Every client you onboard to CloudCannon will have website files, stored in a Git Repository A storage location for the code and files that make up your website. CloudCannon supports the repository providers GitHub, GitLab, and Bitbucket, and highly recommends using a repository to store your website's files for better version control and collaboration. A website in CloudCannon that includes all the files, content, configuration, and settings needed to edit, build, and host a complete website.Git Repository
Site
A Site in CloudCannon is one version of a website, containing all the files, content, configuration, and settings needed to edit, build, and host it. Because Sites sync with a branch of a Git Repository, your content is the same whether you change it in CloudCannon or in a local development environment.
One website can have multiple Sites on CloudCannon, each representing one version of it. A client's website might exist as a live Site their visitors reach, a staging Site where you review changes before they go public, and draft Sites for whoever is working on them. This arrangement benefits larger clients, but smaller clients may only need one CloudCannon Site.
Every Site belongs to an Organization A workspace in CloudCannon that groups together Sites, Organization Members, and shared resources. It is also the unit CloudCannon bills for. You can define permissions for your Organization, controlling the access each Organization Member has to resources on CloudCannon. You can create and be a part of multiple Organizations. A set of features available to your Organization, the monthly usage limits for resources, and the price you pay for access to those features and resources, monthly or annually. Each Organization in CloudCannon can have one Subscription Plan, and can update or cancel at any time.Organization
Subscription Plan
CloudCannon gives you two places to keep your clients' Sites:
- A separate Client Organizationlinked to yours, which your agency manages on their behalf.Glossary term
Client Organization
A separate Organization that a Partner Organization manages but that the client uses and pays for. Client Organizations are part of the CloudCannon Partner Program and give each client their own team, billing, and login. Unlike Guest Access, which shares a single Site with someone who doesn't have a CloudCannon account, a Client Organization is a full, independent Organization.
- Your agency's Organization, alongside the rest of your work, with your clients given access to their own content.
CloudCannon has no preference between the two, and you don't have to use the same one for every client. You can run both at once, and move a client from one to the other later, which we'll cover further on in this guide.
graph TD A["Your Organization<br/>your Subscription Plan, your invoice"] --> P1["Project for Client A"] P1 --> S1["Client A's Sites"] A -->|Manages| C["Client Organization for Client B"] C --> P2["Project for Client B"] P2 --> S2["Client B's Sites"]
Using a Client Organization requires you to be a member of CloudCannon's Partner Program CloudCannon's program for agencies and freelancers who build and maintain Sites for clients. The Partner Program gives you a single place to manage many clients, the option to run each client in a separate Client Organization, and Partner Points that unlock rewards as your client work grows. A CloudCannon Organization that belongs to a member of the Partner Program and serves as their base for managing client work. From their Partner Organization, Partners create and manage Client Organizations and track their Partner Points.Partner Program
Partner Organization
Client Sites in a separate Client Organization#
A Client Organization is a separate Organization that you manage on behalf of a client, with its own Subscription Plan and invoices, Organization Members A person who belongs to the same Organization as you. Organization Members are other CloudCannon users who have been invited to your Organization to collaborate on Sites, edit content, or manage settings. Each Organization Member has their own CloudCannon account with individual permissions assigned through Permission Groups, and uses one Seat in your Subscription Plan. Organization Members were previously called Team Members. A way to group multiple Sites from the same Git Repository, allowing you to define a main branch, as well as branching and publishing rules. You can access the Projects Browser using the Projects link in the App Sidebar. A domain you own and connect to your CloudCannon Organization, so visitors reach your Site at your own address instead of its Testing Domain. You buy the domain from a domain registrar, connect it to your Organization, then add it to your Sites. The total time CloudCannon spends building your Sites, measured cumulatively across all builds in a month. Most Subscription Plans include unlimited build time. On plans with a build time limit, you can enable Overages or purchase additional build time if you need more. You can review your usage under the Usage tab of your Site Dashboard or Organization Home page. The amount of data transferred from your hosted Site to visitors' browsers, determined by visitor count and webpage size. Each Subscription Plan includes a set amount, and you can enable Overages to keep your Sites live if you go over this amount. You can review your usage under the Usage tab of your Site Dashboard or Organization Home page.Organization Member
Project
Custom Domain
Build Time
Hosting Bandwidth
graph TD O["Your Partner Organization"] -->|Manages| CO["Client Organization"] CO --> SP["Subscription Plan"] SP --> S["Seats"] S --> TM["Client Organization Members"] S --> CS["Sites with Guest Access"] SP --> BT["Build Time"] SP --> HB["Hosting Bandwidth"] SP --> CD["Subdomains serving Sites"] CO --> BR["Branding"] CO --> PB["Project"] PB --> SB1["Live Site"] PB --> SB2["Staging Site"]
In most cases, Organizations are entirely independent from one another. However, a Client Organization is always linked to a Partner Organization. You can have as many Client Organizations as you require, though only members of the Owners Permission Group One of CloudCannon's Default Permission Groups. Owners have complete control over everything in your Organization, including managing billing settings, deleting Organizations, and creating Custom Permission Groups.Owners
Because each Client Organization has its own Subscription Plan and payment details, you can choose who receives the invoice. Your client can add their own credit card and receive their own invoices, or you can add yours and fold the cost into your existing billing structure. For more information, please read our documentation on how billing works in the Partner Program.
