What a child panel actually is
A child panel is a fully-branded SMM panel that sits inside your platform but appears to be its own business. The child operator gets their own domain, branding, user accounts, and admin — but their services and order routing point to your wholesale prices. You collect a monthly subscription + a margin on every order they pass through. PerfectPanel's child-panel module spins one up in 60 seconds.
The pricing model that works
$50 one-time setup fee (covers your onboarding time + filters tire-kickers). $30/mo minimum subscription (recurring revenue base). Wholesale rates at 60-65% of your retail (gives the child a real margin to play with). No per-order fees on top — the margin lives in the wholesale gap. A child doing $1k/mo in sales pays you $30 subscription + ~$350 in wholesale margin = $380/mo per child. Stack 10 active children and that's $3,800/mo recurring before your direct-to-consumer revenue.
Onboarding flow that scales
Self-serve form (collects business name, target domain, payment method, target market), automated PerfectPanel API call to provision (60 seconds), email with login + branding upload instructions, 15-min Loom video walking through admin, optional 30-min Zoom for the $50 setup fee. The whole onboarding is under 90 minutes of your time per child after the first one. After child #5, push them all to a self-serve setup with a written runbook.
Policies that prevent disasters
Three policies in your child-panel ToS, non-negotiable. (1) No reselling at less than your wholesale — kills race-to-bottom pricing wars that destroy the entire ecosystem. (2) 30-day notice for service deprecation — you'll need to drop services occasionally; warn the children so they don't get caught with no replacement. (3) Right to suspend for fraud + chargeback rate over 1% — if a child runs a scammy panel, your wholesale relationships die too. Enforce.
Marketing your child-panel program
Two channels work. (1) A dedicated landing page on your main panel — '/become-reseller' or '/child-panel.' One page, 8 sections, FAQ, clear pricing, single CTA. Convert 1-2% of your existing buyers. (2) Outbound to small panels that look like they're struggling — sub-100 reviews, low traffic, generic branding. Offer them a 30-day free trial as a child of yours. About 5-10% take it; half stick around past month two.
The compounding effect
Child panels are the highest-margin part of a mature panel business because your COGS is zero — you're just routing existing orders. The numbers: 20 active children at $400/mo average = $8k/mo pure margin. The work to maintain 20 children is roughly 6 hours per week (support, billing, occasional onboarding). That's a $1,400/hr effective hourly rate. No direct-to-consumer SMM segment matches it.