Most retainer pages show you hours or a price, rarely both, and almost never a response time next to either. Here is the whole grid, what the hours cover, what gets quoted separately, and what you walk away with if you leave.
Most people think they are buying hours. They are buying the position at the front of the queue.
When a site breaks for somebody without a retainer, the sequence is always the same. Find a developer. Explain the site from scratch. Wait for a quote. Approve it. Wait for availability. Two or three days pass before anyone touches the problem, and for a store that is the expensive part, not the invoice.
On a retainer the sequence is: send the message, get a reply inside the response window, work starts. I already know the hosting, the plugin set, the staging setup, and which three things on your site are fragile. That context is most of the value and it never appears on an invoice.
The honest version of the pitch. A retainer is worth paying for when your site changes often enough that hiring somebody from scratch each time is the slow part. If that is not you, the maintenance plan at $49 and an hourly rate when something comes up is the cheaper answer, and I will tell you that on the call. If you would rather compare every way of working together first, including fixed projects and the three hourly bands, that is set out on hire a dedicated WordPress developer.
These three get used interchangeably and they are not the same thing.
| Care plan | Retainer | Project work | |
|---|---|---|---|
| What it is for | Keeping a finished site healthy | Continuing to change the site | Building a defined thing once |
| Typical work | Updates, backups, monitoring | New pages, features, fixes | A build, redesign or migration |
| How it is priced | Flat monthly | Flat monthly for reserved hours | Fixed quote per scope |
| Who it suits | Sites that rarely change | Sites that change most months | One-off needs with a clear end |
| Ends when | You cancel | You cancel | The scope is delivered |
In practice my tiers blend the first two. Every tier includes the care work, and the higher tiers add enough development hours to function as a true retainer. If you find yourself emailing a developer every few weeks with "can you just", you have been running an informal retainer without the pricing or the response time that makes it work.
Every tier below shows the price, the development hours and how fast I reply, side by side.
Best for: Brochure sites, portfolios, low-traffic blogs
Best for: Active business sites that ship changes
Best for: High-traffic stores, business-critical sites
Best for: Agencies needing a WordPress partner under NDA
Work beyond the included hours runs at my standard rates: $20 an hour for maintenance and small updates, rising for custom development depending on complexity. Genuine emergencies, meaning the site is down or the store cannot take orders, run at $30 an hour and are quoted per incident once I have seen the actual error. See emergency WordPress support for how those are handled.
All prices in USD, billed monthly, cancel anytime. Hosting, premium plugin licences and CDN subscriptions are billed by those vendors, not by me.
This is the part that causes most retainer arguments, so it is worth being blunt about it.
| Covered by your retainer hours | Quoted separately |
|---|---|
| Content and copy updates | A full site build or redesign |
| New pages from existing templates | A new template or design system |
| Plugin and theme updates with checks | Migrating to a different host |
| Bug fixes and plugin conflicts | Recovering a hacked site |
| Styling and layout adjustments | A new store or checkout rebuild |
| Form changes and small integrations | Custom plugin development |
| Performance and Core Web Vitals checks | A full speed optimisation engagement |
| Small WooCommerce and shipping changes | Hosting, licences and CDN fees |
The rule: if it is a change to something already built, it comes out of the hours. If it is a new thing that needs its own scope, it gets its own quote. You will always know which one it is before I start, never after. Larger pieces usually route to a redesign, a migration, or custom plugin development.
Unused hours do not roll over. Half this market avoids answering that, so here is the reasoning rather than just the rule.
What you are buying is availability. I am holding capacity for you whether you use it or not. If hours rolled over indefinitely, that reserved capacity would quietly become a credit balance, and the month you finally cashed it in would be the month I could not deliver it.
What I do instead. If you consistently use less than your tier includes, I tell you to move down a tier. That is a smaller invoice for me and it is the right advice, so I would rather say it than bank the difference quietly. It works the other way too: if you are regularly overrunning, moving up a tier is cheaper than paying hourly on top. Plan changes take effect from the next billing cycle, in either direction, with no fee.
A retainer month is not a mystery. It looks like this.
Updates reviewed and applied, backups run and tested by actually restoring one, uptime and security monitored, performance checked against Core Web Vitals. You request none of it, which is the point.
Email or Slack, whichever you prefer. You get either the work done or an estimate of how long it takes and whether it fits the hours left, inside your tier response window.
A failing backup, a plugin abandoned upstream, a spike in failed logins. You hear about it the day I see it, not at month end.
What was updated, what was fixed, where the hours went, and what I would do next month. If you consistently underuse your tier I say so and we move you down.
Nobody writes this section, which is exactly why it is worth reading before you sign anything with anyone.
