Documentation

Getting started

You share one link, your gate. Each client who opens it fills in a short intake form. ClientGate scores the answers and decides Accept, Review or Reject. Good fits reach your inbox, bad fits are filtered and get an automatic reply, and no inquiry is ever deleted.

Every account starts with one gate already created, so there is nothing to build first. The quickest path:

• Set your Ideal Client Profile on the Qualification page: budget, timeline, project types and the rest of who you want to work with.
• Make the gate yours under Client Gates → Edit: headline, wording and button color.
• Glance at the scoring on Qualification → Scoring. The defaults work; look before you change anything.
• Set up automatic emails in Settings → Email.
• Share the gate link from the Dashboard, then watch leads arrive under Incoming Clients.

Gates and the intake form

A gate is one intake form with its own qualification rules. Most people only ever need the one they start with. Under Client Gates you can, for each gate:

• Edit the headline, subheadline, disclaimer, button and brand color, and the order of the questions.
• Preview exactly what your clients will see.
• Copy the link, or share it from the Dashboard.
• Duplicate a gate to start a variation, or pause it to stop taking inquiries without deleting anything.
• Jump to its Strategy (the rules that score it).

The form adapts to the answers: choosing a project type can change which questions come next, and answers already given are kept. Clients who are rejected still get a polite automatic reply, so nobody is left hanging.

Your Ideal Client Profile

The Ideal Client Profile (ICP) is the heart of the product. It lives on Qualification → Rules. Each ICP describes one kind of client you want, as a set of conditions such as project type, budget range, timeline, location and lead source.

• Add ICP creates another profile. Every ICP carries its own conditions, including location and lead source, which you can add, change or remove per profile.
• Global intake limits sit at the top: hard requirements that are checked before anything else.
• Conditions can be combined with AND / OR, so a profile can be as strict or as relaxed as you like.

On the Pro plan, advanced rules let you build more detailed logic on top of the basics. You never need them to get started.

How scoring and decisions work

A lead is scored on dimensions, such as budget, timeline, authority, experience and project details. Each dimension has a weight, and together they produce a single quality score from 0 to 100.

Thresholds turn that score into a decision. At or above the Accept threshold the lead is accepted, at or below the Reject threshold it is rejected, and everything in between goes to Review.

• The score is deterministic: the same answers against the same rules always give the same result. There are no hidden multipliers.
• The decision of record for a lead is your manual status if you set one, otherwise what the rules decided. Nothing else.
• Open any lead to see how each dimension scored and what decided the outcome.
• Use the Simulator (Qualification → Simulator) to try a made-up lead against your rules before you change anything for real.

Auto Balance and thresholds

Thresholds can be managed two ways, chosen on Qualification → Scoring.

• Manual: your thresholds stay exactly where you put them. Nothing ever changes them.
• Auto Balance: a daily, rules-based check looks at how your recent leads were distributed and nudges the thresholds in small steps when they are clearly too loose or too tight.

Auto Balance is cautious by design. It waits for enough leads to judge fairly, moves only a few points at a time, pauses between changes, and every change is logged so you can see it and undo it. If you undo a change, it stops adjusting for a while. It is plain arithmetic on your own data; AI never sets your thresholds.

Leads, archives and bulk upload

• Incoming Clients lists every inquiry with its score and decision. Search and filter by gate.
• Open a lead for the full picture: the answers, the score breakdown, risk and viability, the timeline, and any documents the client attached.
• Change a lead's status yourself at any time. Your choice then becomes the decision of record, and the original rules result is kept for reference.
• Record the outcome (won, lost and so on) so your analytics learn what actually converts.
• Filtered Clients (Archives) holds everything the rules rejected. Nothing is deleted, so you can still open any of them.
• Bulk Upload scores a CSV of existing leads against your rules in one pass. A template is available to download.

AI lead analysis

On a lead's page, AI analysis gives you a plain-language read of the project: viability, delivery risk, and suggested next steps. It is there to help you decide.

Eli, the calling agent

Eli is an AI voice agent that talks to your prospects before they reach you. It asks about their project, budget and timeline, and checks the answers against your rules. It is part of the Pro plan; see Pricing for what is included.

• Calling Agent → Configuration: the agent's name, voice and conversation style.
• Agent URL: a public call page you can share, next to Share Gate on the Dashboard.
• Call history: every call, with its transcript, a summary and the result.
• If voice isn't available, Eli sends the prospect to the right intake form instead, so nobody is turned away.
• Calls are limited in length, and your calling minutes are tracked on the Calling Agent page.

A call that ends in a rejection never becomes a lead. Leads are created only when the prospect completes the intake form.

Automatic emails

In Settings → Email you decide what each client hears back. There is one automation for each outcome (accepted, reviewed, rejected) plus a follow-up for accepted leads who haven't replied.

• Each email has an editable subject and body, with variables such as {{lead_name}}, {{project_type}}, {{budget}}, {{timeline}}, {{agency_name}} and {{email_signature}}. They are filled in for each lead.
• Turn each automation on or off independently, and send yourself a test email first.
• Emails go to the client's address and replies come back to your business email.
• Automatic emails and follow-ups are part of the Pro plan, and apply to leads paid for with Pro credits.

The email you send is based on the decision of record, so a manual change you make to a lead is respected.

Weekly audit and notifications

Every Monday ClientGate looks back over your week and sends a weekly audit, in the app and by email: how many leads arrived, how they were decided, and any suggested fixes to your scoring or ICP.

• Suggested fixes are specific and optional. You can apply a safe one with a click, and undo it.
• If your setup looks healthy, the audit says so and suggests nothing.
• Choose which events notify you, and by which channel (in-app or email), in Settings → Notifications.

Settings and your account

• Export your data or delete your account from Settings → Account. Deletion asks for a confirmation code first.
• Amounts are shown in your chosen currency, with many currencies supported.

Credits and pricing

ClientGate is priced per lead, not per seat. One credit is one lead processed through your rules, including the ones it rejects, because filtering out bad fits is the product. You buy a pack and use it whenever leads come in.

New accounts get a free trial of lead credits and Eli calling minutes. For the current plans, packs and prices, always see the Pricing page; it is the one source of truth.

Security and privacy

• Each account's data is isolated from every other account's.
• Public intake forms are protected against bots.
• You can see and end your active sessions at any time.
• We never sell personal information.

The details, including which providers we use and how long we keep data, are in the Privacy Policy.

Common questions