How much does a client portal cost in 2026?
An off-the-shelf client portal typically costs $19-600 a month, or $700-1,100 per seat a year inside practice software, while a custom portal from a dev shop typically costs $8,000-18,000 to build plus upkeep. Ours is a $2,500 (£2,000) ops audit, then a monthly plan from $2,000 (£1,600) with the portal as your first build.
| What you're buying | US | UK |
|---|---|---|
| SuiteDash (flat price, not per user) | $19 / $49 / $99 a month | about £15 / £39 / £79 (converted) |
| Clinked (Standard, 100 members) | $239 a month | about £190 (converted) |
| TaxDome (per seat, 3-year commitment) | $700-1,100 a year | about £560-880 (converted) |
| Clio practice management (per user) | from $49 a month | about £39 (converted) |
| Custom portal from a dev shop | $8,000-18,000, 2-6 weeks | £6,000-14,000 |
| Fuller custom portal with billing and SSO | about $50,000-100,000 (converted) | €45,000-90,000, 12-16 weeks |
| Forge ops audit | $2,500 | £2,000 |
| Forge monthly plan, portal as first build | $2,000 / $3,500 / $7,500 | £1,600 / £2,800 / £6,000 |
Ranges are typical, compiled from published rate guides and vendor pricing pages, not quotes. Vendor prices are from SuiteDash, October 2026, Clinked, October 2026, TaxDome, October 2026 and Clio, October 2026. The $8,000-18,000 custom band is the typical dev-shop range from our custom software cost guide. The fuller-build band is from Kolonell, August 2026, priced in euros at French day rates. Other UK figures convert at roughly $1.25 to £1.
What does a client portal do?
A client portal is one private place where each client logs in and finds everything to do with their work with you: documents, requests, sign-offs, invoices and where things stand. For a people business - businesses that sell their people's expertise and time: agencies, accountants, lawyers, consultants - it does two jobs. Clients stop emailing to ask where something is. And your team stops being the search engine for your own files.
The second job is the one that pays. At Fame, our own client portal meant producers stopped hunting through Drive folders and answering "where is the latest version?" emails. Clients log in and find it themselves.
How much does a portal cost?
It depends which of three things you buy.
A portal product Tools like SuiteDash and Clinked sell the portal on its own. SuiteDash, October 2026 charges one flat price per plan - $19, $49 or $99 a month - and says that price is not per user. Clinked, October 2026 charges $239 a month for 100 members on Standard and lists Premium at $599 a month for 250 members, though the same page shows $479 in its comparison table, so check before you buy. Clinked also has a Start Up plan at $11 per user for up to 25 users.
Copilot, another popular portal product, now redirects to Assembly. Assembly, October 2026 has a free plan for 5 active contacts and one internal user; its paid prices didn't display clearly when we checked, so we've left them out.
A portal inside practice software Accounting and law firms often get a portal as part of the tool they run the practice on. TaxDome, October 2026 charges $700, $900 or $1,100 per seat a year on a three-year commitment, with the client portal and mobile app included. Clio, October 2026 starts at $49 per user a month for Clio Manage. You're paying for the whole practice tool, not just the portal.
A custom portal Built to your stages, your files and your apps. That's the next section.
How much does a custom client portal cost?
A small custom portal - login per client, their files, sign-off status, content pulled from the tools you already use - typically costs $8,000-18,000 (£6,000-14,000) and takes 2-6 weeks from a dev shop. That's the market range for the kind of portal we built at Fame, not what Fame paid.
Bigger builds cost more. Kolonell, August 2026 prices a simple portal at €18,000-35,000 over 8-10 weeks, rising to €45,000-90,000 once you add online billing, SSO, payments and detailed roles, and €90,000-160,000 for business-critical builds connected to an ERP. Those are agency prices at €500-650 a day.
Then there's the running cost, which quotes often leave out. The same guide puts maintenance at 12-18% of the build cost a year, and EU hosting at €60-250 a month plus €40-120 a month for certificates, monitoring and backups.
What drives the cost of a client portal?
Four things move the price more than anything else.
Single sign-on (SSO)
Letting clients log in with their company's Microsoft or Google account is a must for some corporate clients. Kolonell, August 2026 estimates 5-12 developer days for it. If your clients are small businesses, a simple emailed login link is usually enough.
File storage
Storing files is cheap. Storing them twice is expensive in a different way: if the portal holds one copy and your team works from another in Drive or SharePoint, someone spends their week keeping them in step. The better design reads files from where your team already keeps them.
E-signature
Engagement letters and approvals need signing. Practice tools often include it - TaxDome includes e-signatures on every plan. A custom portal either connects to a signing service you pay for, or records a simpler click-to-approve.
Sync with your practice tool
This is the big one. A portal that nobody updates by hand needs to read from wherever the work is tracked - Karbon, Clio, Xero, Trello, a spreadsheet. The same guide prices an ERP or billing integration at 8-20 developer days. Every app you connect adds to the build and to the upkeep, because apps change.
What does a client portal cost over three years for a 25-person firm?
Here's a worked example. The firm has 25 staff and 150 active clients, and wants each client to log in. Every figure is a list price from the vendor pages above; real quotes may differ.
| Option | How it's priced | Year one | Three years | Tools you get |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| SuiteDash Pinnacle | $99 a month, flat | $1,188 | $3,564 | 1 |
| Clinked Premium | $599 a month (175 members needs more than Standard's 100) | $7,188 | $21,564 | 1 |
| Clio Manage Starter | $49 x 25 users a month | $14,700 | $44,100 | 1 practice tool |
| TaxDome Pro | $900 x 25 seats a year | $22,500 | $67,500 | 1 practice tool |
| Custom portal, dev shop, low end | $8,000 build + 15% a year upkeep + $150 a month hosting | $11,000 | $17,000 | 1 |
| Custom portal, dev shop, high end | $18,000 build + 15% a year upkeep + $150 a month hosting | $22,500 | $31,500 | 1 |
| Forge Starter plan | $2,000 a month, portal included, more builds after | $24,000 | $72,000 | about 10, so roughly $7,200 each |
How we worked it out:
Clinked:
25 staff plus 150 clients is 175 members, so Premium. $599 x 12 = $7,188 a year; x 3 = $21,564.
