White Labeling Unify
The current model for most web applications gives us a trade-off: free with explicit product branding, or paid with the ability to have your way with the branding. This leads us to believe that there is some actual monetary cost to allowing a change of brand. There isn’t. So what do you get for your money? At best, you get permission to at best confuse or at worst, permission to rip-off your client. This is not creating value. This is snake oil, and at Unit we refuse to take part in this charade.
Justification, Disassembled
There is one very simple reason to not allow white labeling for Unify: any branding change would alter the code, and we cannot properly support our product once the source code has been changed. Beyond this, I would like to put a finer point on our position. The following are some of the common reasons that people use to justify white labeling, each rebutted by our philosophical perspectives behind Unify.
Doomsday Scenario: “My clients will get confused! They need their brand at the top of an app.”
This morning I hit snooze on my Seiko alarm, ate some Kashi cereal, drove to work in my Jeep, woke up my lazy iMac and posted this to the blog using WordPress. At no moment did I get confused… at least not about the brands I was using. (Thanks to David Airey for his similar progression in Logo Design Love).
Brands are not built to confuse. In fact, they clarify. A brand is a promise between the producer and the customer. Over time it is reinforced by good experiences and destroyed by bad ones. It is an honest face: recognizable and persistent. White labeling masks that face, and what do you consider the intentions of man behind a mask?
With Unify, we are building a brand through consistency and upkeep, and removing the brand would nullify any responsibility we take for our product. Marketing efforts, customer support, twitter chatter, blog posts on updates and improvements; all would be nullified by this obfuscation. This cost is too high to negate all of these efforts in the hopes of not confusing people who are smart enough – and familiar enough with brands – not to get lost.
The Appeal to Revenue: “You can charge tons more for a white label license! I will pay it!”
The only person who “pays” when costs go up is the end-client. The problem is, as explained above, THEY see no benefit. The only person who benefits from white-labeling is the middleman. The go-between gets to represent someone else’s work as their own, and the client pays a premium. How is this fair?
We have crafted a price and a model for Unify that correctly reflects its value. Inflating this price is not in our best interest. This larger price would communicate to those fitting the bill that there are more features, larger resources dedicated to customer service and bloated expansion towards bells and whistles. This is not our perspective on Unify. Unify is a simple tool, like a hammer; it does not bludgeon better with a different name on the side.
Also, there is an idea that comes up intermittently in our white-label discussions: that our “real” customers [designer/developers] want to be able to put their name on our product to make them look good. They are willing to pay five times the price – or more – so that they can tell their client that Unify is a custom-built CMS tailored to their needs. This, of course, is lying and is the worst possible justification for white labeling.
Truth be told, we want to look good, too. Not the “we” of Unit Interactive, but the “we” that makes Unify. We take pride in our product, and again, we want to build a brand behind that product that adds value and trust. We are not in the business of artificially inflating other people’s prowess. We only want Unify to be the best product for the people who have to use it every day.
High Anxiety: “My client will not understand why I charge my fee for a CMS when they can find that your product costs under $25.”
How a professional justifies their rates is not our business, but there is an easy answer to this: Time. Unify takes time to plan, install and to test (not much, though). One’s time is still worth money, so charge accordingly. If a person cannot rectify their rate with our price and their time, that person needs to sincerely reevaluate their pricing.
A Contrast in Black & White
“…black labeling is the practice of offering a ghosted service; where authorship, responsibility, or accomplishment (or all 3) are misrepresented in order to hide the truth of one’s inadequate skill, responsibility, or accomplishment. In plain English, by word this is known as lying; by deed this is known as deliberate deception.”
Here, Andy has drawn a decisive line between the honest uses of white labeling, and what he calls black labeling. By his definition only commodities can be appropriately white labeled. By our definition of what our actual product is – consistency of innovation, customer support, and a determination to keep things simple – Unify is a service. The code changes, but our commitment to serving to our customers stays the same.
Any attempt to white label Unify would really be black labeling, and would destroy Unify. This is not merely my opinion: it is the result of much internal debate and input from users – mostly to the contrary – that has led me to firmly stand against the ability to re-brand Unify. In most implementations, black labeling destroys brands and experiences. Where some argue that it adds consistency, it instead severely muddies the water for the people who are our main concern: the user. White labeling should be relegated to the few opportunities where it makes sense, and it is disheartening to see that it has become so ubiquitous in the life of a web designer.
