Most agency revenue is project-based. A brief comes in, you build the site, you invoice, it ends. Then you start looking for the next one.
Care plans break that pattern. A client on a monthly maintenance retainer pays you every month without a new brief, a new pitch, or a new proposal. The work is defined. The price is fixed. And in most cases, the client stays on it for years.
For agencies that build WordPress sites, care plans are the most practical way to add recurring revenue without fundamentally changing what you do. This article makes the full business case and gives you a working framework to get started.
What a WordPress Care Plan Actually Is
A care plan is a monthly retainer covering the ongoing maintenance of a WordPress site. Not development. Not new features. Maintenance.
The core scope covers plugin and theme updates, WordPress core updates, daily or weekly backups, security monitoring, uptime monitoring and a monthly report. Some plans include a small allowance for minor support tasks, such as fixing a broken layout, updating contact details, changing a header image.
The key thing to be clear about from the start: a care plan is not a development retainer. Any new functionality, redesign work or substantial content changes sits outside the plan and gets quoted separately. That distinction protects your margin and keeps the retainer profitable month after month.
Why the Revenue Is So Predictable
Three things make care plan revenue unusually stable compared to project income.
Clients rarely cancel. Once a site is on a care plan, the client becomes uncomfortable with the idea of being without it. They have seen the update logs. They know backups are running. Removing that cover feels risky. Churn on well-run care plans is very low, typically below 10 percent annually.
The scope is fixed. Unlike project work where scope creep is a constant margin threat, a care plan has a defined list of what is and is not included. You know what you are delivering every month. There are no surprises on the delivery side.
It renews without a sales conversation. You do not re-pitch, re-quote or re-present every month. The payment comes in, the work happens, the report goes out. The relationship continues on its own momentum.
What Care Plans Actually Earn
The numbers are more compelling than most agency owners expect until they see them written down.
Monthly recurring revenue at 30 clients
Basic Plan
£75/mo
per client
£2,250/mo from 30 clients
Standard Plan
£149/mo
per client
£4,470/mo from 30 clients
Priority Plan
£249/mo
per client
£7,470/mo from 30 clients
Thirty clients is not a large number for an agency that has been building WordPress sites for a few years. Most agencies have more past clients than that sitting dormant, with no ongoing relationship and no recurring revenue.
The compounding effect. Every new WordPress site you deliver is a care plan opportunity. If you convert even half your new builds onto a plan, the retainer base grows steadily without any extra sales effort beyond the handover conversation.
What to Include in Your Care Plan
Here is the standard scope that works for most agencies. You can adjust the specifics but the core should stay consistent across all tiers.
| Task | Include or exclude |
|---|---|
| WordPress core updates | Include |
| Plugin and theme updates | Include |
| Daily or weekly off-site backups | Include |
| Backup restore testing (monthly) | Include |
| Security monitoring and malware scanning | Include |
| Uptime monitoring with alerts | Include |
| Monthly activity report to client | Include |
| Minor support tasks (up to agreed hours) | Include |
| New page or section development | Exclude |
| Design changes or redesign work | Exclude |
| Third-party plugin configuration | Exclude |
| Content writing or copywriting | Exclude |
| SEO campaigns or reporting | Exclude |
The monthly report is worth highlighting. Clients who receive a report every month see evidence that the plan is working. Update logs, backup confirmations, uptime percentages. It takes a few minutes to generate but it substantially reduces the “what am I actually paying for” conversation.
What to Leave Out
This is where most agencies run into trouble with care plans. The scope creep problem.
A client on a £99/month plan asks you to add a new contact form. Then a new page. Then a banner for a promotion. Each task feels small. But they add up quickly and your care plan margin disappears.
The fix is a clear written scope document that clients sign when they enrol. Include a sentence like: “Development work, new features and design changes are not covered by this plan and will be quoted separately.” Then hold the line when requests come in. Most clients accept this without friction once it is set up properly at the start.
The secondary benefit: care plan clients who need development work become warm leads for additional project revenue. The plan keeps the relationship active; the project work is where you earn more.
How to Price a Care Plan
Three tiers work better than one. A single price point forces a binary yes or no. Three tiers let the client choose where they sit, and most will pick the middle option.
