The agency model: workspace, accounts, plans, and who pays

The two levels: Workspace and Account

Everything you do in MB Suite happens on one of two levels, and knowing what lives on each one avoids most confusion:

• In the Workspace (your agency): your team and its roles, the platform connections your accounts inherit, your plan and billing, your brand, and the Client Portal. It's the level from which you look at your whole portfolio.
• In each Account (each client): their profile, their data sources, their dashboards, reports, campaigns, and all the operational work. Each client's data stays separate from the others'.

The three states of an account

Every account is born internal: your team can work on it right away, at no cost. When the relationship with the client calls for it, you activate it in one of two modes. This table is the heart of the model:

In the Accounts section you see each account's state at a glance: Internal, Pending (the client-pays invitation was sent and the payment is missing), or Active. An account you took back after the client canceled shows as Internal (reclaimed) — it's the same internal mode, with a badge that reminds you where it came from.

What your plan includes (and what is charged separately)

Your agency plan defines a quota: the maximum number of accounts in your portfolio. The quota counts all your accounts — internal ones too, not just activated ones. Important: the quota says how many accounts you can have, not that their subscriptions are included in the base price. The pieces of your monthly cost are:

• Your plan's base price — covers your agency's operation and the quota of your tier (Starter, Growth, Scale, or Enterprise). All modules are included in every tier.
• Each account you activate with "Your agency pays" — adds its own monthly charge to your invoice (prorated from the day you activate it). Internal accounts add nothing. Accounts linked to an agency get a preferential price, lower than the individual Standard plan.
• Volume discount — as you add active accounts (in either mode), a discount is automatically applied to your plan's base price. It doesn't change each account's individual price.
• Usage-based charges — separate from any plan: AI credits and Email Marketing sends beyond the included monthly quota.

Creating an account and activating it

• In Accounts, use New Account: name, Industry, and Create Account. It's born internal and you can start working right away.
• To activate it, enter the account and go to Settings > Subscription > Activate.
• Choose the billing mode: Your agency pays (you control everything and the charge goes to your invoice) or Client pays (you enter the Client owner email).
• With Your agency pays, confirming with Activate enables everything at once. With Client pays, Send invitation emails the client a link to pay their subscription and create their access; the account shows Waiting for activation until they complete it.

What an account inherits from the workspace

An account doesn't start from scratch: it inherits the workspace's integrations (you connect your MCC or Business Manager once and distribute it across accounts) and its enabled modules. The exception is an account where the client pays: it starts with its own connections, disconnected from your workspace's, so the client controls their credentials. The detail is in Connect multi-account platforms and Create and activate a client's account.

Changing the mode later

No activation is a one-way door. From the account's subscription you can use Change billing mode to move between Your agency pays and Client pays. The two directions don't work the same way: going to Client pays sends the owner an invitation to set up their own payment method, while going back to Your agency pays sends the client a request they have to accept — and the change only takes effect at the end of their current billing cycle, so their subscription stays active until then. And if a client who paid their own account cancels, your agency can use Reclaim management: the account returns to internal mode at no cost, your team keeps working on it, and the client's data — CRM, Email Marketing, tasks — is frozen, not deleted; everything is restored if they subscribe again. The full detail is in Your agency's billing.

Bringing in a client who already uses MB Suite

If your client already has their own MB Suite organization, you don't need to recreate anything. In Settings > Partners you invite their organization by email; when its owner accepts, it becomes an account in your portfolio keeping all its data and its own subscription — which switches to the preferential linked-account price starting from its next invoice. It counts toward your volume discount and adds nothing to your invoice. Two conditions to keep in mind: whoever accepts must be the owner of an independent organization (one with no agency above it and no accounts of its own), and the invitation expires, so send it again if it lapses. If you later part ways, unlinking makes it independent again, back at the Standard plan price.

Who gets in and how: your team and your clients

Glossary of the model

• Internal account (internal mode) — an account without its own subscription: your team works on it with the operational modules, at no cost. Every account is born this way.
• Active account — an account with its own subscription, paid by your agency or by the client. It unlocks CRM, Email Marketing, its own members, and its own AI credits.
• Independent organization — one that uses MB Suite without belonging to any agency, on the Standard plan. An account unlinked from your workspace becomes independent.
• Standard vs. Enterprise — don't confuse them: Standard is the plan of an individual organization (a business without an account portfolio); Enterprise is the largest of the agency tiers (Starter, Growth, Scale, Enterprise).
• Your agency pays / Client pays — the two activation modes: who bears the account's monthly cost and, with it, who controls the account.
• Reclaim management — the option to bring a canceled client-pays account back to internal mode, keeping its data.

Frequently asked agency questions

• Do internal accounts use up my plan's quota? — Yes: the quota counts your whole portfolio, internal and active. Archived accounts don't count.
• Am I charged anything for an account I didn't activate? — No. An internal account has no cost; a charge only appears when you activate it with Your agency pays.
• Can I activate accounts during the trial? — No; the button is enabled when your subscription starts. Meanwhile, internal accounts already let you work every operational module.
• Who owns the account if the client pays? — The client: they're the owner and control permissions, including your team's access. Your agency keeps working on it with the access the client defines.
• What happens if my client cancels? — You don't lose the account: with Reclaim management it returns to internal mode and their data is frozen, not deleted. See Your agency's billing.
• Does the Client Portal cost extra? — No, it's included in your plan and works even with internal accounts. That's why you can give a client visibility without activating anything.
• Can I change who pays later? — Yes, with Change billing mode in the account's subscription, in both directions. Moving to Client pays sends the owner an invitation; moving back to Your agency pays needs the client to accept a request, and applies at the end of their billing cycle.