Is it a good retainer model? How much are you making from it? Does it require a lot of ongoing work?
Ask HN: Do you charge your webdesign clients for ongoing hosting and support?
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Re: Ask HN: Do you charge your webdesign clients for ongoing hosting and support?
#2Yes. It would be unmanageable otherwise with multiple clients.
Why would I give up my time + work for free?
Hosting is an easy up sell because it becomes one less thing a client would have to worry about.
Re: Ask HN: Do you charge your webdesign clients for ongoing hosting and support?
#3Yes. Definitively yes. If you're a typical web developer or agency, you're going to have a lot of one-off engagements, project and campaign websites. Those cost money to support, and your customer should supply that money. We never host without both a modest hosting fee, and a SLA for fixes, updates and perfective maintenance.
Re: Ask HN: Do you charge your webdesign clients for ongoing hosting and support?
#4Absolutely. Most clients (in my experience anyways) is actually happy that you can provide hosting so they don't have to spend time in an area they're usually unfamiliar with.
Re: Ask HN: Do you charge your webdesign clients for ongoing hosting and support?
#5We just charge hosting and a small support fee for the small sites. For startups or companies with bigger needs, we have tailor made contracts.
Imho, support has to be a significant part of a company's or freelancer's income. Otherwise, you have to constantly create new websites to avoid bankruptcy :P
Re: Ask HN: Do you charge your webdesign clients for ongoing hosting and support?
#6I'm generally surprised when people don't. The few people I know who don't justify it with "I don't want to have to deal with all that support" (can't quite figure out what "all that support" covers).
"When people have an issue, who do they call?" "Me" "So... they're already calling you. Why not have some $ for that to cover it". "I just tell them to call the hosting company".
It baffles me how those folks stay in business.
I do think in some cases, it's the email support they don't want to deal with, not so much 'hosting'. A couple of folks I know just send everyone to fastmail or google for mail hosting (not something I recommend, but they again claim they don't want the 'headache').
Re: Ask HN: Do you charge your webdesign clients for ongoing hosting and support?
#7When i dabbled in this area, most of the lower end work was surprised there was an ongoing need for hosting. Either directly or their own provider... They thought that once it was bought, it just 'ran' on the internet.
Re: Ask HN: Do you charge your webdesign clients for ongoing hosting and support?
#8Yes, I charge for hosting and support, especially for smaller clients who don't want to know or care about hosting. It means I can do quick fixes and answer questions without either if us having to worry about billing.
I don't make a lot from it, but enough to be worth the trouble. For example, there's a couple of local businesses that I set up single-page sites on github pages. They pay me $25/month, mostly to answer their questions. (Most recent question: "How do I embed a YouTube video into a PowerPoint?")
A lot of my larger clients use AWS or similar and pay their own hosting bills. Support is more if a mixed bag there, but I do try to get a support contract set up.
Re: Ask HN: Do you charge your webdesign clients for ongoing hosting and support?
#9Have someone guard the WordPress instance and run security patches on it is certainly worth money. Nobody wants to keep tabs on that.
Re: Ask HN: Do you charge your webdesign clients for ongoing hosting and support?
#10Yes, I charge for hosting and support, especially for smaller clients who don't want to know or care about hosting. It means I can do quick fixes and answer questions without either if us having to worry about billing. I don't make a lot from it, but enough to be worth the trouble. For example, there's a couple of local businesses that I set up single-page sites on github pages. They pay me $25/month, mostly to answe…
What would you do with smaller businesses when you decide to quit/retire and they need to take control of their own websites?