---
title: "Shared SMS inbox for agencies — access per client"
description: "Three people on the client account and only one can get in. How agencies give each client account team the texts it needs, with a separate number per client."
canonical: "https://sharedsmsinbox.com/use-cases/agencies"
---

# Give each client account team the access it needs

> Three people on the client account and only one can get in. How agencies give each client account team the texts it needs, with a separate number per client.

You sign in to accounts you do not own, with a team that changes between projects. A separate number per client sends each client’s codes to the people working on that client, and to nobody else.

- [Get your number](https://app.sharedsmsinbox.com)
- [Create free account](https://app.sharedsmsinbox.com)

_No credit card required. Pay only when you choose your number._

## Where client access starts costing you hours

Agency work is other people’s accounts, staffed by a team that moves. Those two facts collide in the same four ways.

- **Three people on the account, one can get in** — Sarah runs the client’s ad account, James builds the monthly report, Priya covers when Sarah is out. The platform texts a code to Sarah’s mobile, because Sarah set it up in the pitch week. The other two ask Sarah every time, and Sarah has four other clients.
- **Priya rotated onto a different client in March** — She is now full time on another account, and she still receives the verification texts for the client she left. Her old account team goes through her to get in, and she gets interrupted for work that is no longer hers.
- **Your account manager leaves on Friday** — They hold the codes for nine clients. Every one of those accounts texts a mobile that stops being answered next week, and fixing it means going back to nine clients and asking each of them to change the number on their account.
- **“Who at your agency can see our account?”** — It comes up at the renewal, or in a supplier questionnaire, or from a client’s new operations manager. Today the honest answer is a group chat that has had eleven people in it since 2023, four of whom have left.

## How access works when the account belongs to the client

### How can our account team receive the login codes for a client’s accounts?

Put a number your agency controls on the client’s account, with the client’s agreement, and give the people on that account team access to its inbox. The code arrives in one place and any of them can read it.

### Should we use one number for all our clients, or one number per client?

One per client, at $49/month each. A number per client keeps each client’s messages with that client’s account team, and it means an access change for one client never touches another.

### What do we tell a client who asks who at our agency can see their account?

You can give them a list of names. Access to a client’s number is a set of people you chose one at a time, you can change it in seconds, and the inbox keeps a record of who opened which message.

The platform texts whichever number is recorded on the account. At most agencies that is the mobile of whoever set the account up during onboarding, which is why access to a client follows one person around instead of following the work.

Ask the client before you change anything. It is their account, and a phone number on it is not a detail you should move quietly. An email saying which number you are putting on which account, and who at your agency will be able to read the messages, is usually the whole conversation.

> Whether a platform accepts your number is that platform’s decision, not ours. Test it on the client’s account and confirm a real code arrives before you take the old number off.

With a single agency-wide number, everyone who can read anything can read everything. A junior who joined last month to work on one retail client would see the codes arriving for every other client you have. That is difficult to explain in a review and impossible to undo after the fact.

With a number per client, staffing changes are two small edits. Priya moves onto the new account: add her to that client’s number, remove her from the old one. Her access matches the work she is actually doing, and the client she left is not relying on somebody who has moved on.

It also makes offboarding one job instead of nine. When an account manager leaves, an administrator removes their access to every client number in one place. No client has to be contacted, and no account has to be reconfigured, because the numbers never moved.

That is a better answer than most agencies can give, and it is worth being able to give it. It also holds up under a follow-up question, because you can show that the person who left in June no longer appears on the list.

Be straight about the two limits, because a client who reads carefully will find them. **Your agency administrators can see every number on your team**, so keep that list short and keep it to people the client would expect. And the messages are not hidden from us: the service has to be able to show your team a message, so the service can read it. Both of those are set out on [security and access](https://sharedsmsinbox.com/security), which is a reasonable page to forward to a client who asks.

If a client would rather hold the number themselves, that works too. They take the number on their own account and invite your account team to it. Access then ends when the client says it ends, which is sometimes exactly what a procurement review wants to hear, and you have nothing to administer.

## Four steps, starting with one client

Do not roll this out across the whole portfolio in an afternoon. Pick the client whose accounts interrupt people most and see how the month goes.