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Comments (34)
the logic of this doesn’t quite follow, why brand for the people using unify every day when they aren’t the people selecting and implementing the product, it would make more sense to market to developers.
‘Tons more’ for white labelling isn’t quite what anyone was suggesting, perhaps double.
What people are asking for is the opportunity to provide a professional service to their client, one that is relevant to their branding and allows us to use your excellent product in a way that is fairly standard in the field.
I’m sure there are people who intend to rip off a client using this product but people do that with Drupal and that is free and open source! I think it’s unfair to assume that your clients need your moral guidance!
What I want to charge my client for is the many hours spent researching and trialling various content editing tools/CMSs to find an easy to use editor for them to update their site. (I don’t mean just Unify — I have downloaded and demoed many many others.)
As I only have a small client base that would use Unify (no where near 50) I do not quality for the bulk purchasing discounts, so have to pay full fee for license for my clients.
So if I add a fee on top of the license fee for my clients to cover my research work, when my client Googles Unify (or clicks logo on editor) and finds out the license cost less, they would naturally want to know why… and I don’t want to continually have to justify my fees.
Now, if I got some sort of commission per license then I’d happily keep your branding. Just some sort of compensation for:
1) recommending your product to my client
2) all the research I have put into choosing Unify as the better product
@Tom & @Mal: Thanks for following this conversation to the blog! I really do appreciate your perspectives here.
@Tom: It’s not about morals… it’s about business sense. If we were to even just double the price, we now have a new value expectation to live up to. And since we do not plan on doubling the value, now the person who pays that inflated price sees no added benefit, and Unit degrades their brand. This leads to: Rock — Unit — Hard Place.
@Mal: You have every right to charge your client for your time. You just need to explain it them. I know we could make this easier, but as I said above, that does not fit with what we want to accomplish with Unify.
@Mal,
You should be expected to charge your clients for the time it takes you to implement Unify (or any other system) into their site. That has nothing to do with the license cost of the product.
Never had it raised, to be honest. Also, you’ve got some odd clients if they go around Googling the name of their CMS (I know, it’s not a CMS, but it’s a convenient term) to find out the cost and compare with any charges. Normally, they’re just happy they can edit the content easily and pay what seems like a small amount (license + x hours work).
The paragraph indents look awful, by the way :)
I can’t ever recall I time when we have wanted to white label any service we set our clients up with. We’re more than happy to share those brands with our clients because we believe in them.
I prefer not to white label the technologies I use. I like clients to know that their sites are built on proven code used by others and which is not proprietary. They know that if anything happens to me, my company or our relationship that their site can continued to be developed by others. I actually use this as a selling point and have found that the openness builds trust with the clients.
The base technologies I use may be low-cost or open-source but my clients understand that properly implementing and supporting those technologies takes time and are willing to pay for that.
I’ve used Campaign Monitor who actively encourage developers and designers to black label their email broadcast services. I have to admit the process left me feeling uncomfortable and dishonest. We marked up the unit cost send which in the end helped cover our costs on campaigns which ran over in terms of our time.
In an ideal world we would have managed the project and time better – although if we hadn’t either we or the client would have felt the pain.
I totally agree with the first 2 comments and disagree with the rest. If your appeal is to the end user, than market that way but it’s the designer/developer that is going to implement everything so you should find a way to make them happy.
The “time” factor that you keep referencing isn’t something that will be billable (at least worth being billable) to an end user especially when the video’s on your website only show that it takes about 3 minutes to set up.
If the system is not able to be white labeled, it defeats the purpose of design studios and developers to use the product because clients WILL bring up the fact that it’s a completely different company, it cost much less than what was charged for it, and it doesn’t take long to implement. (All of which is mentioned on your site the the app links back to).
The goal is to make money and not being able to white label your software just makes it more of a nuisance to do so because you made it so inexpensive and easy.
@Pro Designer The point is indeed to make money. We hope Unify will help developers make money by enabling them to be more competitive because of the reduced cost of implementation (thereby reducing the cost to your clients) and for the improved experience your clients get from using our software.
If you must misrepresent the work you are doing or are purposely choosing WORSE solutions in order to milk them as much as possible, then you aren’t being a “Pro” at all.
I love the thinking about not inflating the price. I wish more companies did this. Keep up the good work.
You have a request from your core clientele to white label. Refusing to do so is quickly earning you a bad reputation amongst designers / developers, and resulting in lost profits.
