Run a WordPress Agency with Cloudways: Team & Billing Guide

Why Cloudways for a WordPress Agency?

If you've ever considered starting a WordPress agency or you're already running one, the hosting platform you choose matters more than you might think. Cloudways has positioned itself as a serious contender for agency owners, and after seven years of running a six-figure WordPress agency, Dave Swift still considers it one of the best options for managing client websites.

Cloudways isn't just a hosting provider. It's built with collaboration in mind, offering team management, granular permissions, staging environments, and a brand-new client billing portal. Whether you're a solo freelancer managing a handful of sites or scaling up to dozens of clients, the platform gives you the tools to run your business without cobbling together a stack of third-party services.

The Cloudways dashboard provides a clear overview of your servers, applications, and the newer "autonomous apps" feature. Each WordPress site runs as an application on a server, and you can spin up as many of each as your business requires.

Setting Up Teams and Permissions

The Teams feature in Cloudways is your starting point for collaboration. Adding a new team member is straightforward: enter their email address, name, job title, and set their status to active or inactive. The status toggle is a handy way to revoke access without deleting a team member entirely, which is useful when clients or contractors come and go.

Permissions are split into two categories: global permissions and console access. Global permissions control whether the team member can view billing information, manage payment methods, or contact Cloudways support directly. For most client scenarios, you'd leave billing access off since you're typically covering the hosting cost and charging clients your own rate. Support access is worth enabling for internal developers but probably not for clients.

Console access is where things get more granular. You can grant full access, which lets the team member do nearly everything except manage the team module itself, or limited access where you pick and choose. With limited access, you control whether they can add new servers, manage add-ons, handle projects, and most importantly, which specific servers they can see and configure. This means you can add a client and only expose their server to them, keeping every other client's data completely hidden.

Once you add a member, they receive an email invitation with an activation link. When they log in, they see the same clean Cloudways interface but only with access to the servers and features you've granted. It's not a watered-down experience; it's simply scoped to what's relevant.

Managing WordPress Users and SSH Access

Not everyone who works on a client's website needs access to the Cloudways console. In many cases, the simplest approach is to add them as a WordPress user directly. Head into the WordPress admin panel, create a new user, and assign them the appropriate role. WordPress has a robust permissions system out of the box, and there are plenty of plugins that let you fine-tune exactly what each user can and can't do.

For developers who need deeper access to files and configuration, Cloudways makes it easy to create SSH and SFTP users. Navigate to the application's access details, scroll down to the SSH/SFTP section, and add a new user with a username and password. This gives them direct file-level access without ever needing to touch the Cloudways console or WordPress admin.

A practical tip for sharing credentials securely: never send passwords over plain-text email. Instead, use a service like OneTimeSecret.com. You enter the password, generate a one-time link, and send that link to your developer. Once they view it, the link is destroyed. Send the username separately so that even if one message is intercepted, the credentials are useless without both pieces. It's a simple habit that dramatically improves your security posture, especially when working with contractors you might only need temporarily.

The Cron Optimizer: A Small Feature That Saves Big Headaches

Cloudways recently added a cron optimizer, and while it's a small feature, it solves a problem that has frustrated WordPress agency owners for years. By default, WordPress relies on its internal WP-Cron system to handle scheduled tasks like publishing timed posts, sending scheduled emails, or running backups. The catch is that WP-Cron only fires when someone visits the site.

For a brand-new client site with minimal traffic, this creates an embarrassing scenario. Your client schedules a blog post for Monday at 9 AM, checks back at 10 AM, and the post still hasn't published because nobody visited the site to trigger the cron. They message you, understandably frustrated, and you're left explaining a quirk of WordPress architecture.

The cron optimizer fixes this by disabling WordPress's internal cron and replacing it with a proper server-level cron job. Scheduled tasks now run on time regardless of traffic. You'll find it under Application Settings > WordPress Settings. Toggle it on and forget about it. It's one of those set-and-forget improvements that eliminates an entire category of client complaints.

Staging Websites for Safe Testing

Staging environments are essential for any agency workflow, and Cloudways has a solid built-in staging tool. A staging site is simply a copy of your live website where you can test plugin updates, troubleshoot conflicts, try new themes, or let a developer dig into an issue without any risk to the production site.

