Do I Need A Website Management Service Program?

So, you’ve spent time a good amount of money getting your new website design and development done. Your site is about to go live, and all seems well until your website company asks you the following questions: Do you want to get on our website managed services program? Who is going to host your site? Who will handle all patch management or even API updates? What is going to be done to prevent and remove virus or malware? What happens if my site goes down? What if I want updates to my site and changes done? Is there a ticket portal for me to submit a ticket? What if there is an emergency – who do I contact?

These are some of the common questions we ask our clients and is something that should not be taken lightly. A website build-out is just that and does not include any proactive or reactive website managed services. In other words, if we built your website months or years earlier, and then we get a call out of the blue saying the website is messed up, that is not our responsibility to fix free of charge. Just because the client paid for a website, does not entitle them to a life-long free website managed services program. If I charged $3,000.00 for a website two years ago, but since then have done $4,000.00 in website managed services work for free, we’ve now made zero profit for our company. In other words, we’ve lost money!

It needs to be made clear that the website design and development are separate from the maintenance that comes after the site is complete. Clients do not have to go with us on their website managed services program. They can use anyone they want although we would prefer to handle it for them. Website managed services are customizable. Below is a chart for what encompasses a typical program.

For $150.00 per month, the client in this example would get all of the red checkmark services. However, any website requested changes would be billed at $75.00 per hour. Have peace of mind and know that by having a website managed services program, you will be both proactive and reactive to help ensure your website is up and running the best it can be!