The Custom Domain + White-Label Quickstart (1 Hour to Go Live)

Why Most Agencies Take 3 Days to Go Live

Most agencies sign up, intend to "set up white-label this weekend," and three days later still have a default DM Champ logo on the login page. They pitch a client, send the dashboard link, and the client sees DM Champ branding.

The deal stalls.

The technical work is not hard. Buying a domain takes 2 minutes. Pointing DNS takes 5 minutes. Uploading a logo takes 30 seconds.

The problem is the order. Most agencies try to figure it out on the fly, hit a CNAME error or an SSL delay, get blocked, and walk away.

This quickstart is the right order. Do it once, top to bottom, in one hour. Done. If you want to see your brand on the dashboard before you touch DNS, the white-label preview tool renders it in seconds.

The Quickstart in 5 Steps

Step 1: Buy the Right Domain (5 Minutes)

You need a domain that looks like your brand, not like DM Champ.

Pick a domain pattern:

• app.[yourbrand].com if you already have a main domain
• [yourbrand]ai.com for a fresh agency brand
• chat.[yourbrand].com if your main domain is reserved for marketing
• [yourbrand].chat for a clean modern feel

Avoid:

• Numbers or hyphens (my-ai-app.com)
• Misspellings (agentss.com)
• TLDs that look unprofessional (.xyz, .online)

Buy at Namecheap, Cloudflare, or any registrar. Cost: $10 to $30 a year.

Set DNS provider to Cloudflare if possible. Cloudflare is fast, free, and the DNS UI is clean. If you bought through Cloudflare directly, DNS is already there.

Step 2: Add the CNAME Record (5 Minutes)

DM Champ uses a CNAME-based custom domain system with auto-SSL via Caddy on-demand TLS.

Inside DM Champ, go to Settings > White-Label > Custom Domain.

Paste your domain (e.g., app.youragency.com). DM Champ shows the CNAME target (e.g., custom.dmchamp.com).

In your DNS provider:

1. Add a CNAME record
2. Name: app (the subdomain, not the full domain)
3. Target: paste the DM Champ-provided target
4. TTL: 5 minutes (low for the first hour while testing)
5. Save

If you're using Cloudflare, set the proxy status to "DNS only" (grey cloud, not orange). DM Champ handles the proxy and SSL.

Wait 30 seconds. DNS propagation is usually near-instant on Cloudflare.

Step 3: Confirm SSL Issuance (2 Minutes)

DM Champ uses Caddy on-demand TLS. Once the CNAME resolves, the first HTTPS request to your domain triggers SSL issuance automatically.

Open https://app.youragency.com in an incognito tab.

First load: 2 to 5 seconds (SSL issues during this load).

Second load: instant. Padlock green. Your domain. DM Champ dashboard.

If you see an SSL error after 30 seconds, check:

• CNAME points to the exact target string DM Champ gave you
• Cloudflare proxy is OFF (grey cloud)
• Domain is not in a holdover from a prior provider

Once SSL is live, your domain is permanent. Auto-renewal handled.

Step 4: Upload Branding (15 Minutes)

Inside DM Champ, Settings > White-Label > Branding.

Upload:

• Logo (PNG, transparent background, 400x100px minimum). Shows in the dashboard header.
• Favicon (32x32px PNG). Shows in browser tabs.
• Primary color (hex code). Buttons, links, accents.
• Secondary color (hex code). Hover states, secondary buttons.
• Login background (optional, 1920x1080 PNG). Shows on the login screen.

Set SEO meta:

• SEO title: "[Your Agency Name] - AI Sales Agent" (under 60 characters, shows in browser tabs and search results)
• SEO description: short pitch your agency makes to clients (under 160 characters)

Open your domain again in incognito. Everything should be branded.

This is the moment to send the first dashboard preview link to a client. The card preview will show your brand, your colors, your favicon. That preview alone closes deals. This is the heart of running a white-label AI sales agent under your own name.

Step 5: Brand Your Transactional Emails (15 Minutes)

DM Champ sends transactional emails to your clients (welcome, password reset, alerts, appointment confirmations, daily summaries).

In your white-label branding settings there is an Email Branding section. Your emails automatically use the logo and Primary Color you already set, so the header shows your brand and your colour is used for buttons and accents. The email-specific settings you can set are the footer tagline and up to four footer links. Save the Email Branding section on its own when you're done.

To control the actual mailbox the emails are sent from (so they come from your own domain instead of the platform default), connect your own email provider (Mailgun or SMTP) in your email provider settings. The provider controls which mailbox sends the email; Email Branding controls what the email looks like. Follow your provider's own domain-verification steps (SPF, DKIM) on their side.

Once your provider is connected and your branding is saved, every transactional email comes from your mailbox with your logo and colours. Clients never see "DM Champ" anywhere.

Step 6 (Bonus): Test the Full Client Experience

Spend 15 minutes pretending you are a client.

1. Open the dashboard URL incognito. Look at it like a buyer would.
2. Sign up with a test email.
3. Receive the welcome email. Check the sender, the design.
4. Click around the dashboard. Look for any place DM Champ branding leaked.
5. Try the inbox. Try sending a test message.

If anything looks off, fix it before pitching clients.

Common gotchas:

• Footer of the login page sometimes still shows DM Champ (check settings)
• Help tooltips occasionally link to DM Champ docs (use your own help URL)
• Email templates may need text tweaks for tone

90 minutes total. Polished, branded, live.

The Math

Time investment:

Cost:

• Domain: $10 to $30 a year
• DM Champ AppSumo lifetime deal: white-label included from Tier 3 ($229 once); Tier 6 ($999 once) adds unlimited sub-accounts and Stripe credit reselling, permanently. Or, if you prefer to subscribe, the Agency plan is $497 a month.

Outcome: a branded, white-labeled SaaS dashboard you can sell to clients for $1,000 a month each. Five clients = $5K MRR off a 1-hour setup. Once the domain is live, the next move is monetizing it: the credit reselling pricing playbook covers the margin math.

What This Looks Like When DM Champ Runs It

The manual version of white-label SaaS is buying servers, getting SSL certs, building auth, building admin tools, building branding configuration, building billing, building the AI itself. 18 months of engineering.

When DM Champ runs it, you paste a domain into Settings, paste a CNAME into DNS, upload a logo, and you have a white-labeled AI sales agent SaaS product. The auto-SSL handles certs. The sub-account architecture handles client isolation. The Stripe credit reselling handles billing.

The features that make this work: custom domain with auto-SSL, full branding (logo, colors, favicon), SEO title and description for the dashboard, branded transactional emails (with your own email provider connected), the unlimited sub-accounts to onboard clients.

If you want to skip the manual work, the AppSumo lifetime deal includes the full white-label stack: white-labeling from Tier 3 ($229 once), and unlimited sub-accounts plus Stripe credit reselling on Tier 6 ($999 once), all permanent with no recurring platform fee. Prefer to subscribe instead? The Agency plan at $497 a month bundles the same stack. See /for-agencies/.