For agencies: what to know before you take on someone else's account

Short answer. Running someone else's accounts is a job of its own, and platforms treat it differently: one describes the agency model directly, the rest say nothing. Tools, meanwhile, differ not in what they can do but in the unit they bill for: per brand, per workspace, per seat on the team.

*Checked 28 July 2026. Every claim links to platform documentation and vendor pages.*

Only one platform describes agencies directly

Douyin sorts developers into categories, and one of them stands apart — 代运营平台开发者, agencies that run client accounts. Their rights are spelled out: to create mini-apps for clients, promote client goods, and use the platform's capabilities in the client's interest. *(Our translation; the original is in Chinese.)* source

The other platforms we checked have no such category: whether you may run someone else's account under contract has to be inferred from the general rules.

What this means in practice

Platform rules are written for the account owner, not for a contractor. Two consequences follow, and they are worth putting in the contract:

Access can be cut off without notice. VKontakte: the platform may terminate an application's access to the API in whole or in part, including by blocking it. source

An access token is tied to a person. At VKontakte a user token lives for one hour; a community token has no expiry. source

For an agency this is a direct recommendation: work through the client's community or page, not through the personal access of an employee who will go on holiday or leave the company.

Tools: what they charge for when you work with clients

Metricool · Planable · Sendible · Onlypult · LiveDune

The difference is fundamental. With Metricool every new client is a new line on the invoice. With Planable you pay for the workspace and connect as many staff as you need. A ten-person agency with three clients and a two-person agency with twenty clients need different tools.

A small thing that surfaces on a large client

NapoleonCat: a profile with an audience of more than 1 million followers requires contacting support — the public plan does not apply to it. source

Taken on a large client — check whether they have fallen outside your plan.

Steps in order

1. Count your clients and your people — the choice depends on the ratio between them.
2. Connect client accounts through a community or a page, not through an employee's personal access.
3. Check large clients against thresholds such as a million followers.
4. Fix the right to run the account in the contract: the platforms are silent on it.

See also: what you are paying for · why you are asked to reconnect an account · catalog index