Client portal for architects
A client portal built for an architecture practice rather than adapted from a generic project tool: drawings with revisions, an invoice attached to the set, and files that unlock when the payment clears.
What a client portal is, in this trade
Every practice already has one, assembled by accident. A Drive folder, a WhatsApp group, an email thread with the invoice in it, and a shared password somebody set up two years ago. It works until a client asks which drawing is current, or a fee goes unpaid while the drawings are already on site. A client portal is the same set of jobs done deliberately: one private space per client, holding the drawings you have issued, the conversation about them, and the invoice that releases them.
Why the generic tools don't fit
Most portals on the market were built for agencies and consultants, so they are organised around tasks and hours. An architecture practice is organised around a set of drawings that goes out, comes back marked up, and goes out again at a new revision, with a fee stage attached to each issue. A portal with no concept of a revision, or of a file that stays locked until an invoice is paid, leaves you doing the two hardest parts by hand.
What the client sees
A login of their own, and nothing but their own project. The current set of drawings, the previous revisions still reachable behind them, the invoice for the stage, and a thread to ask a question in. No shared password, no forwarded link, no attachment that turns out to be three weeks old. When you supersede a sheet, what they open is the new one.
What you keep
The record. Who was sent what, at which revision, on which date, and whether they opened it. That is the answer to the only question that ever really arises after the fact, and it is the difference between a straightforward conversation and an argument conducted from memory.
The portal is where the fee conversation stops happening
Most of what a portal saves is not filing time. It is the four or five awkward exchanges per project that come from drawings and money living in different places: the reminder email, the second reminder, the set that went out before the stage was paid because holding it felt rude. Putting the invoice on the set removes the decision entirely.
- One place the current set lives, and everybody knows it
- The stage fee and the deliverable move together
- A record you can produce two years later without hunting
Off the ledger, onto the workspace
Drawings on a drive, the invoice in email, the discussion on WhatsApp: one client spread across four tools and no two memories agreeing.
One private space holds the drawings, the invoice and the whole thread for that client.
“Can you resend the latest plan?”, asked for the third time, because the folder holds five files with similar names.
The client opens the workspace and sees the current revision, with the superseded ones still on the record behind it.
The set has been issued, the stage invoice is six weeks old, and raising it now feels like a confrontation.
The invoice is attached to the set. The files open when it clears, and nobody has to raise anything.
A Drive link shared with a consultant in March is still live in November, and there is no clean way to take it back.
A private link with an expiry date, revocable in one click, and the payment gate still applies to it.
Built to carry the weight
Shaped like a practice
Drawings, revisions and fee stages are first-class here, not custom fields bolted onto a task list built for somebody else's trade.
The fee and the file, joined
Attach an invoice to a set. It stays locked until the payment clears, then opens on its own. No chasing, no awkward reminder.
One current set
Replacing a drawing adds a revision rather than overwriting one, so “which is the latest?” stops being a question anyone has to ask.
Isolation that holds
One client can never reach another's records. Enforced in the database, not hidden in the interface.
Consultants without accounts
Send a structural consultant a private link with an expiry. Revoke it when the package closes. No login for them to forget.
A record that survives
Every issue, unlock and download is written down. Two years later it still answers what went out, to whom, and when.
Everything, in the file
For the studio
- Client list with status: pending, active, inactive, suspended
- Upload any format; folders and search per client
- Versioned replacement, never a silent overwrite
- Attach an invoice to a document or a whole set
- Audit log of issues, unlocks and downloads
For the client
- Their own login, and only their own project
- The current set, with revision history behind it
- Hosted checkout: cards, UPI, netbanking, no account needed
- A message thread beside the drawings
For everyone else
- Private share links for consultants and contractors
- Set an expiry; revoke at any time
- The payment gate applies to shared links too
- No account required to open one
Three moves, nothing to chase
Add the client
Create their workspace and send the invite. Two minutes, and their space is live and empty.
Issue the set
Upload the drawings and attach the stage invoice. The client is notified; the files stay locked.
The payment opens it
Razorpay confirms, the set unlocks, and the record of the whole exchange writes itself.
A portal is not a folder with a login on it. It is the place where a drawing and the fee for that drawing finally sit in the same room.
Put your practice on it
We're onboarding our first studios now, one at a time, with personal setup for each practice: we help you connect your Razorpay account, add your first clients, and put a set of drawings behind a payment gate. Tell us about your studio and we'll get back to you within one working day.
- No card, no commitment, no obligation to continue
- Payments settle into your own Razorpay account
- Bring the file formats you already work in
Questions, answered
Straight answers about client portal for architects, in plain language.
Ask us anythingA private space, one per client, holding the drawings you have issued to them, the revision history behind those drawings, the invoice for the stage, and the conversation about the work. The client signs in with their own credentials and sees only their own project. It replaces the Drive-folder-plus-WhatsApp-plus-email arrangement most practices assemble by default.
Drive stores files well and knows nothing about your practice. It has no concept of a drawing revision, no way to attach an invoice to a set, no expiry on a shared link, and no record of who opened what. Those four gaps are exactly where the arguments happen. A portal built for this trade closes them; a storage product is not trying to.
They sign in to their workspace with credentials you issue, in a browser, with nothing to install. To pay they use Razorpay's hosted checkout, which needs no account on their side. A consultant who only needs one package does not even need a login: send a private link with an expiry instead.
Yes, and it is the reason most of this exists. Attach an invoice to a document or a whole set and the files stay locked until the payment is confirmed by the gateway, at which point they unlock on their own. Access follows the payment in both directions: a later refund revokes it, and the change is written to the audit log.
Not always. If you run two projects at a time and issue every drawing yourself, a folder and a spreadsheet are genuinely enough, and anyone telling you otherwise is selling something. It starts to earn its place when a second person in the studio begins issuing drawings, or when the total of unpaid stage fees gets large enough that chasing it is a weekly job.
They are yours, and they leave in the formats you put them in. Nothing here converts your drawings into a proprietary format on the way in, which is the thing that makes a platform hard to leave.