Website care plans: what to include, how to price and sell them

What is a website care plan?

It’s a monthly service: someone keeps a finished site updated, backed up, monitored and secure, and keeps a few hours free each month for small changes. You’ll also hear it called a website maintenance plan or a support plan. Whatever the name, the service is the same.

A website is software. The platform, the theme and the plugins or apps all release new versions, and some of those releases fix security problems, so a site that nobody updates falls behind. A care plan makes one party responsible for keeping it current, and for noticing when something breaks.

For an agency, a care plan is also a reason to stay in touch after launch. The client hears from you every month, with a report that shows the work done, and when they need a new page or a redesign, you’re the one they ask.

People often mix it up with two other things. Hosting is the server the site runs on. A retainer buys hours for new design and development. A care plan keeps what already exists working, with a small allowance for edits.

What should a website care plan include?

Six things: software updates, backups you can restore from, uptime monitoring, security checks with a plan for a hacked site, a set number of hours for content edits, and a monthly report. Say how often each one happens and how fast you respond. Anything that isn’t on the list is outside the plan.

Two cautions from WordPress’s own documentation apply to any platform. On backups: “There are two parts to backing up your WordPress site: Database and Files. You need both” (WordPress backups). On security, it describes the aim as “risk reduction, not risk elimination” (Hardening WordPress). Write your plan in the same spirit: say what you’ll do, and make no promises about what will never happen.

What do WordPress website care plans cover?

WordPress website care plans cover the parts of a WordPress site that don’t look after themselves: plugin and theme updates, major core updates, the PHP version on the server, backups of both files and database, and security checks. WordPress applies some updates automatically. The rest need a person, a backup and a test.

This is why “WordPress updates itself” is only half true. Core releases can arrive on their own. Most plugin and theme updates don’t, and nothing automatic checks that the contact form still sends after one.

The same plan shape works on other platforms, with different tasks. On a hosted platform there may be no plugins to update, and the work moves to content edits, form checks and app updates; our own plans by platform are below as an example. If you’re still choosing a platform for a client, the upkeep is part of that choice, and we compare it in Shopify vs WordPress.

How do you tier a website care plan?

Use two or three tiers, and change only a few things between them: how updates are tested, how long backups are kept, how often the site is checked, how many edit hours are included and how fast you respond. Keep the core the same on every tier, so that no client is ever left without backups or security.

How do you price a website care plan for clients?

Price it from your costs up. Start with what delivery costs you per site each month, whether that’s your own team’s time and tools or a white label fee. Add your time on the account (the report, the questions, the invoice), then your profit. Charge it as a fixed monthly fee per site, paid in advance.

• Delivery cost. In-house, it’s the hours each site takes a month, at what those hours cost you, plus a share of the tools. White label, it’s the partner’s fee per site.
• Your account time. Reading and sending the report, answering the client, passing on requests and invoicing. It’s small per site, and it’s never zero.
• Risk. An old site with thirty plugins takes more looking after than a new one you built yourself. Price the tier, or the site, to match.
• Profit. What’s left is the reason to sell the plan at all. Recurring income only helps if each plan earns something.

How much does website maintenance cost?

Website maintenance cost is the sum of several separate bills: hosting, the domain, licences for premium plugins, themes or apps, the care plan itself, and any work beyond it. The care plan is just one line. We don’t put a market figure on the total, but the lines are the same everywhere.

When a client asks what maintenance will cost, give them this list with their own figures filled in. The hosting invoice and the licence renewals already exist, and seeing every line in one place makes the care plan fee easier to judge.

If a client is deciding whether to pay at all, compare it with the cost of doing nothing: a site that’s down, a store that can’t take orders, or a rebuild after a hack with no usable backup.

How do you sell a website care plan at handover?

Start well before handover. Put the care plan in the proposal as its own line, explain at kickoff that a site needs looking after, and offer the tiers again before launch, with a start date. By launch day the client is expecting it, and it never lands on them after the final invoice.

Seven steps, from the proposal to the first report.

1. Put it in the proposal.

   One line under the build price: the care plan, per month, starting at launch. The client sees the full cost of owning the site before they sign.

2. Explain it at kickoff.

   Two minutes: the site is software, software gets updates, someone has to apply them and check nothing broke. The client onboarding template has a place for it.

3. Say what the warranty covers, and what it doesn’t.

   The warranty fixes defects in the build for a set period. It doesn’t cover updates released later, or changes the client makes. The care plan starts where the warranty stops.

4. Offer the tiers before launch.

   Send a one-page comparison a week or two before the site goes live. Recommend one tier for this client and say why.

5. Make “no” a decision, in writing.

   If the client declines, record who will apply updates and take backups from launch day. Give them the handover document and the logins. It protects you both.

6. Start on launch day.

   Switch on monitoring and backups the day the site goes live, so there’s no gap. The first care invoice goes out on the plan’s own schedule, separate from the build.

7. Send the first report on time.

   The report is the part of the product the client sees. A first report that arrives when promised, with your logo on it, is their first proof that the plan is being delivered.

What does a care plan cost to deliver, in-house or white label?

In-house, the cost is your team’s time on every site each month, the tools for backups, monitoring and security, and cover when the person who does it is away. White label, it’s a fixed fee per site plus your own time managing the account. The first is mostly a fixed cost; the second scales with the number of sites.

Here’s a rough test we’d use: count the sites you could put on a plan this year. With a handful, the tools and the interruptions are spread over very few plans, and a fee per site keeps your cost in step with your income. With enough sites to fill a role, the sums can favour your own team.

You can also split it: keep the sites you built on your core platform in-house, and send stores or other platforms to a partner. What to ask a partner before you hand over client sites is in the partner vetting checklist.

What goes wrong with website care plans?

Care plans tend to fail in the same few ways: an update that breaks the site, a backup that can’t be restored, a plan with no limits, a report nobody sends, and a client who thinks the plan covers everything. Each one comes from something left unsaid when the plan was sold, and each has a simple fix.

You can settle several of these on day one. An onboarding check (a plugin and theme audit, a first backup, a scan and a review of access) tells you what you’re taking on before you’re responsible for it.

What should a care plan agreement say?

One or two pages your client can follow without a lawyer: what’s included and how often, what’s outside the plan and how it’s priced, how fast you aim to respond and in which hours, how the plan is billed, how either side ends it, and who owns the site, the accounts and the backups.

• What is included. Each part, with its frequency: updates weekly, backups daily, kept for so many days.
• What is outside, and its price. Hosting, licences, new pages, redesigns, and the hourly rate for extra edits.
• Edit hours. How many, what counts, and whether unused hours roll over.
• Response. A target for the first reply, in business hours, in a named time zone. Call it a target unless you really mean a guarantee.
• No promise of outcomes. You commit to the work. You don’t promise uptime, or that the site will never be hacked.
• Billing. Per site, monthly in advance, and what happens if an invoice is late.
• Price changes. How much notice you give before a price changes.
• Ending the plan. The notice period, and what you hand over at the end: logins, the latest backup, a list of what was in place.
• Ownership. The site, the hosting account and the domain are the client’s, and they can switch off your access at any time.
• Subcontracting. If a partner delivers the plan, your client contract should allow it. The white label agreement template has a clause.

Use it as a checklist of points to cover, and have a lawyer review the agreement you send.