product, your research and skills as a reseller, and your brand’s message, a white-label SaaS reselling business can’t succeed without the magic of marketing. Mastering the art of increasing your product’s visibility and hitting the front pages of the internet is another critical element to success in the digital sphere.
Marketing your polished white-label solution will require diving deeper into the dynamic world of digital campaigns, social media ads, and collaborations with already-established internet personas. Moreover, data analytics, the latest and greatest search engine optimization strategies, and well-thought-out digital promotions are a significant part of this step, helping you elevate your product above the competition.
Fortunately, there are plenty of marketing strategies to choose from, and the ones you invest your time and money in will depend on the type of product or service you’re reselling. However, these marketing strategies have one thing in common – a platform they promote.
Building a strong website
A well-thought-out website is one of the pillars of selling digital products, and it can significantly help improve your online presence. Websites function as storefronts for your white-label SaaS reselling business, showcasing what you and your brand are about to potential clients.
Apart from a user-friendly design, your website can benefit from various other elements. These elements include navigational buttons, responsiveness, and well-written and original copywriting. At the same time, adopting the latest security measures for your website’s transactions is vital.
After all, your goal is to convert visitors to customers and persuade them to purchase your services. However, no consumer will spend their hard-earned cash on a shady-looking website that doesn’t protect their account details.
On the other hand, if website building isn’t your forte, you, as the reseller, can benefit from hiring professional website-building companies.
Pros and cons of reselling white-label SaaS
Now that we know more about the steps for starting a white-label SaaS reselling business, let’s examine why such a business model has been so popular in recent years. The reasons for starting a white-label reselling business today lie in its advantages, including the following:
- Low starting costs – Unlike other business startups, a white-label SaaS reselling business doesn’t require a massive starting capital and allows you to generate revenue more quickly. You’ll need to research the market, find and test a product, reach an agreement with a SaaS provider (if necessary for your chosen provider), and then invest in branding, marketing, and a website, but these prices are nothing compared to starting a business from scratch
- Developed and tested products – Creating a product or service from scratch requires significant investments, time, in-house developers, and testing. A white-label SaaS reseller can skip these elements and the hassel of building software from scratch, as the SaaS provider has already dealt with these aspects and created a developed and tested product.
- Recurring profits through subscriptions – A SaaS business is all about subscriptions. Reselling such software means investing in a recurring revenue model where you can charge a monthly or yearly subscription. Of course, there’s also the subscription based on usage, which gives customers more control and increases your chances of generating revenue.
While choosing a white-label SaaS reselling business cuts out the necessity for product development and upfront capital, it might not be everyone’s first choice. It’s worth noting that this business model also has a few disadvantages, which include the following.
- Less control over a product – As you’re using a premade product, you, as the reseller, don’t have any control over its quality or development. Nonetheless, you’re taking a risk since you’re putting your name on that product and providing customer support. It also means you’ll be responsible if it fails, which is where thorough marketing research is critical in decreasing the chances of this happening.
- Gaining brand credibility can be challenging – New companies will never hold the same level of trust as an already established business. Regardless of your branding skills and marketing strategies, gaining momentum and proving yourself as a reputable company will likely take time. Your products’ sales potential will also be lower until you reach a certain point. This is true of any new business.
Understanding the positives and negatives of white-label SaaS reselling businesses is vital to determining whether such a business model suits you. From here on out, you can decide whether you’ll go down this path, as you now know how to!
Conclusion
A white-label SaaS reselling business is a company that rebrands and resells existing digital products or services. Such a business model decreases startup costs by eliminating the product’s R&D and testing phases, focusing instead on using existing unbranded products.
From there, a white-label SaaS reseller focuses on balancing affordability with the SaaS provider and profitability with customers. It also deals with product rebranding and marketing, where a robust and intuitive website and adequate promotional strategies are pivotal for succeeding in the business sphere.
Frequently Asked Questions
White Label SaaS refers to software as a service that is created by one company but rebranded and sold by another company as their own. This allows companies to provide high-quality software solutions under their own brand without the need to develop the software themselves. White-label software helps businesses expand their offerings and improve their product portfolio cost-effectively.
Using white label SaaS solutions offers several advantages such as cost-effective entry into new markets, the ability to provide a comprehensive range of services, customization to meet the specific needs of clients, and the ability to leverage the scalability and reliability of established SaaS platforms. These solutions help businesses improve their value proposition without the time and expense of developing software from scratch.
The pricing for a White Label SaaS can vary depending on several factors, including the features offered, the level of customization, and the support provided. SaaS providers typically offer tiered pricing models that can scale with the number of features, users, or the volume of transactions. It’s important to review the pricing structure and choose a plan that aligns with your business’s requirements and budget.
Yes, most white label SaaS products offer a high degree of customization to ensure they align with your brand and customer needs. White labeling allows you to modify the interface, branding elements, and sometimes functionalities to match your business style and requirements. This ensures that the end product looks and feels like a natural extension of your existing products and services.
White label SaaS offers greater scalability, automation, and customization compared to traditional software. It provides businesses with faster go-to-market times and the ability to quickly adapt to changing market needs.