To create one, head to Staging Management and launch a new staging application. Cloudways gives you the option to clone it onto the same server or a different one. Keeping it on the same server is generally recommended because it mirrors the exact production environment, which matters when you're debugging server-specific issues. However, if your server resources are tight, cloning to a separate server prevents the staging process from impacting live site performance.

Once the staging site is ready, it gets a special badge on your dashboard so you can easily distinguish it from production. You can push changes from staging to live or pull live data into staging, giving you a flexible workflow. Want to test a major plugin update? Clone to staging, run the update, verify everything works, then push to live with confidence.

A couple of things to keep in mind: pushing staging to live overwrites the live site's data, including any users you created for testing. For client-facing staging sites, consider setting up a subdomain like staging.clientdomain.com rather than using the default Cloudways URL. It looks more professional and is easier for clients to remember.

Transferring a Server When Clients Leave

Client churn happens, and Cloudways handles the transition gracefully. When a client decides to manage their own hosting, you can transfer their entire server to their own Cloudways account with all settings, configurations, and data intact. It's as simple as clicking the three-dot menu on the server, selecting transfer, and entering the client's email address.

Here's where it gets interesting from a business perspective. Before initiating the transfer, sign up as a Cloudways affiliate through the link in your account sidebar. When your departing client creates their own Cloudways account using your referral link, you earn a commission on their ongoing hosting. You're no longer managing their site, but you're still earning from the relationship.

There's nothing shady about this approach as long as you're transparent. Simply let the client know you're sending them a referral link, explain that the hosting will be cheaper for them since they're going direct, and everyone wins. The client gets a smooth transition with zero downtime, you free up your time, and the referral commission provides a passive income stream. This is one reason it's smart to create a separate server for each client rather than running multiple sites on a single server. It makes the transfer process clean and painless.

The Client Billing Portal: Invoice Clients Directly from Cloudways

The client billing portal is the headline feature here, and it's easy to see why Cloudways placed it prominently in the sidebar. This tool lets you invoice clients for your services directly through Cloudways, powered by Stripe integration. No more juggling separate invoicing tools or manually tracking who's paid.

Setup takes just a few minutes. Connect your Stripe account, upload your agency logo, set your billing date, and define a grace period for overdue payments. From there, you create services with descriptions, pricing plans, and supported currencies. You can offer multiple billing cycles, say $199 per month or $1,999 per year, and even support up to five different currencies for international clients.

Adding clients is equally streamlined. Fill in their profile details, assign a service and plan, and choose whether to invoice immediately with a prorated amount or wait for the next billing cycle. Invoices are sent automatically with a clean, professional layout that includes a pay button and a downloadable PDF. You can set up payment reminders for overdue invoices so you're not chasing clients manually.

The overview dashboard tracks your monthly recurring revenue, shows which services are most profitable, and highlights your top-spending clients. For an agency owner, having this financial visibility built right into your hosting platform eliminates yet another tool from your stack.

Pricing for the Client Billing Portal

The client billing portal starts with a free plan that's enough to get going. Once you scale beyond that, the pricing is minimal: $5 per month for up to 10 clients, or $14 per month for unlimited clients. Standard Stripe processing fees still apply on top, but those are unavoidable with any payment processor.

At $14 per month for unlimited clients, the math is simple. If you're charging clients $199 per month for website management, a single client more than covers the billing portal cost. Even adding just a dollar to each client's monthly fee would cover it. For the convenience of automated invoicing, recurring billing, and a professional client experience, it's a no-brainer investment for any agency generating recurring revenue.

Final Verdict: Is Cloudways Right for Your Agency?

Cloudways has built a compelling platform for WordPress agency owners. The combination of granular team permissions, built-in staging, easy server transfers, and the new client billing portal covers the core operational needs of running an agency. You're not just getting hosting; you're getting a business management layer on top.

The team management system strikes a good balance between simplicity and control. You can give clients just enough access to see their own server without exposing anything else. The staging tool eliminates the risk of testing on production. Server transfers make client offboarding painless while opening up affiliate revenue. And the billing portal means one fewer subscription in your tool stack.

If you're currently managing WordPress sites for clients and your hosting provider doesn't offer these collaboration and billing features, Cloudways is worth a serious look. Use promo code "daveswift" when signing up to get a $10 voucher and take the platform for a spin.

Watch the Full Video

Prefer watching to reading? Check out the full video on YouTube for a complete walkthrough with live demos and commentary.