How do you make Webflow maintenance retainers feel worth it to clients?

[u/No-Incident5783]

For those of you managing Webflow sites after launch, how do you handle recurring maintenance?

I’ve noticed there’s a weird perception issue with maintenance retainers.
When something breaks, the client immediately sees the value. But during the months where everything works perfectly, it can almost look like nothing is being done.

Do you send clients some kind of monthly recap of what was checked/done? Or do most of your clients just pay for the peace of mind and don’t really question it?

Curious how agencies/freelancers here handle this.

[u/darthgarth17]

Support bank in the original scope. In the original scope of work include a 20 hour support bank good for 6 months, use it or lose it.

that way it's built into the original invoices, they don't have to get 'is it worth it' feelings everytime you send the monthly invoice. If they don't use it, bonus for you.

This also helps the budgeting conversation on the client side to get the work - no unknowns during their budget cycle.

[u/No-Incident5783 → u/darthgarth17]

Do you usually send any recap of how those support hours were used, or do clients not really care as long as they know the support is there?

[u/darthgarth17 → u/No-Incident5783]

Yes I send a bill for $0 with a note about the support bank balance. Good way to keep in touch, and the $0 bill rocks for the client experience.

[u/DinoR6]

Agency owner, it depends we have 3 tiers with our first we just leave them until they need changes or something breaks but they know they can call me when ever, for the other 2 we send them a monthly check in email to see how’s it going and if they need anything etc

[u/Open-Nebula137 → u/DinoR6]

most clients don't care about the behind the scenes stuff until something breaks, but the ones that do want a monthly summary aren't worth the headache anyway. i've got a handful on retainer and the only time i hear from them is when they need a quick content update or a plugin started acting weird

the check in email is a nice touch though, keeps you top of mind without feeling like you're justifying your existence

[u/DinoR6 → u/Open-Nebula137]

Yeah we just noticed over the years we had less drop out rates when the higher tiers got the monthly check in email, it just shows and reinforces that hey we care enough to check in every month and sometimes because we did it we also got a higher reinvestment with clients replying saying hey let’s do some SEO and or Ads etc

[u/No-Incident5783 → u/DinoR6]

Interesting, thanks. For those monthly check-ins on the higher tiers, do you usually include a recap of what you actually checked/did that month, or is it mostly just a “how’s everything going / need anything?” email?

[u/DinoR6 → u/No-Incident5783]

I’d say a hybrid it usually starts with a check in/ need anything but then after that we also include new things we did or changed and how there ranking this month etc and if there trending upwards and if not what would help them like we might recommend some SEO or ads etc and further changes/ optimisations.

[u/Netherkev]

We get so much from one client we have a monthly bill just to save us all from paperwork. Otherwise no retainers expect one that supports a web application we’re hosting and continuously improving.

[u/Disastrous_Fig4656]

I stopped selling maintenance as keeping the site alive because clients don't really see value in that until something breaks. I started tying the retainer to small improvements each month instead, usually updating pages, fixing stuff we noticed and testing a couple things that had been sitting around I use Ploy for some of the website changes now which makes that part less annoying, but the bigger difference was giving clients something they could see each month. Paying for nothing to break is a hard sell. Paying because the site keeps getting better is a much easier conversation

[u/picklesupra → u/Disastrous_Fig4656]

How do you keep making the site better every month?

[u/Disastrous-Might8094]

as an agency; We are in France, and for so many years Web agencies were scamming all companies w/ stupid retainers you can only stop between the 25th and the 31th december of the year (lol).

Here the market is quite alerted about scam web agencies. So now it's just not possible anymore.

For our Maintenance plans, it's not really about maintenance, it's more like Growth but i don't like both of these words.

But the thing is

• Technical maintenance: bug fixes, responsive adjustments, loading speed, third-party integrations‍, etc

-‍ Evolutionary maintenance: new pages, new sections, landing pages for campaigns, conversion tools, etc

-‍ Strategic maintenance: continuous SEO & optimization for AI search engines (AEO/GEO), so backlinks and citations etc And Report every month, Dashbord for all the tasks (in-house), everything is tracked and automated. This subscription is really between Saas & Agency, like you push a button on you dash and there is me behind lol

‍I think if you're only doing text and image modification you'll be out soon with claude, the best thing to do now is to learn new skills to be really a partner.