I would estimate that most of your clients are not small business owners or enthusiasts designing their own websites looking for implementation of cms.
If this were the case they would most likely have an understanding of the design software they would be required to build said website, and they would make changes via their design software. (i.e. dreamweaver, etc.)
I think you have mis-targeted your end user. Designers / developers are the ones making up your core customer base and asking for a product that you refuse to provide.
You have a great product, yet you refuse to listen to the requests of your customers. Any MBA, PHD, or business owner will tell you this is certain death.
I like your product and have more than 1000 websites that I would like to implement it into, but will not do so without white labeling. In the end, I’m the one with the money.
However, your reluctance to work with the community makes me feel that working with you company in any form may prove difficult, and therefore I will take my business elsewhere like many others.
It’s like Subway saying… NO, you cannot have lettuce, tomato, onion, pickle, or anything else on your sandwich when you, the paying customer asks for it.
That’s fine, you aren’t the only game in town. I’ll go down to Quiznos and have it made my way. I will pay extra to get it, and I will also tell others who like toppings on their sandwich to stay away from Subway.
As far as I know, you don’t have a patent on this type of CMS. What happens when the next guy matches or beats your service and is willing to white label to the design community?
He becomes Google and you become the soon forgotten Alta Vista. You have to adapt and give your customers what they want, or you will have no customers at all.
@Jason:
Thanks for your thoughts here. We do appreciate it.
I am not sure your analogy is accurate, though. It is not a matter of denying lettuce. It is really denying you from taking our sandwich, setting up shop and selling it as “Jason’s Sandwich”.
We have continually adapted and listened to user feedback, but this is one of the few things we won’t change, ever. This is because we are not just targeting developers, we are targeting developers who are honest with their clients.
This is all very interesting and I’m astonished at Unify disregarding its potential customers requests.
I’d like to offer a simple solution. No business sells-on product for the price it’s purchased. No one would ever make any money. So why not have two-tier price scheme. Keep and advertise your $25 price for single users and let designers (trade) purchase it for $20. A very modest mark-up. Alternatively incentive desigerns by giving us cash-back (commission) on any purchase after the first one.
Please don’t insult us by refusing to allow us to mark-up a product. It goes against the whole principle of business!
Your product looks great but your attitude is arrogant and I believe, may be fatally flawed.
Honestly, I completely agree with Unit’s stance. I find it quite dishonest to rebrand a product that you are using. It takes advantage of the core of our customers today who don’t understand the technology, and is also a short term solution. What will you all do in 20 years when those in charge have more capabilities to figure out what you do and how? If your client has a problem with it, then justify why you used it. If you can’t, then your ethic probably need to be rechecked.
Snake oil, indeed.
What a load of BS. You are perfectly within your rights to choose any business model you like, but please spare me the “snake oil” and “rip-off your client” BS. You have no idea of who I am (nor others interested in your product) as an individual, nor of how I conduct business with my clients. And as someone who prides themselves on ethics above profit, I find your comments insulting.
End of my interest in this product I’m afraid. Too bad, nice little app.
you people are incredible. all this noise because you want to justify using this product by a big upcharge? you still have to build them a website; you probably still need to do some maintenance on it. maybe you do other stuff for them. add another hour or two to every invoice if you are so strapped. this product fills a niche perfectly in and of itself.
It beggars belief that people are getting on their high horses over this. I don’t believe Unit’s intention was to disparage the ethics of anybody – except those who would wish to nefariously relabel Unit’s product as their own.
I rarely charge my clients much for researching CMS options for their particular project. It’s my responsibility to keep abreast of the various options in the marketplace so that I may then use my judgement as to what is a good fit for their particular project. I implement WordPress for clients who are looking for a blogging platform, because it’s quite simply the best software available and I’m completely transparent with my clients about that decision. I implement Magento for ecommerce for the same reason. As far as I can see, Unify is the best in breed for in-place editing of static HTML pages, and should I find a reason to implement it I would take pride in having selected the best possible solution for my client, because that’s what they’re paying me for. Could I create a similar solution myself? Probably. Could I do it for $24.49, or even for $24.49 per project? No.
Don’t buy into the NIH anti-pattern; be proud of your professional knowledge. You know that Unify is out there, you know when and where it will be a good fit for your project so embrace the app and its brand.
