10 Reasons to pick Kitchen.co as your Client Portal & Project Management Hub for your business.
As our business running costs soar, and seemingly every Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) platform (like Honeybook, Kit, Mailerlite) announces massive hikes to their subscription plans, us solopreneurs are feeling the pressure more than ever to pick financially-savvy tools to run our business.
And lately, the tool everyone seems to be talking about is Kitchen.co, 'Client Portal Software for Agencies'. If you're wondering "But what does that mean? What does it do? And is it right for me when I'm not running an agency?", then you're in the right place.
I've been using Kitchen.co in my business (which I run as a solopreneur) for over a year, and it's one of my go-to tools I recommend to my clients, as well as help them set up to use in their own businesses. Here are my top 10 reasons that you should be using Kitchen.co in your own business, so you can decide whether to take the plunge and use maybe one of the best tools out there in your biz, too.
Note: this blog post contains affiliate links.
1. Excellent free plan, incredible lifetime license, unlimited clients and projects:
I actually used the free Kitchen.co plan for the longest time because, well, it worked—beautifully, might I add. The reason I upgraded in the end was because I wanted to integrate more of my brand identity into the platform and have a custom domain (rather the generic "kitchen" labelling in the URL for my portal).
I'm also very careful with my business running costs, which means I like to test a tool extensively and figure out how it fits into my business before forking out lots of money for a subscription. But when the time came to upgrade my subscription, you can be sure I went for the lifetime license—you pay once, or in two installments if you like, and you've got access to the platform forever. No recurring costs, no annual subscription hikes that eventually price you out.
Oh, and even on the free plan, you have unlimited clients, and unlimited projects. Meaning you can use the platform for free to your heart's content, knowing you'll never max out on how many client projects you can have, or have to delete old clients out of the space to get to add more. (I love this cos I like my clients to have lifetime access to our resources and conversation history 🤗)
2. White-labelling in browser, and in app coming soon
Like I mentioned above, when you have the paid version of the platform, you can white-label your Kitchen.co client portal.
White labelling means you can apply your own branding to a platform—from the URL address, brand colours, and logos, there's no one else's branding stealing the limelight from your brand identity.
Right now, this applies to the browser-version of your client portal, which you can access on desktop and mobile. And there are plans to be able to white-label your own Kitchen.co app in the near future—meaning you can have your very own app for your business to collaborate with your clients in 😍
3. Did I mention the app??
The Kitchen.co team recently announced they're launching an APP very soon, and I cannot wait to test it out!! The platform already works well in mobile browser, but the app is going to take that to another level, making it even easier for you and clients to chat and collaborate while on the go.
Plus the white-labelled app plans mean it's going to be completely personalised to your brand when you have the paid version—let me tell you I am beyond giddy at the idea of a Meandering Mind app for my clients to use in the very near future.
4. Embed all your key resources from your fave platforms
Kitchen.co has a range of simple but highly effective page types you can create in your client portal: folders, documents, boards, conversations, and embeds are the key ones.
Each page type has its own excellent range of purposes and ways you can use them by yourself and with your clients. But my favourite has to be the embed feature because, well, it allows you to turn Kitchen.co into your one-stop shop for your key resources in running your business.
So many platforms try to position themselves as "the only tool you're ever going to need" by having as many functions as possible. But in my opinion, that can often lead to a messy, overwhelming product that tries too hard to get too much done. Kitchen.co isn't trying to be that bitch; instead, she's helping you to keep your resources close to hand and easy to access.
Instead of trying to replace the functionality of Google Docs, you can embed your go-to docs into your portal.
And why would they develop products to try and compete with Loom, Calendly, and Figma when they could just make them embeddable into the platform, so you can hop between your most important links with ease, rather than needing 50 tabs open at once?
5. Move over, Slack—there's a new space you're gonna be chatting with your clients
For years now, Slack has been the go-to platform for chatting with clients on the go. And sure, the free plan works fine. But don't tell me you've never been annoyed to discover you lost your message history and all the important info a client (or service provider) shared with you that you forgot to make a copy of before the 90-day window to see your old messages passed 👀
With the conversations feature in Kitchen.co, that's a thing of the past. You can send written and voice messages, reply in thread, react with emojis, share files, and more. And you keep access to your messaging history for good, too.
6. File commenting and visual approvals
This one's for my solopreneur besties who need to collect client feedback on visual assets—I'm talking to my designers (graphic, web, brand), content strategists, and anyone else who works with visual deliverables in their business.
Kitchen.co lets you collect client comments directly on files you share with them, allowing you to avoid endless feedback calls to get clear on where the revisions process goes next, and keep the convo centralised in your client portal space.
7. No extra accounts and passwords for your clients
A question I see come up frequently in the systems convo is "this platform sounds amazing, but will it work for my client if they don't create an account?"
With Kitchen.co, the answer is YES. Kitchen.co uses a "magic link" login option—you create your client's account (in literally 10 seconds, it's that easy), they head to your portal space and select "log in with link", and they're sent a secure code via email that'll allow them to get access. No more creating passwords for clients, no more resending access or resetting their login details. It's just straightforward AF, which is what we love!
8. Luxurious file storage capacity 💅
This one is for my besties working with visual deliverables and big files——the Kitchen.co lifetime license allows you a total of 500GB of storage, up to 5GB per file. Perfect for those big ol’ file transfers you’ve been trying to send via WeTransfer (and paying through the nose for!)
9. Invoicing & payments
Kitchen.co allows you to collect payments using a wide range of payment processors, including Stripe, Square, PayPal, Razorpay, and 2checkout, plus you can integrate it with your accounting software (FreshBooks, FreeAgent, QuickBooks and Xero are supported).
Not only can you send one-time invoices, but you can send quotes for projects, and recurring invoices, too.
10. Responsive, receptive team
The Kitchen.co team deserve kudos for a lot of things (like, the platform they're building is incredible), but perhaps the most important one is their responsiveness to questions and their receptiveness to ideas and suggestions.
They're easy to get in touch with for answers about what's possible with the platform already and what's planned for the future, and they are keen to hear user feedback about what they want the platform to be able to do. Honestly, I've never received such regular updates about new features from any platform I've used, like, ever.
When you use Kitchen.co you'll be able to tell how much the team cares about their product, and what an exciting future the platform has based on the thoughtfulness of the updates they introduce. I seriously can't wait to see what the future holds for the platform 👀
Still got questions about Kitchen.co?
I offer Systems Diagnostic Sessions to help you get out of the “I don’t even know what I need to do / set up / work on” phase, to action points and priorities for your backend systems (and a clear picture of whether the tools you’ve been pondering for months are a good fit for you and your clients).
Or if you’re looking for more than just a call, why not check out The Rebalancing Review?
