Monitoring a client’s sites – how much to charge?

[snillor]

A friend and member of my art league has 2 websites. One I redesigned and update. The other I have had nothing to do with until last week, when it went offline. She and I spent lots of time getting it back. She paid me for my time.

From this experience she asked if I will monitor both her sites and keep them up, working with the hosting company as needed (she doesn’t want the hassle of dealing with her hosting company, and besides, she’s deaf, so her calling them isn’t an option). She wants to pay me an annual retainer for doing this. Note that this will not cover periodic content updates or a planned switch to a new registrar and host – she’ll pay me for my time when these happen. It’s mostly to keep an eye on her sites. I suspect that most of the time, I won’t have to do much, but once in a while a big problem could arise that could take lots of my time. It’s hard to predict when unexpected events will happen.

So I have no idea what to quote her for this. Any suggestions?

Thanks

[TheDoc]

Tough to set a fee on something that is totally unknown. I would try to estimate the amount of hours you think could be spent during an entire year and use that as a base.

For small things like that, I can’t imagine it being any more than an hour a month.

[snillor]

Thanks The Doc.

I’ve been thinking I could quote her a relatively low rate for what I think will be typical, stating that’s it’s good for up to, say 20 hours a year or whatever, and anything above that would be billed at my standard hourly rate.

[erikdwallace]

You may also want to try a bi-monthly or quarterly payment so you can make adjustments if the work is less or more than you guessed. Also, Chris (of css-tricks) has a website called Are My Sites Up? to monitor when your site goes down. When it does it will send an email or SMS.

http://aremysitesup.com

[snillor]

Thanks for the good ideas, Erik. Quarterly makes sense for the reason you mentioned – I think I’ll go with that.

I used to use Are My Sites Up, but it looks like they no longer have a free plan. So I set up the client’s sites on Montastic (which offers monitoring of 3 sites for free), with the emails going to her, at her request.

[erikdwallace]

Good luck snillor. Also, thanks for the tip on Montastic, I’ll check that out.

[snillor]

Here’s the “Maintenance Proposal” I just sent her.

I’ll provide up to 20 hours a year total (spread between her 2 sites in any combination) for $200 a year, paid quarterly ($50 on Jan 1, April 1, July 1, and October 1) for maintaining her 2 sites. (My normal rate for her is $30/hr, so she could get up to $600 value for only $200.) Anything beyond 20 hours will be billed at $30/hr. This does NOT cover periodic content updates, which will continue to be billed at $30/hr.

Obviously, I’m betting that maintaining her sites won’t take 20 hours a year of my time, and if she accepts the proposal, she’ll be betting that it will.

Once again, I appreciate the help here.

(Erik, she liked that I could do all the setup with Montastic. One less thing for her to worry about (and possibly get wrong). We know it’s set up right, and she’s a happy camper about it.)

[TheDoc]

I think $200 might be a bit low, but whatever satisfies you! The wording looks great though!

Re: “happy camper”, something to brighten your day: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qle-vjHoQa4

[snillor]

I agree, it’s low. She’s a good friend. Otherwise, I think I’d charge at least $240 – and probably try for more.

[snillor]

To wrap this up, my friend/client accepted the proposal. I just need to put it into a contract for her.

I’d mark this topic SOLVED, but I don’t know how to do that.

[TheDoc]

Nice work!

To mark a topic as [Solved] simply edit your original post and check the box! (I’ve already done this for you)

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