Making money is not, and should never be, the sole purpose of business. Those who believe it is are completely missing the point. We all have a responsibility to solve problems in the most efficient and effective manner possible while behaving ethically in the process.
The trajectory of business as we know it is evolving fast. Nothing can stop an idea whose time has come. More and more professionals, in all fields, are upgrading their views on marketing and what it means to be a responsible business owner.
Unit is doing the right thing for everybody. Excellent work on Unify, by the way.
Wow, @crystal. I’m sorry, your dumb. Making money is absolutely the entire point of business. If you’re not in business to make money, you shouldn’t run a business! And unify is a great product, for consumers! Designers / Developers however want to make money and we do that by selling our services to our clients.
If you can’t make money with the CMS that you are using, you are using a failing business model. You mite as well design for free too (i know it’s a little extreme but c’mon). Rebranding a product is NOT unethical!
Plenty of CMS solutions are rebranded and sold to the Designers / Developers at a certain price to enable them to upsell and make money. If there is not reason so upsell, than there is no reason to purchase the product.
I actually read this entire discussion, and I found the opposing views really interesting.
I haven’t used Unify yet for a project, but it looks awesome and I plan to use it in the near future. Nice work Unit!
In general, I have to agree that Unit has misconstrued their target audience for this product. If their plan was to target end users, Unify is not the right product (at least not yet). The people who will be purchasing Unify are developers, not end users. Unit should listen to the requests of their primary customers, in this case, developers… rather than trying to evangelize their feelings about business ethics, intellectual ownership and their brand through a middleman to the end user.
The “middleman”, me, is Unit’s client. The “end-client” is really MY client, not Unit’s. If Unit really wants to cut out the “middleman”, they need to develop a product that the “end-client” can use independently. Most importantly, I don’t want a third-party trying to dictate anything about how I conduct business with my client.
I agree with almost everything that Nathan originally wrote in this article. The ideas about developers unjustly bloating prices for non-savvy end users and brand recognition/reliability creating positive user experiences are spot on.
BUT, I want my clients to have those positive experiences with MY brand.
I currently resell Campaign Monitor to some of my clients. When they login, they see my logo, not Campaign Monitor’s. This makes me look professional, and it reinforces MY brand. I use CurdBee for invoicing, and again, they see MY brand on all the invoices I send. I use WordPress regularly to build client websites, and I can easily add MY brand to their admin login page and administration area… and that is all FREE (which disputes your very first statement about the current model of most web applications).
The point is, white labeling can help me create a consistently-branded, positive user experience for my clients throughout all the work I do for them and all the communication I have with them… whether that is an invoice, an email or a CMS.
I’ve never hidden technology from my clients that I use to create their work. I am proud to support the technologies that help me do my job better and more efficiently. In fact, I often use information about these technologies as part of my pitch. I’ve shown clients how easy it is to use a WordPress blog by playing how-to videos directly from the WordPress website. Like others, I also am proud of the research I did to choose a technology. And in turn, I become their customer, a member of their community, etc…
The problem really is expectation. When I purchase a product, I expect a certain degree of freedom. Then when I can’t have that freedom (and I can’t even pay extra to have it) I ask why? If you tell me that I can’t have that freedom because you are suspicious of how I might use that freedom to conduct unethical business with my client… Well, then I say that is none of your business and I’m insulted.
I think you can agree that the most successful products, with the most vibrant communities, are the ones that offer the most freedom. WordPress and Drupal are great examples of this.
Maybe, a good compromise would be to offer the ability for your customers to upload their (or their client’s logo) to the Unify admin, but also leave the Unify branding present? (i.e. “powered by Unify”)
Anyways, good luck! Unify looks really promising, and seems to fulfill a niche that developers really need.
@ Ferenc: Thanks for your thoughts here, and for the kind words about Unify. To your (and other’s) issues:
We are not setting out to be WordPress or Drupal. Prevalence does not make right. Also, there is no evangelism on the Unify site. This is our blog where we share our thoughts and motivations.
So lets say we compromise and let you label our product for your client. Then you move on. Who’s Unify is it now? Are you also gracious enough to pay for the client’s Unify, or does the client usually pay the fee for both the product and your services?
Yes, white labeling does not have to be malicious, but the unintended consequences can be. That is the issue we are raising here.
@Nathan: Thanks for the response. It is pretty awesome to find a company that is so open and quick to engage the public. Regardless on whether we disagree on the value of white labeling for developers and their clients, it is nice to have an open dialogue.