Client Organizations also have their own limits for Build Time, Hosting Bandwidth, Subdomains serving Sites, and Seats The unit of paid capacity in your Organization's Subscription Plan. Every Organization Member you invite uses one Seat, as does every person you add through Site Sharing, and each Site with Guest Access enabled uses one Seat however many Guests share its Guest Password. Members of a Partner Organization working inside a Client Organization do not use a Seat.Seat
When you create a Client Organization, CloudCannon adds a dedicated Partner Permission Group to it that mirrors the membership of the Owners Permission Group in your Partner Organization. A Permission Group A group that defines what permissions Organization Members have in CloudCannon. Permission Groups allow you to make Resources available to your Organization Members and define what actions are allowed (Read, Write, or Create) for each resource. CloudCannon provides several Default Permission Groups (including Owners, Developers, Technical Editors, Editors, and Billing) and you can create Custom Permission Groups for more granular control. Permissions define what you can see and do in a given CloudCannon Organization. Each permission has a scope (Global, Project, Site, Permission Group, or Domain), a resource (e.g., Site, Project, or Organization), and an action (Read, Write, or Create). You can review your permissions through your Org Settings.Permission Group
Permissions
Client Sites in your own Organization#
You can have as many Sites and Projects in your own Organization as you require, covering your agency's own marketing website as well as your clients' content. Storing client work on your own Organization means those Sites come under a single Subscription Plan and draw from the same pool of Seats, Custom Domains, Build Time, and Hosting Bandwidth.
graph TD O["Your Organization"] --> SP["Subscription Plan"] SP --> S["Seats"] S --> TM["Organization Members"] S --> CS["Sites with Guest Access"] SP --> BT["Build Time"] SP --> HB["Hosting Bandwidth"] SP --> CD["Subdomains serving Sites"] O --> BR["Branding"] O --> PA["Project"] PA --> SA1["Live Site"] PA --> SA2["Staging Site"] O --> PB["Project"] PB --> SB1["Live Site"] PB --> SB2["Staging Site"]
A Project groups the Sites built from one Git Repository, which keeps each client's live and staging Sites together rather than mixed in with your other clients' work. CloudCannon allows one Project for each Git Repository in an Organization, so a client with several websites has a Project for each of them.
Because every client you manage this way comes under your Organization's Subscription Plan, you always receive the CloudCannon invoice. You can fold the cost into your existing billing structure alongside maintenance or other services (e.g., monthly development or content creation hours), so your client receives a single invoice from you rather than one from you and one from CloudCannon.
Your agency's Organization Members can reach your client work according to the Permission Groups they belong to.
Because one Subscription Plan covers every client you store this way, taking on a new client draws on the resources that Subscription Plan already includes. Anything beyond them is billed as Add-Ons Extra capacity (Organization Members, bandwidth, Subdomains serving Sites, or build time) that extends a plan's included limits. When Overages are enabled, CloudCannon automatically adds capacity as your Organization exceeds its plan's included limits. The extra usage charged when your Organization exceeds its plan's included limits and Overages are enabled. Overage usage appears on your next invoice.Add-On
Overage
Giving your clients access to their content#
Whether you store client Sites in a Client Organization or your agency's Organization, your clients reach their content in one of three ways:
- Join an Organization as a full Organization Member, usually of their own Client Organization.
- Join an Organization as an Organization Member with access to only a single Site through Site Sharing.Glossary term
Site Sharing
A CloudCannon feature that allows you to invite an existing Organization Member from within your Organization to view, edit, and publish content for a specific Site. With Site Sharing, you can control what an Organization Member can interact with by limiting access to individual Sites rather than all Sites in your Organization. This is distinct from Guest Access, which is used to invite external clients who don't have CloudCannon accounts.
- Log in to a Site with Guest Accessenabled using a Guest PasswordGlossary term
Guest Access
A CloudCannon feature that allows you to invite someone from outside your Organization to view, edit, and publish content for a specific Site. Unlike Site Sharing, Guests invited through Guest Access do not need a CloudCannon account. Instead, they log in using a Guest Password through a dedicated Guest Login Page. Each Site with Guest Access enabled uses one Seat, regardless of how many Guests use its password. The Guest Access feature was previously called Client Sharing.
