How to Set Up GoHighLevel SaaS Mode: The 2026 Walkthrough

SaaS Mode turns GoHighLevel from software you use into software you sell. Clients sign up on your site, pay you directly, get a sub-account provisioned automatically with your build already loaded, and are billed for their own usage at a markup you set.

It is the difference between an agency selling hours and an agency with recurring software revenue. It is also considerably more operational work than the marketing suggests, so it is worth understanding what you are signing up for.

What SaaS Mode changes

Before you turn it on

Four things need to exist first. Turning SaaS Mode on without them produces clients in empty accounts wondering what they bought.

• A finished snapshot. This is the product. A client who signs up and lands in a blank sub-account has bought nothing, and they will churn before you fix it. Build it, test it in a clean sub-account, and only then attach it to a plan.
• White labelling configured. Domain, logo, colours and system email sender. Selling software that visibly belongs to another company undermines the whole proposition. See our white label setup guide.
• Stripe connected at agency level. This is how you get paid and how rebilling functions.
• A support plan. Software customers ask software questions. Decide now whether that is you, a hire, or a white label support partner, because volume arrives with the first ten clients.

Setting up your plans

1. Enable SaaS Mode in agency settings. It appears on the Agency Pro plan only.
2. Create your plans. Two or three is right. One plan gives buyers no sense of choice; five gives them a decision they cannot make. A common shape is a core plan, a plan with more included usage, and a plan with done-for-you service attached.
3. Attach a snapshot to every plan. This is the step people skip and immediately regret. Different tiers can load different snapshots, which is a clean way to make a higher tier tangibly different.
4. Set feature permissions per plan. Decide which parts of the platform each tier can see. Hiding modules a client is not paying for keeps the interface comprehensible as well as protecting the upgrade path.
5. Configure the trial. A trial reduces signup friction and increases support load from people who were never going to buy. Requiring a card at signup filters heavily; whether that is good depends on your funnel.
6. Set the rebilling markup for SMS, email, voice and AI usage per plan.

Rebilling and the wallet

Rebilling is the mechanism that turns usage from a cost into a margin.

Each sub-account carries a wallet. Usage draws down from it. On Agency Pro you apply a markup, so the client is charged above your cost and the difference is yours. Clients top the wallet up themselves, or you enable auto-recharge so it refills at a threshold.

On markup: be reasonable. A modest, transparent margin on usage is normal and defensible. A large one is discoverable, because clients can look up what SMS costs, and being caught marking up heavily damages trust more than the margin was worth.

Automated provisioning

This is the operational payoff. A completed signup and payment triggers:

1. Sub-account creation under your agency.
2. The plan's snapshot loading into it.
3. Plan permissions applying.
4. The client's user account being created and credentials sent.
5. Your onboarding sequence starting.

No manual step. That is what makes the model scale past the number of clients you could personally set up in a week.

What still needs a human: the client's own phone number, sending domain and A2P registration. These cannot be provisioned on someone's behalf, so your onboarding sequence needs to walk them through it clearly. A2P in particular takes two to three weeks, and a client who does not start it early concludes the SMS features do not work.

The mistakes that cost margin

• Launching without a finished snapshot. The product is the build, not the login.
• No auto-recharge. Wallets empty, messages stop, clients blame the software.
• Deleting on non-payment instead of pausing. A recovered client should return to their account, not to an empty one. Pausing preserves the data and makes recovery worth attempting.
• Pricing on software cost alone. The platform is the cheap part. Support is the expensive part, and agencies that price only against the subscription discover this around client fifteen.
• Too many plans. Three at most. Every extra tier is a decision that delays a purchase.
• No onboarding sequence. Automated provisioning delivers a client into a working account with no idea what to do first. Automate the welcome as thoroughly as the provisioning.
• Ignoring failed payments. Cards expire constantly. A multi-touch dunning sequence across email and SMS recovers a meaningful share of what would otherwise be silent churn.