I understand that you aren’t trying to be Drupal or WordPress… they are open source and completely different products. However, I think they show a good example of how freedom breeds success.
When my client wants something, I give it to them. Is there a strong enough reason for you to not even considering compromising with us, your clients?
I am NOT asking you to allow us to erase your brand from the product. I am NOT asking to resell your product as my own. I am just asking you for the ability to let me personalize the product I’m buying from you. I don’t want to hide the fact that I’m using Unify to create my client’s website… In fact, I want to use that as a selling point to my clients. If I support Unify, and it becomes a strong brand, that will help me transparently sell Unify as a solution to my client… I can “piggyback” off the success of Unify and what it has to offer.
BUT I just want to be able to let my brand and/or my client’s brand be a part of the product and experience they purchase from me. Why not?
When I personalize a product for my client, it feels more complete and unique… less “out-of-the-box.”
I understand and agree with your arguments about the scenario where a developer could move on and the client is stuck with a branded product… But if Unify created this new feature to be as user-friendly as the rest of the Unify editing experience, my client would have no problem uploading and editing their/my logo. They would already be familiar with the editing experience.
If I setup web hosting for a client, and they wanted to move to someone else… I would transfer all the domain registration to the new host, admin access, whatever else, etc. I would do the same with a Unify website.
Also, yes, if there is a fee for a service I use to create work for a client, I pass those costs on to the client… but transparently. They know exactly what they are paying for and why. Web hosting is a good example of this. The cost of iStock images I use to create their work are another good example. I pass those costs on to the client, and they know exactly what they are paying for.
Why would I swallow the cost for those kinds of services and products? That simply wouldn’t make sense from a business perspective. And I’m not going to bury those fees in my time/hours of work… that’s just not honest. My clients pay for exactly what they get.
Thanks again, Ferenc
I’m thinking about trying Unify out. Personally, I would love if maybe for a slightly higher price (or none at all ;P) there would be an (option) to put our own logo next to a “Powered by Unify” logo at the top of the login. This would still give credit to UI & Unify, but would make a client aware that I am the one providing (paying & setting up) the CMS for them. Aside from that it would give a more look professional for developers/designers using Unify.
Also, at the bottom of the login it could still say.
“Unify™ is developed by Unit Interactive.” with a link to unitinteractive.com so that it directs perspective customers to UI’s main page without immediately revealing how much was paid by the developer/designer to license Unify.
This type of compromise between white labeling and not white labeling would totally suit my needs. BTW, I didn’t realize until I looked on your main page that UI is nearby in the DFW metroplex. Great to know, and thanks for all the hard work on Unify!
I’ve been running my own company for many years now and I agree with Ferenc. A “powered by Unify” would be an easy compromise and would still allow for both company and Unify branding. Not allowing a company logo is simply ridiculous. What if Adobe demanded an Adobe watermark on every image coming out of Photoshop? The idea of re-branding is already evident and working in thousands of products and services. Unify is not creating a NEW stance on anything. They are just standing in the way of its real clients (developers) to brand their purchased services and tools, which those developers are already doing in lots of other tools and software they use. Why do I want to push Unify’s big bold logo branding over my own? Why would I want to push Adobe’s logo over my own? I wouldn’t and well, no business wants to or does.
Unfortunately after reading through all of this, Unify has stubbornly taken a stand over a small matter and is determined to make exaggerated excuses only to anger its real clients (the developers) and lose business. The issue of being barred from the simple idea of adding my own logo is enough to make me say NO to using this product rather quickly. The very reason that PageLime and SurrealCMS allow a white-label CMS is that they easily recognize this as important to the business. And although I feel Unify may be better in more aspects, they are likely to get my business because that’s how important my company branding is to me.
@RazorX: You are using an incorrect comparison. Adobe does not put their logo on images, true, and we do not put our logo on what Unify produces for your site. We only ask that the logo remain intact on the app interface.
You do not have to push our brand over yours. Your site is your site and our app is our app: we only license it to you.
Yes, our stance may not be new, but it does seem from this string of comments to be slightly on the unpopular side. We are OK with that.
Sadly, I could never employ Unify for my customers. Not because I am unable to put my banding on it, but because everyone of my clients that have come to me asking for a CMS solution, expect it to have THEIR brand on it. This has become something I must consider with every prospective CMS I set up, regardless if it’s pre-purchased software I use or a custom application I write.
