Podcast Episode

105 – How to Charge for Maintenance of a WordPress Website

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Listener Feedback

  • Scott (www.ComputerTutorFlorida.com)
  • Andrea (http://couponblessingsnow.com)
    When people get themes from – even if its from a reputable company, they gotta have the TAC plugin and make sure there isn’t encrypted code in the theme
  • Joe
  • I was considering signing up with green geeks, but now I’m a bit worried, read the full article: http://drupal.org/node/810476

How to charge for Maintenance of a WordPress Website

  • If I’m hosting the site
  • I will update WordPress
  • When I find out new things about security, I update them as well
  • I have a BackupBuddy running on their sites and depending on the hosting plan, determines how often their site gets backed up. Plus I also back up to a third party site.
  • If they are paying for their own hosting
  • I give them instructions on how to update WordPress and plugins
  • I set them up with BackupBuddy and configure to save to their server as well as give them instructions to back up to a third party
  • If they have maintenance issues, that is normally a new project

Call To Action

  • Sign up for webinar at http://yourwebsiteengineer.com/webinar
How do you charge for maintenance of WordPress? Leave a comment below.
    • daclements Reply

      Hey Dustin,
      I just remembered how I started listening to you: I think I got a backlink from you because you may have used my article (http://www.doitwithwp.com/how-i-built-my-what-next-box/) to create your What Next? Box.
      Anyway, this past weekend I was at WordCamp Orlando, and I saw a talk by Mason James who recently launched The WP Valet, a premium WordPress management service. It’s been very successful for him. His talk notes can be seen here (http://doccaster.com/feed/5159) and the talks should be available at wordpress.tv in short order.

      Dec 5, 2012
      • dhartzler10 Reply

        @daclements And as you can see, I’m still using the “What’s Next Box.”  Thanks for the link to the WP Valet service, it looks cool. When I get a chance, I’ll take a deeper look into it. Thakns!

        Dec 7, 2012
    • warnerchad Reply

      I offer my clients a WordPress update maintenance service, which includes updates to WordPress core, plugins, and themes. I offer this to clients who have their own hosting and those whose sites are hosted in my hosting account. I tell clients that it’s critical to keep their sites updated for the sake of security, and that I remove the hassle by handling the updates.
       
      In 2012 I charged $10/mo for this service, but in 2013 I’m raising it to $20/mo because of the work involved. I’m usually handling backups and sometimes troubleshooting plugins and themes that break, which can be time-consuming. Almost all my clients pay for each year upfront.
       
      It’s great to hear how others run their businesses, so please keep featuring topics like this.

      Dec 6, 2012
      • dhartzler10 Reply

        @warnerchad That’s good to hear that clients pay for the year up front. That will pad your pocketbook for your first month of being full-time 🙂

        Dec 7, 2012
    • Tim R Reply

      Hi Dustin, I pulled a lot of great ideas from this podcast (big thanks to Bill). Thanks Chad for sharing your monthly update structure. I like the idea of billing clients monthly at a retainer rate such as the $20/mo for core, plugin and theme updates, and then any additional changes bill out at the hourly rate.
      I currently have a dozen or so clients who have some sort of updates needed each month that I just bill at the hourly rate and I include a half hour of work each month for the core, plugin, and theme updates and then bill them quarterly.

      As always, thanks for the great podcast.

      Jan 19, 2014
    • dhartzler10 Reply

      Tim R sounds like a perfect plan! One of the tricky things about website development is telling your clients that it will take some hours each month to keep everything updated.

      Sounds like you are already doing that 🙂

      Jan 19, 2014

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