Set up the Customer Portal for your clients
The Customer Portal is a branded, custom-domain login area for your clients. Instead of sending clients an InstaWP login (or logging in for them every time), you give each client their own account in your portal. They sign in at your domain, see only the sites you provide them, and open wp-admin in one click — without ever needing an InstaWP account of their own.
It is the client-facing side of your hosting business: where WaaS is the self-serve checkout your customers buy through, the Customer Portal is the ongoing home for the clients you onboard and manage. You control the branding, the domain, who gets access, and which sites each client sees.
Where to find it
The Customer Portal lives under the Portal section in your InstaWP sidebar, with two pages — Customers and Settings. It is available on current InstaWP accounts; if you don't see the Portal menu, contact support to have it enabled for your account.
What you'll set up:
- Brand the portal (name, logo, favicon, colours).
- Put it on your own domain.
- Add your clients as customers and assign them sites.
- Share access and manage clients over time.
Let's get started 🚀
Step 1 — Brand your portal
In the sidebar, go to Portal → Settings. This is where you make the portal look like your product rather than InstaWP.
Under Whitelabel portal information you'll also see two read-only fields:
- Portal UUID — the unique ID of your portal.
- Portal Login URL — the default address your clients use to sign in (
https://app.instawp.io/eup/login?portal=…). This works right away; once you connect a custom domain (Step 2) your clients can use your own address instead.
Scroll down to the branding fields, set them, and click Save Changes:
| Option | Description |
|---|---|
| Portal Name | The name shown to your clients across the portal (e.g. your agency name). |
| Logo | Your brand logo, shown on the portal login screen and header. Recommended size 60 × 60 px (PNG or JPG). |
| Favicon | The small icon in the browser tab of your portal. Recommended size 32 × 32 px (PNG or JPG). |
| Colours → Primary | Your main brand colour — used for buttons and highlights. |
| Colours → Secondary | The accent/background colour used across the portal. |
Step 2 — Put the portal on your own domain
To make the portal fully white-label, connect a domain you own (for example clients.youragency.com).
Step 2a: On Portal → Settings, enter your domain in the Portal Custom Domain field (top of the page).
Step 2b: At your DNS provider, add a CNAME record pointing your domain (or subdomain) to portal.instawp.io.
| Record | Host / Name | Value / Target |
|---|---|---|
| CNAME | your subdomain (e.g. clients) | portal.instawp.io |
Step 2c: Come back and click Verify Domain. InstaWP checks your DNS and provisions HTTPS automatically once the record is found.
- If verification shows pending / propagating, DNS changes can take a few minutes to a few hours to spread — wait and click Verify Domain again.
- If it fails, double-check the CNAME host and target for typos, then retry.
- Once connected, your portal is live at your domain over HTTPS. You can disconnect the domain at any time to revert to the default Portal Login URL.
Step 3 — Add your clients as customers
Go to Portal → Customers. This is the list of every client with access to your portal — showing their name, source, email, and how many sites they have.
Click Add Customer and fill in the details:
| Field | Description |
|---|---|
| Name | Your client's name. |
| The email your client will log in with. Must be unique within your portal. | |
| Assign Sites | Search for and tick the sites this client should see and manage. Assign one or several. |
Click Add. The customer is created and automatically receives a welcome email so they can set their password and sign in.
Step 4 — Give clients access
Your client gets a welcome email the moment you add them. If they ever need a new one, open the customer's ⋯ actions menu and choose Reset Password Link — InstaWP emails them a fresh secure link to set their password.
Clients then sign in at your portal — your custom domain from Step 2, or the default Portal Login URL from Step 1.
What your clients see
Once signed in, each client gets a clean, branded dashboard that shows only the sites you assigned them. From there they can:
- View their sites and details.
- Open wp-admin in one click — the portal signs them straight into WordPress via secure SSO, so they never handle WordPress passwords.
- Manage their site within the access you've given them.
Managing customers over time
From Portal → Customers, each customer row has an impersonate button (the "log in as" arrow) and a ⋯ actions menu:
| Action | What it does |
|---|---|
| Impersonate (the arrow button) | Securely log in as the client to see exactly what they see — useful for support and troubleshooting. |
| Change Email | Update the email address the client logs in with. |
| Reset Password Link | Email the client a fresh link to set a new password. |
| Delete Customer | Remove the customer. Select several with the row checkboxes to delete in bulk. |
Built-in security
The portal protects your clients automatically: sign-in sessions expire after a period of inactivity, and repeated failed login attempts temporarily lock an account before unlocking on their own.
FAQs
Do my clients need an InstaWP account?
No. That's the point of the Customer Portal — your clients log in only to your branded portal with the email and password they set from their welcome email. They never see or need an InstaWP login.
How is this different from WaaS?
WaaS is your public, self-serve checkout — visitors pick a template and plan and buy a site themselves. The Customer Portal is the ongoing client home for the people you host: you add them, assign their sites, and they manage those sites from your branded portal. Many agencies use both together — sell through WaaS, then manage the resulting clients in the Customer Portal.
Can I log in as a client to help them?
Yes. Use the impersonate button on the customer's row to securely see and operate the portal exactly as that client does — ideal for support.
Can I assign more than one site to a client?
Yes. When adding a customer, search for and tick multiple sites; the client sees all of them in their portal.
I don't see the Portal menu — why?
The Customer Portal is available on current InstaWP accounts. If the Portal section isn't in your sidebar, contact support to have it enabled.
| 💡 Related: Building the self-serve checkout your customers buy through? See Create WaaS and Map a custom domain to a WaaS Site. |