Free plan
A free client portal, with no login for your clients
A free client portal should be a working portal, not a builder licence and not a trial with a clock on it. OnboardHive’s free plan gives you 10 tracked proposals a month and 3 completed onboardings, each running the whole flow: agreement signing, deposit payment, intake questions, access requests, and file uploads, delivered through a single magic link your client opens without an account.
What the free plan actually includes
| Included free | Not on the free plan |
|---|---|
| 10 tracked proposals every month | More than 3 completed onboardings per account, in total |
| 3 completed onboardings, no time limit on using them | Custom domain and full white-labelling (Scale, $49/mo) |
| Unlimited onboardings in progress, so a slow client never blocks you | Removing the small “powered by” badge |
| Full flow: e-sign, payment, intake, access, uploads | AI-generated onboarding flows (Pro and above) |
| Magic link, no client account, password-protected portals | More than one saved template per kind, and team seats |
No card, and no trial countdown. The limit is volume, not time, so you can onboard three real clients properly and decide afterwards. Onboardings still in progress are never capped, so a client who takes three weeks to send their files does not cost you a slot.
Why most “free client portals” are not portals
Search this term and the results are mostly app builders: Softr, Airtable, Notion, and similar. Their free tiers are real, but what you get is the raw material. You still have to design the portal, wire the permissions, connect a form, work out file storage, and maintain it when something breaks. That is a weekend of work before your first client sees anything, and it is still your responsibility every time it misbehaves.
The other pattern is a trial wearing a free-plan badge: fourteen or thirty days, then the portal your client is halfway through stops working. Check which one you are signing up for before you invest the setup time.
No login is the part that matters
Most client portals, free or paid, ask your client to create an account first. For a multi-year relationship that is reasonable. For onboarding it is the single largest source of drop-off, because every account-creation screen sits between a client who has just paid you and the thing you need them to do.
A magic link removes it. The link is unique to that client, unguessable, revocable, and resumable, so they can complete two items on Monday and finish on Thursday without a password reset in between. More on how that works in magic-link client onboarding.
Try it without signing up for anything
If you want to improve onboarding before you pick a tool, these are free and none of them ask for an email address:
- Client onboarding checklist — 42 steps from signed proposal to kickoff
- Client onboarding questionnaire — 48 intake questions worth asking
- Onboarding email templates — ten emails from welcome to handoff
Questions
Is there a genuinely free client portal?
Yes, though most results for this query are app builders like Softr, Airtable, or Notion, where the free tier is a licence to build a portal yourself rather than a working portal. OnboardHive's free plan is a finished client portal: 10 tracked proposals a month, 3 completed onboardings per account, the full flow, and no card required.
What is the catch with free client portals?
Usually one of three: a time-limited trial dressed up as a free plan, a cap so low you cannot complete anything real, or a builder tier where you still have to construct the portal from scratch. Ours is a volume cap stated plainly, with no clock attached: 3 completed onboardings per account in total, then you upgrade. In-progress onboardings are never capped, so a slow client cannot block your pipeline.
Do my clients need to create an account?
No. Each client gets one private magic link. They open it, complete what they can, close it, and come back to the same link later with their progress saved. No signup, no password, no app. Portals can be password-protected for confidential work, and new client portals are protected by default.
Can I use a free client portal with my own branding?
Partly. Free, Pro, and Lifetime portals carry a small 'powered by OnboardHive' badge. Full white-labelling with your own custom domain is on the $49/mo Scale plan. If removing all third-party branding is non-negotiable for you, no free tier of any tool will do it.
Is a free client portal secure enough for real client work?
Each link is unique, unguessable, revocable, and can be password-protected, and files are stored encrypted. That is appropriate for most agency and consulting work. If you handle regulated financial or health records, review it against your own compliance obligations before putting client documents through any tool, free or paid.
Running an agency specifically? The client portal for agencies page covers the agency case, and client onboarding for accountants covers accounting and bookkeeping firms.