Most agencies don't lose time building emails. They lose it waiting for clients to approve them. The email is ready on Tuesday, the preview link goes out, and then the feedback arrives in four places: a reply to the account manager, a comment on a PDF, a message in a shared channel and a phone call nobody wrote down. By Thursday someone at the client has approved version two while your builder is on version four.
Mailfois gives every client a proper place to review and approve your emails, and gives your agency a record of exactly what they approved and when. It sits alongside the ESP you already build in. Nothing moves.
Why client approvals stall
- Preview links expire or change. The client opens a link from last week and approves something that no longer exists.
- Feedback is scattered. Comments come back by email, chat and PDF, and someone has to merge them into one list.
- Nobody knows who has the final say. Three people at the client comment; one of them was the approver.
- "Approved" lives in an inbox. When a client later asks why an offer went out, the proof is a reply in someone's sent folder.
- Every client works differently. One wants a PDF, one wants a test send, one wants to see it in their own ESP. Your team keeps five processes in their heads.
How client sign-off works in Mailfois
- 1. Each client gets a workspace. Their own plan, brand kit, library and approvers, kept separate from your other clients. You switch between them from one menu.
- 2. Build in the ESP you already use. Klaviyo, Braze, Salesforce, Mailchimp or anything else. Paste the email or its preview into a review.
- 3. Brand Guard checks it first. Every email is checked against that client's brand kit and the basics: colors, fonts, buttons, footer, unsubscribe link, alt text and CSS that Outlook ignores. You fix the obvious things before the client sees them. You can even set a minimum score before anything can be approved.
- 4. The client gets a private link. Add the client's approver by name and email. They receive an email from your agency's name, "{Agency} needs your sign-off", with a link that opens the review. No account, no password, no seat to pay for.
- 5. They approve, request changes or comment. Per email, in one place. A change request must say what needs to change, so you never get "not quite right" with nothing else.
- 6. You get the record. Who approved which version, and when, kept with the email in the client's library.
What your client sees
A clean page with your agency's name at the top, the campaign, and each email with its subject line and preview text. They can preview each email at phone width or desktop width, click the links to check them, approve, request changes or leave a comment. A progress bar shows how many emails are approved. It works on a phone, which is where a lot of approvals actually happen.
They never see your internal conversation. Notes your team leaves on a campaign stay internal unless someone ticks "visible to client" on a specific note.
What your team gets
- One switcher for every client. Agency workspace at the top, clients underneath.
- A campaign planner per client, with each market's stage and send date for clients who send to several countries.
- Brand kits per client, so Brand Guard checks each client's emails against their own rules.
- Control over the links. Resend a link (the old one stops working) or switch a client approver off at any time.
- A library of approved work, searchable by client, month and campaign. Useful for reporting, renewals and next year's Black Friday.
However you work with each client
Every client gets their own workspace, and it fits however that relationship works. You choose one when you add a client, it shows on that client's card so your whole team knows, and you can change it as the relationship changes.
- Agency-led: you build, they approve. Your team plans, builds and checks every email. The client approves from a private link, with no account and no seat. With two-stage sign-off, your team approves each round first, so the client never sees a version you haven't checked.
- Client-led: they build, you sign off. The client's own team logs in to their workspace, plans and builds their emails and sends them for sign-off. Your agency signs them off: Brand Guard runs on every version, and you keep the record of what was approved. You're hands-off day to day and there to check and help: agencies offering QA, governance or compliance work this way.
- Shared: you both do some. Your team plans and reports, the client's team builds some emails, and either side can approve. Who can build and who can approve is set per person.
The client's own people only ever see their workspace, never your other clients or your agency's notes. And if a client moves on, you can hand their workspace over: it becomes their own Mailfois account, with every plan, approval and email kept.
Show clients what you sent
Approved emails tend to vanish into the client's inbox. Showcase turns them into a short video: each email in a desktop and phone frame, scrolling top to bottom, with the results you add (open rate, revenue, orders) counting up alongside. Pick the emails from the Library, choose a look in the client's brand color, and share it as a link, with an optional password and expiry date, or download it as an MP4 for the quarterly review deck. It's just as useful for pitches and case studies.
The results come from the client's ESP export, or you type them in. Mailfois doesn't connect to the ESP, so nothing about the client's subscribers is involved. Each client can also have a live client hub: one link with their results, approved emails and showcases. On paid plans you can remove the small "Made with Mailfois" mark.
A client approval process that holds up
Software helps, but the process is what stops approvals dragging. This is what we'd agree with every client at the start of the relationship:
- One named approver per client, and a named deputy for holidays. Other people at the client can comment; only the approver approves.
- A review window. For example, two working days from the review link to approval. Put it in the statement of work.
- A set number of rounds. Two rounds of changes included; further rounds are scoped. It keeps feedback consolidated and gives you a fair basis for change requests.
- Changes must say what and why. "Make it pop" isn't a change request. "The offer ends on the 30th, not the 31st" is.
- Approval is per email, in writing, on the record. A thumbs-up in chat isn't approval.
- Late changes move the send date. If the client changes the email after approval, it goes back for approval and the send moves if it has to.
For the internal side of the process, see our guide to the email campaign workflow.
Client sign-off template
Whatever tool you use, record these for every approved email. If a client ever asks what was agreed, this is your answer:
- Client, campaign and email (including market and language version)
- Version or round number that was approved
- Approver's name, role and email address
- Date and time of approval
- Subject line and preview text as approved
- Planned send date and time, with time zone
- Any conditions attached to the approval ("approved once the price is corrected")
- A copy or link to the approved email that won't expire
Mailfois records all of this automatically for every email approved through it.
Moving a client onto Mailfois
You don't need a big switchover. Most agencies start with one client and one campaign:
- Day 1: create the client's workspace and add their brand colors, fonts and button rules to the brand kit.
- Day 2: put the next few weeks of that client's campaigns into their planner, with send dates.
- Next campaign: send it for review through Mailfois instead of a preview link, and add the client's approver.
- After the send: ask the client how it compared. Then add the next client.
Tell the client what's changing in one line: "You'll get a link from us for each approval, no login needed, and you can approve on your phone."
Pricing for agencies
One bill covers your team and your clients. The Agency plan is $48 per agency seat a month, from three seats, with 10 client workspaces included and $19 a month for each client after that. Every client workspace gets the paid features, including its own Brand Kit and Brand Guard. Seats are for your agency's staff. Client approvers are free and never need a seat, and each client includes 3 logins for the client's own team, for clients who build their own emails. Need more for a bigger client team? Add them for $29 a login a month, on your Agency bill. Start with a 14-day free trial: nothing is charged until it ends, and adding or removing a client updates your bill automatically.
A team of three agency staff running ten clients pays $144 a month. Want to see it first? Watch the 1-minute demo.