Website support after launch

The site launched, someone opened a bottle — and a month later the form stops sending, the certificate expires, and WordPress wants an “urgent” update. Support after launch is not “a few extra tweaks for free”. It is an agreement: who fixes things, who backs up, and who answers when checkout dies at night.

What breaks without a retainer

• CMS and plugin updates pile up holes;
• disk on the host fills up — images and backups fail;
• the form, WhatsApp button, or payment dies after an API key change;
• nobody reads logs until a customer writes “nothing opens”;
• content needs small edits and the developer is already on another project.

If the site is a three-page card and you edit copy twice a year, hosting with backups plus an SSL reminder is enough. If it is a store, bookings, or paid ads, downtime costs more than a support package.

What a package usually includes

1. Monitoring: the site loads, the form sends, SSL is valid.
2. Backups and a check that they actually restore.
3. Core, plugin, and PHP updates — after a test, not live on Friday night.
4. Small changes: a block, a typo, a cart bug, a new manager email.
5. A short report: what we fixed and what to do next month.

Medium work — a new section, a campaign, another payment method — is quoted separately so the retainer does not become endless development.

Timeline and budget

Taking over someone else’s site usually takes a few days. The retainer is monthly and depends on the stack and traffic. Extra hours are billed. More about support and improvements.

Typical path: access + a short audit, then a monthly package. The brief lists CMS, hosting, how many edits per month, and whether night downtime is critical.

How not to buy empty support

• no list of what the hours cover — every button becomes an argument;
• backups “somewhere on the host” that nobody has restored;
• no escalation channel: a shared inbox instead of WhatsApp with a reaction time;
• “everything included” while a store release is already a separate project;
• no access to domain, hosting, and analytics — nothing to fix with.

A working start: access, a list of critical flows (lead, payment, login), and a clear hour cap. The rest goes to a backlog, not a panic chat.

Need a retainer?

Tell us the stack, when you launched, and what already broke. We will say whether monitoring and backups are enough or you need a package with edits — and send a short checklist before we connect.