I would love to add Unify to my list of available tools for my smaller clients, but this simple branding issue drives me back to similar hosted CMS solutions – only because they allow branding.
OK Unit, you have heard loud and clear what your customers want, but you seem to have ‘dug your heels in’ and perhaps don’t want to look foolish by backing down!
Why don’t you allow developers to add their logo in the header and also have a smaller ‘Powered by Unify’ or whatever you like link in the footer.
That way everyone will be happy. Developers can plop in their clients or their own logo, and you keep your link to ensure that no-one is ‘snake-oiling’ or ‘blacklabeling’ your precious CMS!
Please do it and stop all this nonsense!
Hi Unit
No white, no black, you need transparency.
Your product is a back end feature, it should be transparent, with comments and credits on the code, near each editable region.
But the interface should be brandable, your logo would remain at a reasonnable size, with a mention “powered by”.
Your clients are developpers or designer
The end consumer will be happy with a hosted solution to create his website.
By the way, what about security, I did not have read much.
This is a more important point for me in the election of a CMS for a client.
My thoughts
I just stumbled across this year-old post, and read every single comment.
It’s quite astonishing to learn how strongly people feel about the need to add their name to a third party application. I mean, seriously? What exactly do people think will be accomplished by adding their name to a product that they may not be able to support in the long run? It only retracts from they value of Unify by generating potential confusion.
Truth is, when I purchased Unify I also considered white labeling it. But as soon as I read Unit’s reasoning for disallowing any sort of modification, I immediately saw the value in their vision and could not agree more with their decision.
The main purpose of my comment here is to show support for Unit’s ideology and business ethics. It seems that the majority of commentary on this post was made by an very strong opposition, so I figured a positive word will help balance the perceived reception of this decision.
And to those concerned with their client’s need to add their logo to the product: You must first understand where the request is coming from. The client may not have a good understanding of what Unify exactly is. They are likely thinking, “Well, this is MY website, so I need my logo on it. Everywhere.” You can simply respond and explain that A) Only THEY see the Unify logo while they’re editing the site content, and B) It will help them distinguish between the editing interface and the actual live site. Knowing this, the client will likely retract their concerns. Worked for me.
I think it’s pretty elitist to think that you guys can change the way business works by making your product not comply to a standard for designers and developers.
You are actually really mucking up your own sales, I’m no longer going to buy the product after finding i can not rebrand. It is not “snake-oil” to offer more features than JUST YOURS on my server, and then charge the clients accordingly for a suite of things they can use for their website through my server. Your idea, while you try to justify it through saying it’s a good model for business, is just a selfish model that hopes in stealing the designers business from them.
Hi Unit.
Great feedback on both sides of this issue. I recently took a look at Unit and the white labeling was a concern of mine as well. You are perfectly within reason to have an expectation that people are not using your product in a way that harms your company, few (if any) will disagree with that business objective.
But I am curious why your primary axiom is what an unscrupulous developer MIGHT do? I can understand those who say UI shouldn’t interject as the judge and jury as to how people are using what they pay for, and I understand those who say UI preserves the right to dictate how their license agreement is upheld.
Without using any analogies though, I’m truly baffled where the business protocol comes into play by referencing brand identity. Ferenc I think articulated this the best, Unify is just a billable cost of production for him when producing websites for his clients. He makes this upfront, informs them that the platform simply makes their work updating the site easier, and can even alleviate the costs of support by having to constantly call your designer and request a name change, or an image be replaced.
So from that standpoint, has UI considered the solution of perhaps not raking hikes, but a provision in the licensing agreement that the costs of Unify are billed under the trilateral understanding between client, developer and vendor, not as smoke and mirrors but an incurred cost of development and relationship continuity?
Thanks for your feedback and hard work maintaining communication on this.
Ughh, you can’t white label it? You can’t even PAY to white label it?
“There is one very simple reason to not allow white labeling for Unify: any branding change would alter the code, and we cannot properly support our product once the source code has been changed.”
That is the poorest argument I’ve ever heard LOL.
Well, guess I can’t use this one…
Really though, here’s why whitelabeling is necessary. Client logins in, “Hmm, Unfiy, I’ve never heard of that one. I guess my people are keeping up with the newest tech!” Client then googles Unify, naturally. What pops up? unify.UNITINTERACTIVE.com – a completely different design and development firm’s product. I sure as hell don’t want to have to compete for my own clients with the pros over at Unit!
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