Hey Alen, my business has been a highly successful maintenance provider for years. While most agencies were still doing one-time website projects for a few thousand bucks, then upselling a la carte post-launch services or some kind of retainer, I dropped all that and moved to subscription everything before I saw anyone else doing it. I’ll build a fresh site or maintain your existing one on WordPress, Wix, Shopify, or Squarespace for one low monthly rate with a ton of included ongoing benefits. That model made my business very popular, but honestly I have stopped promoting maintenance plans because I'm evolving beyond it, and even more so, I think the web industry shift with AI is slowly killing that role.

So my advice to you is: don’t try to be just a maintenance provider. You need to do that stuff, and of course it is important, but you have to offer way more value than updating plugins. I'm sure you are a full service provider, so make it all part of your offer - not just those typical WP maintenance plans you see everyone else doing now.

Over the last few years, I’ve seen a lot of others pick up this model you are describing and even directly copy my plans. However most are primarily focused on WordPress. Honestly, the maintenance space is flooded now. Everyone offers WordPress security, plugin updates, included hosting, and maybe some minor page edits or a new blog post for $75-250 a month. There are literally thousands of providers doing exactly that and most are competing on price for the same services - so it is a race to the bottom.

Evidence of this would be the big dog in the space, SiteCare, who has really changed its business model in the last year or two with higher prices and more corporate client focus. They’re focused on bigger businesses now because there are truly far too many maintenance providers chasing SMBs for low-cost WP maintenance needs.

Me personally, I don’t even promote maintenance through my business anymore. I’ve shifted my model toward website + marketing coaching and other solutions I think business owners get more value from. With AI changing how sites get built and managed, I think the maintenance industry is slowly but surely dying. Of course I still include maintenance as it is always needed, and I include a lot in my plans, but it is all part of a bigger value-priced offer. 

So I’d encourage you to think about your ongoing plans beyond plugin updates and minor fixes. Include all those little things, but pair them with something of real value that keeps clients with you for years and earns you a seat at their table with something they truly need and cannot find elsewhere. Just being “the WordPress maintenance guy” won’t get you there anymore. 

The model matters less than making ownership clear before launch. Clients should know who handles hosting, updates, backups, content changes, and what falls outside the monthly scope.

Great question. We’ve moved to a similar model and it’s been a game-changer for both client retention and our own peace of mind.

For us, it’s a monthly subscription to do plugin, theme, and core maintenance. We found that billing hourly for maintenance often leads to “scope creep” anxiety for clients, whereas a fixed monthly fee makes it an easy operational expense for them.

One thing we’ve added recently is a security and monitoring layer, especially given how fast vulnerabilities are appearing in the WordPress ecosystem now. We provide a service called WordPress Care that handles:

- Proactive updates: We update core, plugins, and themes with visual checks to ensure nothing breaks, rolling back if needed.
- Security patching: We apply virtual patches for known vulnerabilities within hours of disclosure, which is critical since many exploits happen before a fix is even released.
- PitchPurge AI: This is a plugin we provide exclusively in our plans that filters out spam from contact forms so real leads don’t get buried. It's the most effective way to stop human-based form spamming.
- 24/7 Monitoring: The site is checked every 60 seconds with a 4-hour resolution commitment for outages.

Our plans start around $149/site/month for basic care, with add-ons for e-commerce or sensitive data security. It’s much cheaper than the cost of emergency recovery if a site gets hacked.

We also include a monthly report on what was done, what was skipped, and why, so clients always know what’s happening.

Even though we're a full-service agency that also provides WordPress care, if you’re looking to swap referrals, we’re happy to do so for the right mutual fit.
https://webidextrous.com/wordp...

We include a year of hosting and maintenance in the initial quote (we generally use WordPress for building sites). During that time, we include up to 10 hours every month of minor updates, but leave larger edits (redesigns, new designs, new coding) on a proposal/quote basis. We also have basic hosting for which all work is billed hourly, but the client is responsible for site maintenance, but very few clients have chosen this - mostly legacy clients from before the maintenance program.

I use a flat month-to-month fee. It is estimated for 10 hours of work per month. So, I use a calculation based on $40/hour, so about $400/month. 

For self-hosted CMS sites, like WordPress, I handle post-launch maintenance with monthly subscriptions that bundle hosting, maintenance, monitoring, and content updates. Custom software gets custom support. Clients with small budgets get which ever software and security updates included platform matches their needs best (e.g., Squarespace, Shopify, Wix), or a static site if the content is rarely updated. Client retention has been good with this approach.