Basic
£49 to £79/mo
- WordPress core, plugin and theme updates
- Weekly backups with off-site storage
- Uptime monitoring
- Monthly activity report
Standard Most popular
£99 to £149/mo
- Everything in Basic
- Daily backups with tested restores
- Security monitoring and malware scanning
- 1 hour of minor support tasks included
- Priority email support
Priority
£199 to £299/mo
- Everything in Standard
- Real-time security firewall
- 3 hours of minor support tasks included
- Same-day response guarantee
- Quarterly strategy call
A note on pricing: these ranges reflect a typical UK market. If your clients are US-based, pricing can sit 30 to 50 percent higher. If you are delivering through a white label maintenance partner, your cost of delivery is predictable, which makes the margin calculation straightforward at any price point.
Selling at Project Handover
The best moment to sell a care plan is the project handover meeting. The client has just invested in a new site. They are engaged. And the question of what happens after launch is naturally on their mind.
Do not introduce it as an upsell. Frame it as the answer to a question they are already asking: “What keeps this working properly after today?”
Walk them through what WordPress maintenance actually involves. Plugin updates that can break things if applied carelessly. Security vulnerabilities that appear in outdated software. Backups that need to exist before something goes wrong, not after. Most clients have not thought about any of this in detail. When they understand it, the plan sells itself.
Finish with: “We offer a maintenance plan that handles all of this for you. It means you never have to think about the technical side again.” Then present the three tiers and let them choose.
Conversion rates at handover are typically much higher than at any other point in the client relationship.
Selling to Clients Who Already Have a Site
For past clients who did not take a plan at launch, a different approach works better.
Start with a free site audit. Run an update check, review the backup situation, check for malware and look at the plugin list for anything outdated or abandoned. In most cases, you will find something worth addressing.
Send the audit as a short report. Not alarmist, just factual. “Here is what we found on your site. Here is what it means. Here is how a care plan addresses it.”
The audit does the selling. You are not pitching a product, you are presenting a diagnosis. The plan is the treatment. Clients respond to that framing far better than a cold email about a maintenance service.
What Happens When You White Label the Delivery
If the technical side of WordPress maintenance is the barrier to launching care plans, it is a solvable problem.
Agencies that use a white label WordPress maintenance partner hand the delivery work to a specialist team. Updates, monitoring, backups, security scans, monthly reports. All produced under your agency brand and sent to your client as if they came from you directly.
You set the price, keep the client relationship, and earn the difference between your plan price and the wholesale cost. The client sees your agency name on everything.
This model works particularly well for agencies whose core service is design or strategy rather than ongoing technical work. You add a recurring revenue line without adding technical workload to your team.
Common Client Objections
My site does not change that often, so I don’t need maintenance.
Security vulnerabilities have nothing to do with how often a site changes. An outdated plugin is an outdated plugin whether the site was last edited yesterday or six months ago. Most WordPress hacks target known vulnerabilities in unpatched software, not actively managed sites.
Can’t I just do the updates myself?
Yes, in theory. The question is whether you actually will, and what happens when an update breaks something. Updates between plugins and themes conflict more often than most people expect. A maintenance plan includes checking that things work after updates, not just applying them. That is where the real value sits.
It feels expensive for what it is.
The cost of a hacked site, a failed backup, or a broken update on an important day is almost always higher than a year’s worth of care plan fees. The plan is not just maintenance. It is insurance. Frame it that way and the price objection largely disappears.
We have someone in-house who handles this.
Fair enough. And if that person is keeping up with updates, monitoring security and running regular tested backups, they may well be covering everything. Ask them. Many in-house “someone” situations turn out to mean “someone who does updates when they remember.” The plan covers what they miss.
Frequently asked questions
A standard care plan covers monthly plugin and theme updates, WordPress core updates, daily or weekly backups with tested restores, security monitoring, uptime monitoring, a monthly report and a small allowance for minor support tasks. Development work, new features and design changes should sit outside the care plan scope and be billed separately.
Most agencies offer three tiers. A basic plan covering updates and backups typically sits between £49 and £79 per month. A standard plan with security monitoring and a support allowance runs from £99 to £149. A priority plan with faster response times and more included hours ranges from £199 to £299. Pricing should reflect your market and the value of keeping the site running, not just the cost of delivery.
Project handover. The client has just invested in a new site, they are engaged and the question of what happens after launch is naturally on their mind. Frame it as protecting the investment they have just made. This is when care plan conversion rates are highest and the conversation feels like a natural next step rather than a sales pitch.
Yes. Many agencies use a white label WordPress maintenance partner to handle the technical delivery. You set the price, own the client relationship, and the partner handles updates, monitoring and security behind the scenes. The client sees everything as coming from your agency. If this is something you want to explore, our WordPress maintenance service covers how that works in practice.