There is no contract and no notice period. Cancel whenever you want and the retainer ends at the close of the billing month you have already paid for.
Everything stays yours: the site, the code, any custom work written during the retainer, the hosting account, the domain, and plugin licences bought in your name. I do not hold credentials hostage, I do not build on a proprietary framework that stops working when I leave, and I do not need to be involved for your site to keep running.
On the way out you get the current credentials list, documentation of any custom code written during the engagement, the most recent backup, and a short handover note on anything a new developer should know about your setup. That costs nothing and is not conditional on why you are leaving.
It is the wrong purchase in a few situations, and it is cheaper for both of us if you recognise yours here.
If it has been identical for two years and you expect that to continue, take the $49 care plan for updates and backups and pay hourly on the rare occasions something needs doing.
A redesign, a migration, a store build. Get a fixed quote. A retainer would cost more and finish later.
I work business hours with after-hours emergency cover on Enterprise. If your operation genuinely needs round-the-clock staff, you need a team rather than a freelancer, and I will say so rather than take the money.
Some agencies sell this. It works by limiting something you cannot see: turnaround, task definition, or how many things run at once. I would rather publish the hours and let you do the arithmetic.
For most business sites a WordPress retainer costs $49 to $349 per month. Essential is $49 for up to 1 hour of development, Professional is $149 for up to 2 hours, Enterprise is $349 for up to 4 hours plus after-hours emergency cover. Agencies needing dedicated capacity under NDA are $1,499 per month for 10 hours. Work beyond the included hours is $20 an hour for maintenance and small updates.
They overlap but they are not the same. A care plan keeps a finished site healthy through updates, backups and monitoring. A retainer reserves development hours so the site can keep changing. My tiers blend both: every tier includes the care work, and the higher tiers add enough development hours to function as a true retainer. If your site genuinely never changes, you only need the care plan.
No. A retainer reserves availability, which means capacity is held for you whether you use it or not, so rolled-over hours would turn reserved capacity into a credit balance that cannot be honoured in the month you finally spend it. What I do instead is tell you when to move down a tier. If you consistently use less than your tier includes I will say so, even though it means a smaller invoice.
Changes to a site that already exists come out of your hours: content updates, new pages from existing templates, styling changes, bug fixes, plugin conflicts, form changes and small WooCommerce work. Anything needing its own scope gets its own quote: a full build or redesign, a migration, recovering a hacked site, a new checkout, custom plugin development. You always know which one it is before I start.
Yes to both, with no fee and no notice period. Tier changes take effect from the next billing cycle in either direction. Cancellation ends the retainer at the close of the billing month you have already paid for. There is no contract and no minimum term on any tier.
I tell you before the work starts, not after. You can approve the overrun at $20 an hour for maintenance and small updates, defer the work to next month, or move up a tier if overrunning is becoming the pattern. Moving up is usually cheaper than paying hourly on top of a lower tier.
It depends on tier, and the time is published rather than implied. Essential is 24 to 48 hours by email, Professional is 8 business hours, Enterprise is 4 business hours and includes after-hours cover for genuine emergencies, meaning the site is down or the store cannot take orders. Emergency incidents are $30 an hour, quoted per incident once I have seen the actual error.
Everything, and it costs nothing. The site, the code, any custom work written during the retainer, the hosting account, the domain and plugin licences bought in your name are all yours. On the way out you get the current credentials list, documentation of custom code written during the engagement, the most recent backup, and a handover note on anything a new developer should know. None of it is conditional on why you are leaving.
Yes. The White-Label Agency tier at $1,499 per month exists for this. An NDA is signed before project details are exchanged, communication runs PM-to-developer directly, and deliverables carry your agency name rather than mine. It includes 10 dedicated development hours a month plus custom plugin and theme work.
Three groups. If your site genuinely never changes, take the $49 care plan and pay hourly on the rare occasions something needs doing. If you have one defined project such as a redesign or migration, get a fixed quote instead, because a retainer would cost more and finish later. And if you need staffed support around the clock you need a team rather than a freelancer, and I will say so rather than take the money.
Unlimited plans work by limiting something you cannot see: how fast things get done, how narrowly a task is defined, or how many items can be in progress at once. I would rather publish the hours and the response time and let you do the arithmetic. If you compare an unlimited offer against mine, ask what their concurrency limit is and what their turnaround is per task.
The scheduled work still happens: updates reviewed and applied, backups run and tested by restoring, uptime and security monitoring, performance checked against Core Web Vitals. Then your reserved hours go on improvements rather than firefighting, which is the point. You still get a month-end report covering what was done and where the hours went.
Send the URL and roughly how often it changes. I will tell you which tier fits, or that a retainer is the wrong purchase for you. Fixed-price quote within 48 hours.