1. **Create your agency account** — Sign up with a work email and invite the colleagues who work on client accounts. Being on your team does not give anyone a client’s messages yet. _(Free. No card asked for.)_
2. **Get a number for your first client** — Choose an available number and treat it as that client’s number. It belongs to your agency account rather than to the account manager on the job. _($49/month per client number.)_
3. **Give access to that client’s account team** — The account director, whoever is doing the work, and whoever covers annual leave. Each signs in as themselves, and people on other clients see nothing of this one. _(No per-user charge.)_
4. **Agree it with the client, then move one account across** — Email the client, replace the number on one of their accounts, and send yourself a test. If the code arrives, move the next account. If the platform refuses the number, you have lost ten minutes and changed nothing. _(Never remove a working number before the new one has delivered.)_

## When a shared number is the wrong answer for an agency

You are buying this on behalf of clients, so it matters more than usual that you know where it stops. Five cases where we would point you elsewhere.

Where we would tell an agency to do something else instead:

- **If the platform lets the client add each of your people as a user, use that.** Most of the large advertising, analytics and commerce platforms do. The client keeps ownership, your people get named logins with their own permissions, and at the end of the contract the client removes you without anybody touching a phone number. Keep a shared number for the accounts that give the client one login and one number: booking systems, supplier and listing portals, smaller regional platforms, the tool the client bought in 2021.
- **If the client wants to hold the number, let them hold it.** They take it on their own account and invite your team to it. You lose nothing, and the client gets an answer to their access question that does not depend on trusting your internal housekeeping.
- **If the platform offers an authenticator app, that is stronger.** Codes sent by text are the weakest option on most of these accounts, and a shared inbox does not change that. It changes who can act on the message, which is a different problem from how secure the message is.
- **Do not buy a number for every client on day one.** At $49/month each it adds up across a portfolio, and plenty of clients have no sharing problem at all because one person does all the work on them. Start with the two or three where somebody is always waiting on somebody else.
- **It cannot text anyone.** The number receives messages and sends none, so it is not a client contact number, not a way to reach a client out of hours, and not something to put on a proposal or in an email signature. A client texting it gets silence.

There is also a promise you should not make. If a client’s contract requires that only the named account team can ever see their messages, a shared number on your agency team does not deliver that, because your administrators can see every number you hold. Say so before you sign it, or let the client hold the number instead.

What is left over is the ordinary agency case: **a client account with one login and one phone number, three or four of your people who need to get into it, and a roster that changes between projects.** That is most agencies, most of the time.

> One thing to know before you promise a client a record: the text of a message, and any code inside it, is permanently erased 72 hours after it arrives by default, and an administrator can change that. The record that the message arrived, and who opened it, stays.

## Questions from agencies

### Can I remove someone’s access?

Yes. An administrator can remove a person’s access at any time, and they stop being able to open the number’s messages. Because everyone signs in as themselves rather than sharing one login, removing one teammate changes nothing for the rest of the team and no password needs to be reset.

### How many people can use one number?

As many as you like. There is no per-user charge and no cap on team members, so the price is the same whether three people need the messages or thirty. You still choose individually who can see the number, so “everyone can be invited” does not mean “everyone can see everything”.

### Can I have more than one number?

Yes. Each number is $49 a month, and teams often take a second one to keep departments apart — one for finance, one for marketing — so the people who need one set of messages are not reading the other. Each number has its own list of approved teammates.

## Where to go next

- [All use cases](https://sharedsmsinbox.com/use-cases) — The same problem in the departments your clients work in, and how to tell which accounts are worth moving.
- [Marketing teams](https://sharedsmsinbox.com/use-cases/marketing-teams) — The client’s side of the advertising account you are asking them to change.
- [Security and access](https://sharedsmsinbox.com/security) — The page to forward to a client who asks who can read their messages.
- [Login codes for teams](https://sharedsmsinbox.com/login-codes-for-teams) — The general problem underneath this, including what to do about the codes in your group chat.
- [Pricing](https://sharedsmsinbox.com/pricing) — $49/month per phone number, so a number per client is priced per client.
- [How it works](https://sharedsmsinbox.com/how-it-works) — The four steps in detail, if you want to see the whole thing before you take it to a client.

## Answer the access question before the client asks it

Set one client up this week. Their account team gets the codes, everyone else at the agency sees nothing, and you have a list of names to show at the review.

- [Get your number](https://app.sharedsmsinbox.com)

_$49/month per phone number. No credit card required. Pay only when you choose your number._

---

Canonical: https://sharedsmsinbox.com/use-cases/agencies

Every page of this site is also available as Markdown. Site map: https://sharedsmsinbox.com/llms.txt