Is It Out of Scope? — SEO & marketing
Is creating a client portal out of scope for an SEO retainer?
Yes. Building a login-gated application has no connection to search visibility work.
This one is rare, but comes up when a client bundles every website-adjacent request to whoever they're already paying — in this case the SEO team, simply because that's the active invoice.
Is it out of scope?
Yes. Building an authenticated application is development work with no overlap with organic search strategy, content, or technical SEO.
Clause typically implicated
Clause typically implicated
Exclusions clause→ — Application development, including a client-facing portal, is excluded work on an SEO retainer regardless of who else the client works with.
Example contract wording
Example contract wording (illustrative, not legal advice)
A customer login portal is a development build, not something this retainer covers — you'd want your dev team (or I can refer one) to scope that separately.
How MarginFlow flags it
MarginFlow flags application-build requests outside_scope on SEO contracts, keeping retainer time on search work rather than unrelated technical builds.