When an accounting software vendor offers a "partnership", it can mean three quite different things. You might be selling their product, launching it as your own, or just using it to manage your clients' books. The right choice depends on what you want your firm to become, not on which label sounds best. Here is how the three models compare.
Model 1: Reseller
Who it is for: CA firms and accountants who already recommend software to clients and want to be paid for it.
How it works: You sell the vendor's product, usually with co-branded material, and keep a share of what clients pay. You need little technical setup. Most of the work is learning the product well enough to demo and support it.
What you keep: a margin on each subscription. In the myBooksAI program this goes up to 70%, depending on tier.
Best when: you want to start quickly, test whether your clients will buy, and keep commitment low.
Model 2: White label
Who it is for: software companies, platforms and larger firms with an existing user base who want to offer accounting or billing as part of their own product.
How it works: The platform is configured with your brand, domain and design, and often runs on infrastructure dedicated to you. Your users see your product. This takes more setup than reselling and usually comes with a longer commitment and some minimum scale.
What you keep: the recurring subscription revenue under your own brand, and the full customer relationship.
Best when: you already have a base of users (the myBooksAI white label program, for instance, looks for partners with 100 or more potential users) and want accounting to be a core part of what you offer.
Model 3: Practice tool
Who it is for: firms who do not want to sell software at all, just run their own practice more efficiently.
How it works: You sign up and manage all your clients from one dashboard. There is no reselling, no branding project and no minimum.
What you keep: the time you save, and a tidier practice.
Best when: your goal is productivity, not a new revenue line.
Two questions that decide it
- Are you reselling to clients, or using the product to run your own practice? If it is only your own practice, the practice tool is the answer.
- Should clients see your brand on an existing relationship, or are you building a product or platform? If it is an existing client base, start with reselling. If you are building a platform for a larger user base, look at white label.
You can move between models
These are not permanent choices. A firm might start as a reseller to learn what clients value, then move to white label once the client count justifies a fully branded app. Others use the practice tool first and add reselling later. Starting with the lightest option that fits is usually the safer path, because the lessons you learn carry over.
Common mistakes
- Going white label too early. A branded platform with no users behind it is a cost, not an asset.
- Treating a reseller program as passive income. Margins come from actively recommending and onboarding clients.
- Ignoring the exit. Ask what happens to client data and billing if you stop.
See the options
myBooksAI lays out all three on one page, with a short guide that routes you to the right one: partner with myBooksAI. For detail on each path, see the reseller program, the white label accounting app, or the practice tool for accounting firms. For a longer look at the strategy, read our post on why firms should stop recommending other vendors' software.
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