, which needs no CloudCannon account.Glossary termGuest Password
The password that lets someone without a CloudCannon account reach a Site with Guest Access enabled. Each Site has one Guest Password, set by anyone who can change that Site's settings, and everyone who uses it shares the same identity in CloudCannon. Changing the Guest Password stops the old one working for new sign-ins but does not sign out anyone already signed in, so turning off Guest Access is the only way to end every guest session.
These methods differ in how much you can control your clients' permissions and which Subscription Plan pays for the Seat. On the Enterprise Plan CloudCannon's premium plan designed for large Organizations, including enhanced security features, priority support, custom integrations, and enterprise-level user management capabilities.Enterprise Plan
You only need to use one of these methods for each client. For example, if you invite someone to be an Organization Member of their Client Organization, you do not need to also give them access via Site Sharing.
Your client gets their own CloudCannon account and signs in to an Organization. As an Organization Member, clients are members of at least one Permission Group which determines what actions they are allowed to take within the Organization.
You can use Default Permission Groups CloudCannon's pre-configured sets of permissions that define common levels of access like Owner, Developer, Technical Editor, Editor, and Billing, along with the groups for Site Sharing, Guest Access, and the Partner group in a Client Organization. CloudCannon creates these groups for you and defines what they can do, whichever Subscription Plan you are on. Team members who are added to these groups will have the permissions defined by the group. A user-defined set of permissions and access controls in CloudCannon that can be assigned to Organization Members. Custom Permission Groups allow fine-grained control over what users can see and do within your Organization. One of CloudCannon's pricing plans designed for advanced teams. The Team Plan includes features like increased hosting bandwidth, Site Mounting, and Custom Permission Groups.Default Permission Groups
Custom Permission Group
Team Plan
We do not recommend inviting clients as Organization Members of your agency's Organization unless you use Custom Permission Groups. The Editors group, and every Default Permission Group above it, would allow your client to see and interact with every Site you store there, including content that belongs to other clients. The Billing group would allow them to change your agency's Subscription Plan and payment details.
- They count as an Organization Member in that Organization, and contribute to the number of Seats on that Subscription Plan.
- If the Organization is a Client Organization, you can choose whether your client receives and pays their own invoices directly from CloudCannon.
- Depending on the Permission Group of your client, they can invite their own team to the Organization without your intervention. Anyone they invite contributes to the number of Seats on their Subscription Plan. We'll cover which Permission Groups to put your client in further on in this guide.
Your client gets their own CloudCannon account and signs in to an Organization, but is limited to interacting with a single Site. As an Organization Member through Site Sharing, clients are members of one of two Site Sharing Permission Groups: [Site Name] Editors or [Site Name] Technical Editors. These are the only Permission Groups available using this method; you cannot add a client to the Owners, Developers, or Billing Permission Groups this way.
This method suits agencies that keep their clients' content in their own Organization, rather than a dedicated Client Organization. Clients cannot see or interact with Sites that belong to other clients.
Site Sharing is the simpler option. If your Organization uses the Team Plan or Enterprise Plan, you can use Custom Permission Groups instead to control more precisely what each client can reach.
- They count as an Organization Member in the Organization that owns the Site, and contribute to the number of Seats on that Subscription Plan.
- You cannot use this method to let clients receive and pay their own invoices directly from CloudCannon.
- You can share multiple Sites in the same Organization using this method without increasing the number of Seats used. One Organization Member uses one Seat on that Organization's Subscription Plan.
Your client does not need a CloudCannon account. Instead, you enable the Guest Access feature on one Site and set a Guest Password. Anyone can log in to CloudCannon with that password and see a simplified Site Dashboard The main overview page for a specific Site in CloudCannon, displaying key information such as build status, recent activity, site statistics, and quick access to editing and configuration options.Site Dashboard
- Each Site with Guest Access enabled contributes to the number of Seats on that Organization's Subscription Plan, regardless of how many people use the password.
- You cannot use this method to let clients receive and pay their own invoices directly from CloudCannon.
- You cannot separate activity on your Site between users if you give the Guest Password to multiple people. Use Site Sharing instead where you need to know who made a change.
- There is no way to revoke one person's access. Changing the Guest Password only stops the old one working for new sign-ins, so ending every guest session means turning Guest Access off for that Site.
Which setup should you use?#
Which way you store your clients' content and give them access depends on your agency's priorities.
Join the Partner Program, set up a Client Organization, and invite your clients as Organization Members if:
- A client needs features your own Subscription Plan does not include
- A client will use a large amount of Build Time or Hosting Bandwidth
- A client wants several of their own team editing their content
- A client wants to pay CloudCannon directly
- You want your agency's own costs to stay flat as you take on more clients
Create client Sites inside your own Organization, and invite your clients using Site Sharing or Guest Access if:
- A client wants to pay for CloudCannon through your invoice rather than directly
- A client only edits their content occasionally
- An engagement is small or a proof of concept
In the next step of this guide, we'll create your CloudCannon account, set up your agency's Organization, and join the Partner Program.