Clio and TaxDome
are full practice tools with a portal included, so they're only a fair comparison if you'd switch your practice software anyway. Clio: $49 x 25 x 12 = $14,700. TaxDome: $900 x 25 = $22,500.
Custom:
we assumed 15% a year for upkeep (the middle of the 12-18% range above) and $150 a month for hosting (our assumption, inside the euro range above). Low end: $8,000 + ($1,200 x 3) + ($1,800 x 3) = $17,000. High end: $18,000 + ($2,700 x 3) + ($1,800 x 3) = $31,500.
Forge:
$2,000 x 36 = $72,000, with the $2,500 audit credited to month one. Tool costs on your own accounts are extra. That $72,000 doesn't buy one portal: the same plan keeps building, looking after and improving tools for the whole three years. At a typical pace that's around 10 tools, so $72,000 / 10 = about $7,200 per tool. That's a typical pace, not a guarantee - your number depends on what you build.
The honest reading: if a portal is all you need and an off-the-shelf one fits how you work, buy it. One tool for $3,564 still beats $7,200 a tool if one tool is all you need. Our plan makes sense when the portal is the first of several things you want built and looked after - reports, onboarding, the work between your apps. Then you're comparing about $7,200 a tool, kept working for three years, against $17,000-31,500 for a single custom build with upkeep.
What is the best client portal?
There isn't one best portal - it depends mostly on the practice tool your firm already runs on. The best one is the one your clients actually log into, and that's usually the one closest to where your team already works.
You already run on a practice tool with a portal
(TaxDome, Karbon, Clio, MyCase): switch it on before you buy anything else. It's already paid for.
You need a branded portal and your work is fairly standard:
SuiteDash and Clinked are cheap and quick to try.
Your work has its own shape
episodes, matters, campaigns, filings with stages a generic tool doesn't know - and the portal has to read from three or four apps to stay current: that's where custom earns its cost.
For specific verticals, see our guides to a client portal for accounting firms and matter status updates for clients.
How much does a portal app cost?
If you mean a mobile app your clients download, add to the budget. TaxDome sells a fully branded iOS and Android app as a paid add-on. A custom native app is a separate, larger build than a web portal. For most people businesses, a web portal that works well on a phone does the same job for a fraction of the cost, and nobody has to install anything.
Is a status page cheaper than a full portal?
Often, yes, and it's sometimes all clients want. A client status page is one private link per client showing where every piece of work is, with no login. It typically costs the same $8,000-18,000 (£6,000-14,000) band from a dev shop, but it's usually at the simpler end because it only reads and displays. At Fame, it meant account managers retired the Friday status email. Clients check the link before they message.
Together, the tools built at Fame have given its team back 5,460 hours as of 14 October 2026. We don't measure hours per tool yet, so we don't quote them.
How does Forge price a client portal?
Our pricing is published. A two-week ops audit is $2,500 (£2,000) and is credited to your first month. Then a monthly plan at $2,000, $3,500 or $7,500 a month (£1,600, £2,800 or £6,000), with your first build - often the portal - included. Monthly plans have a three-month minimum, then run month to month.
The portal runs on your own accounts, so you own it and pay those tool costs directly. We monitor it and fix it when one of your apps changes, and keep building what you ask for next. We also train your team and roll the portal out to clients, so people actually use it. See what that looks like for accounting firms and law firms.
When should you not hire us?
An off-the-shelf portal fits.
If SuiteDash, Clinked or your practice tool's built-in portal does the job, buy it. It's cheaper than us by a distance.
You only ever want one thing built.
A one-off dev shop project plus a cheap maintenance contract will cost less than a monthly plan.
You need a portal for thousands of consumer users.
That's a product build, not a tool for a people business.
You haven't decided what clients should see.
Start with the free DIY version in our ops audit cost guide.
More cost guides: AI automation agency pricing, software costs for accounting and law firms, and the full set in our pricing guides.
Questions, answered plainly
How much does a client portal cost?
Off-the-shelf portals typically cost $19-600 a month (SuiteDash and Clinked, October 2026), or $700-1,100 per seat a year inside practice software like TaxDome. A small custom portal typically costs $8,000-18,000 to build from a dev shop, plus upkeep.
How much does a custom client portal cost?
Typically $8,000-18,000 (£6,000-14,000) over 2-6 weeks for a small portal, rising to €45,000-90,000 with billing, SSO and payments (Kolonell, August 2026). Budget 12-18% of the build a year for maintenance, plus hosting.
What is the best client portal?
It depends on the practice tool you already use. If TaxDome, Karbon, Clio or MyCase includes a portal, switch that on first. If you need a standalone branded portal, SuiteDash and Clinked are cheap to try. Custom earns its cost when your work has stages a generic tool doesn't know.
Is custom cheaper than off-the-shelf over three years?
Rarely, if an off-the-shelf portal fits. For a 25-person firm with 150 clients, SuiteDash costs about $3,564 over three years against $17,000-31,500 for a custom build with upkeep. Custom wins when your work has its own shape.
What does Forge charge for a client portal?
A $2,500 (£2,000) ops audit credited to your first month, then $2,000, $3,500 or $7,500 a month (£1,600, £2,800 or £6,000) with the portal as your first build. Three-month minimum, then month to month.