Sending files

Branded file transfer: your domain, not ours

By Hein de Wilde·Updated ·3 min read

Key takeaways

  • Your own domain does most of the work; logo and colours come second.
  • Real white-labelling removes the service’s name from the page, the links and the emails.
  • Check that links keep working if a payment lapses — dead links punish your clients.
Contents
  1. Why the download page is part of your work
  2. The three layers of branding
  3. What "properly" should mean
  4. Setting up your own domain
  5. When it is not worth it
  6. Brand and trust are linked
  7. The short version

Branded file transfer means your clients download from a page that looks like yours — your domain, your logo, your colours — rather than from a third party's site with its name across the top. The part that matters most is the address: files.yourstudio.com tells a client they are dealing with you, while any other domain tells them you are using a tool. Logo and colours help; the domain does the heavy lifting.

I run Yungle, which offers this, so treat my enthusiasm with care. What follows applies to any service that does it properly — and I will say what "properly" should mean.

Why the download page is part of your work

For a studio, an agency or a freelancer, the moment a client downloads the work is the moment they judge it. A clean page with your name on it continues the experience you have been building. A page with someone else's branding — and on many free tiers, an advertisement — interrupts it.

It is a small thing, and small things are what clients remember about working with you. Nobody praises a download page, but people notice the one with a gambling ad beside their wedding photos.

The three layers of branding

Your domain. The address the client sees in their browser and in every link you send. This is the layer that does the most, and the one most services charge for or do not offer at all.

Your look. Logo, colours and a cover image on the page itself, so it matches your site and your proposals.

Your emails. The notification the client receives — "your files are ready" — carrying your brand rather than the service's. It is easy to forget and it is often the first thing they see.

A service that does only the second layer is doing decoration. The first and third are what make it feel like yours.

What "properly" should mean

A few questions separate real white-labelling from a logo upload:

  • Does the service's name disappear, or does it still show in a footer, a download button or the link itself?
  • Do the download links use your domain too, or only the landing page?
  • Is the security certificate handled for you, so the address shows the padlock without you managing it?
  • What happens if you stop paying? A branded address that dies the day a card declines breaks every link you have ever sent.

On Yungle, collections live on your own subdomain with no Yungle wordmark on the page, the certificate is issued automatically once the domain is verified, and client emails carry your brand. And links you have already sent keep working if a subscription lapses — deliberately, because live links dying over a billing problem punishes your clients for something they had nothing to do with. The branding feature page shows it end to end.

Setting up your own domain

The technical part is small and done once:

  1. Choose a subdomain you will not want for anything else — files., delivery. or share. all work.
  2. Add the DNS record the service gives you, at whoever hosts your domain.
  3. Wait for verification, usually minutes; the certificate follows.
  4. Upload your logo, pick your colour and a cover image.

From then on, every collection link you send uses your address.

When it is not worth it

Be honest with yourself about fit. If you send occasional files to colleagues, branding adds nothing. If you send deliverables to paying clients — photographers, video producers, agencies, designers, architects — it is one of the cheapest ways to look established.

It also matters more when clients come back. A one-off transfer is seen once. A collection the client revisits for months is seen every time, so the case for branding is strongest there.

Brand and trust are linked

A branded address also makes phishing harder to pull off in your name. Clients who always receive files from files.yourstudio.com have a reason to be suspicious of a link from somewhere else claiming to be you. That is a quiet benefit, but a real one.

The short version

  • The domain matters most; logo and colours come second.
  • Check that the service's name really disappears, including from links and emails.
  • Make sure links survive a lapsed payment.
  • It pays off most on work clients come back to.

For how agencies put this together across many clients, see file sharing for creative agencies and the page for agencies.

Hein de Wilde

I build and run Yungle, and I write everything here. Comparisons name competitors and credit them, every claim about another company comes from that company’s own documentation, and where we fall short it says so. More about who is behind this.

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