How to Use SocialPilot to Onboard an Agency Client

The short answer: on the Premium plan, put your agency's logo on the reports, invite the client with the Client role and Approve Posts switched on, let them connect their own social accounts through the invitation, tick Need Client Approval on those accounts, route posts from Pending Review to the client's Approve On-the-Go link, schedule a monthly PDF report, and let an AI assistant save drafts through SocialPilot's MCP server for a manager to review before the client sees them.

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The first fortnight with a new client sets the habits for the year. If the passwords arrive by email and approvals come back on WhatsApp, that is how it will stay. SocialPilot's client tools exist to make the clean route the easy one: the client connects their own accounts, approves from a link, and receives a report with your name on it. For plans and prices, see the SocialPilot glossary entry.

Before the client's first login:

• Premium or higher. Client management and client approval workflows start on Premium, $100 a month on monthly billing for 25 accounts and 6 users (pricing file, checked on 24 October 2026).
• Free account slots. Once your plan's account limit is reached, the client cannot connect more, per the client accounts article. Count their profiles first.
• A decision on who publishes. A client given Publish Post access counts against your team seats. Most clients only need to view, comment and approve.

Put your name on the reports

Click the profile icon, choose Organisation, add your logo and agency name and save; SocialPilot's logo article gives 240 by 40 pixels as the ideal size. Do it now, because every PDF from here on carries it.

Invite the client with the right permissions

Go to the profile icon, Users, Invite User. Enter the client's email, choose the Client role and tick what they may do, following the client invite article:

1. View and comment on posts, which clients get by default.
2. Connect Accounts, so they can link their own profiles.
3. View Analytics, if they should see reports in the dashboard as well as by email.
4. Approve Posts, which puts their accounts under client approval.
5. Auto-Approve, which you leave off for now; more on it below.

Then open Link Account to give access to existing accounts or to whole platforms, and click Send Invite. For several clients at once, the dropdown beside Invite User holds a Client Invite Link with its own permissions; one link serves many clients, and Refresh retires the old one. Choose the role carefully: a client can never be turned into a team member later.

Let the client connect their own accounts

After signing up through the invitation, the client lands on a page where they connect their social accounts, without sending you a password, per the client accounts article. The one exception is an Instagram personal profile, which still needs credentials; business profiles do not. A client who later disconnects an account loses only their own access, so your history stays.

Switch on client approval, account by account

Open Manage Accounts, click the edit icon on each of the client's accounts, tick Need Client Approval under Account Details, then on the Clients tab mark the client as Approver and save, as the client access article sets out. An account with client approval switched on needs at least one approver.

Run the first post through

A Content Scheduler's posts land in Pending Review. A Manager then chooses Approve to publish, Send for Client Approval, or Sendback with a comment, per the approval workflow article. The client receives an Approve On-the-Go link by email and can approve, send back or comment without logging in. If they lose the email, copy their Client Portal link from Manage Team and Client and send it again.

Give an assistant the drafting, not the publishing

Connect SocialPilot to Claude under Customize, Connectors, the plus icon and Add custom connector, with the URL https://mcp.socialpilot.co/mcp, then click Connect and sign in, per the Claude connection article. The server can create and schedule posts or only save drafts; for a client account, use drafts. One of the article's own example prompts does exactly that: save this campaign announcement as a draft for all LinkedIn accounts in Client B.

The human check is the manager. They open each draft, fix the tone, and only then send it for client approval, so the client never sees an unreviewed machine draft. Once a week, ask the same assistant which posts failed to publish or missed their time; the MCP reports both, per the MCP article, and it can only reach accounts your user can already reach.

Schedule the monthly report

Open Analytics, pick the account or a custom report under Manage Reports 2.0, and click Schedule PDF. Set the report period, the frequency and the day of the month; monthly reports go out at 10:00 am Pacific time on that date, according to the report sharing article. Email PDF sends a one-off copy to up to 10 addresses, and a shareable link lets the client open the report without an account.

Things the help centre flags

• Auto-Approve publishes unapproved posts. When it is on, a post still awaiting the client is published if it is not approved one hour before its scheduled time.
• Publishing clients use seats. The article's own example: on a plan with five team members plus the owner, five clients with Publish Post access fill every seat.
• The Client role is permanent. It cannot be changed to Manager, Content Scheduler or Admin.
• Personal Instagram is the exception. It needs credentials; business profiles connect through the client's own login.

A scheduler is judged by what it publishes, so its defaults lean toward posts going out, and Auto-Approve is that lean made into a toggle. Leave it off for any client whose contract says nothing publishes without their yes.

How to know the onboarding worked

Measure two things for the first month: the days from invitation to the last account connected, and the hours each post spends in Pending Review before the client acts. Write both down for the next client, so the second onboarding has a baseline to beat.

FAQ

Can one invite link onboard several clients?

Yes. The Client Invite Link can be used by many clients, and its permissions apply to everyone who joins through it until you edit or refresh it, per the client invite article.

Will a client see other clients' accounts?

No. A client can act only on the accounts the owner or an admin has given them access to.

Can the client see the whole calendar, not just pending posts?

Yes. The approval link opens on Pending Reviews, and from there the client can switch to day, week or month views of upcoming posts on their accounts, along with queued and delivered ones.