The problem: clients ask for updates, and you end up writing them by hand
Every freelancer who runs client sites knows the message. It arrives on a Thursday afternoon: "Any update on the homepage?" You open the project, check three tasks, copy the status into an email, and send it. Next week the same message comes back, slightly longer.
The update itself takes ten minutes. The real cost is the interruption, and the habit it creates. Clients learn that the way to find out what is happening is to ask you. You learn to stop what you are doing and write a summary for someone who could have looked.
A shared view of the project solves most of this. The client checks progress when they want to, and you spend your time on the work.
What read-only access means
Read-only access means a client can see the project and its tasks but cannot change anything. They can open the project, see which tasks are open, which are finished and what is still in progress. They cannot move a task, change a date, delete anything or edit the project settings.
That last part matters. A client who can see the whole project can understand where things stand. A client who can edit it can also, by accident, move your tasks around or change a deadline you agreed with someone else. Read-only keeps the view open and the controls with you.
Who it suits
Read-only client access is most useful in three situations.
The first is the freelancer who runs one or two client sites on the side of other work. You want the client to know what is happening without having to be the one who tells them every week.
The second is the small agency with a handful of clients and a team of up to ten people. Account managers should not have to rebuild the same status update for each client every Friday.
The third is the product team that works with an external designer, copywriter or developer. The outside party needs to see what is due and what is blocked, but the team keeps ownership of the plan.
In all three cases, the person who gets the message when something breaks is usually you. Giving the client a view means fewer messages reach you in the first place.
What to share and what to keep internal
Not everything in a project belongs in front of a client. A simple rule helps: share the outcome, keep the working notes to yourself.
Here is a plain example. Suppose you are building a new website for a local clinic. The project has these parts:
- Tasks for the homepage design, the booking page build, the content migration and the launch checklist
- Internal notes about a hosting problem you are still investigating
- A task called "chase logo files from the client"
- Rough estimates and a time budget you agreed with your own business partner
The client should see the first group in full. They need to know the design is with them for approval, the booking page is in progress and the migration is due next week. The logo task is useful for them to see too, because it shows what you are waiting on. The hosting investigation and the internal budget can stay out of the shared view. They are for you, not for the client's reading.
If you are unsure, ask what the client would do with the information. If the answer is "nothing, but it might worry them", keep it internal.
Free viewers for clients: how this keeps the team size and the monthly cost down
Clients join AperioFlow as viewers. Viewers are free, so you can give each client a seat without adding to the bill for your own team.
For the team itself, the Team plan is 29 pounds a month flat for up to 10 people, as on the pricing page. That covers the people who do the work. If you run a small agency with a few clients, you do not need a separate plan for each one. You invite each client as a viewer on the project they care about and leave the rest alone.
If you are a solo developer or a freelancer on the free plan, you can start with 10 monitors and a project for your client's site. The monitors check that the site is up and alert you when it is not, so the same view can show both the work and the health of what you built. Hosted in France. Run from the UK. You can download your data at any time if you decide to move on.
A short routine: invite the client, point them at the project, stop sending status emails
The change is small, but it has to be a routine or it will drift back to email.
First, invite the client as a viewer when the project starts. Send one message that says where to look and what the project covers. Something like: "You can follow progress on the project here. Tasks show what is open, what is in progress and what is waiting on you. Send me questions the way you normally would."
Second, tidy the project before each client check-in. Make sure task names are clear, dates are current and anything waiting on the client says so. A viewer can only understand what you have written down.
Third, stop sending status emails. If the client asks for an update, point them at the project. If they still want a summary, write one short paragraph and link to the view. Over a few weeks the requests usually fall away, because the client can see the answer themselves.
What it does not do
Read-only access is one direction. The client can see the project, but there are no comments or @mentions today. That means questions still go through your usual channel: email, a call or a message in whatever tool you already use with that client.
This is worth saying plainly. If you expect the project to become the place where the client asks questions and you answer them, it will not do that yet. What it does well is show the state of the work, so the questions that do come in are about decisions rather than "where are we?"
AperioFlow is a small company with a live product. Read-only access works today. Anything beyond it, you will need to handle outside the project.
Next step: set up a project on the free plan with 10 monitors and invite a client
The quickest way to see whether this suits your work is to try it on a real project. Pick the client who asks for updates most often. Create a project for their site, add the tasks that matter to them and set up one or two monitors on the live site. Then invite the client as a viewer and send them the link.
Start free at https://app.aperioflow.co.uk/#/signup and invite a client as a viewer on your next project. The free plan includes 10 monitors, so you can check the site and share the work from the same place.