I am drawing up a web site proposal for a condominium. I'm wondering what a good monthly maintenance fee would be. Maintenance would include:
Making content changes and updates
Maintaining the portal software and message board
Acquiring and maintaining sponsors and add banners (local pizza shops, cab companies, etc.)
Admin email accounts
Web Hosting
I plan to give them 2 quotes for the initial web design. One would be for creating the site without maintenance. The other would be less but it would require maintenance for a year.

Any suggestions for the maintenance fee schedule?

Mulder

Do you know how much maintenance would be involved actually? There might not be any updates for the first few months, especially on the message board / portal. And then when people find out about it - there could be a lot of messages, updates. And what would you be doing with the message board? Answering questions or deleting spammers?

Maybe quote them a price that includes monthly webhosting and possibly one hour of maintenance a month (and it does not roll over). And then for the second hour $50, and every other hour is $20. Or whatever you think that your time is worth to you.

^^Per Hour might Shy them Away from actually getting the Maintinence....

you might be better off charging a lump-sum per-maintinence or a pay-per-page type thing.

Hey,

I believe I may be able to help a little. We look over the site and talk to the end user, thus estimating how much work each month would need doing. This then can be calculated on a maintenence fee.

You may want to make sure they know you reserve the right to change this at any point, so if the work load goes up or down for a period of time, you can adjust accordingly. This is an optional way of doing things.

An hourly rate will most likely scare them off, and how many jobs take hours?

You may want to offer a "per change charge" and charge them say 10$ for changing banner text and so on. This is a messy way to do things, I don't suggest it, but is an alternative.

Originally posted by 4 Degrees
Hey,

I believe I may be able to help a little. We look over the site and talk to the end user, thus estimating how much work each month would need doing. This then can be calculated on a maintenence fee.

You may want to make sure they know you reserve the right to change this at any point, so if the work load goes up or down for a period of time, you can adjust accordingly. This is an optional way of doing things.

An hourly rate will most likely scare them off, and how many jobs take hours?

You may want to offer a "per change charge" and charge them say 10$ for changing banner text and so on. This is a messy way to do things, I don't suggest it, but is an alternative.

That's all very good advice.

Are you hosting them?


Because if you are you could calculate it into hosting by giving them options. The dollar amounts entered below are simply for example and do not reflect anything other than a visual reference for comparison...

Hosting Option 1 = Just hosting
Includes: Just hosting
Cost: $5 per month


Hosting Option 2 = Hosting/Minimal maint.
Includes: Hosting and 1 hour per month (no rollover) of maint.
Cost: $10 per month and $5 per page after the first hour is used


Hosting Option 3 = Hosting/Major maint.
Includes: Hosting and 3 hours per month (no rollover) of maint.
Cost: $25 per month and $5 per page after the first hour is used



Obviously the dollar amounts could be changed to match (I just picked them to illustrate the idea of incorporating it into the hosting).

You could also change the "per page" additional amount to "per hour". Will it "scare" some customers? Maybe, but not to the extent I think is being said here. I think what it does is give the customer all the more reason to just go ahead with a bigger plan (Hosting option 3 for example) so they get 3 hours of updates for a small increase of $15 more per month rather than 3 pages of updates --- 2 extra hours for $15 is better than 3 pages for $15 (in this example). Basically you are giving them 2 options -- pay a little more per month instead of possibly paying a lot to get a bunch of last minute updates done.

Just an idea /shrug

Hourly rates don't scare big business people. But I assume (correct me if I'm wrong) that you're offering to small to medium sized businesses?

The hosting idea is a good one, but that's more of a hosting offer rather than a maintenence fee, which I assume is what most your clients would be looking for.

Good luck,

EDIT: Another way is if they choose to have the maintenence fee for the year, say you throw in free hosting, just an idea.

Wow!!! I wasn't expecting so much feedback on a Saturday- Thanks!!!

This is for a condominium association so I think an hourly rate will scare them off. I will be hosting them.

I'm thinking that I will charge $20-$30 for hosting and moderating the portal and message board. I will training them on how to add news to the portal. I'm thinking that any content additions or changes will have to be negotiated.

I'll let you guys know what I finally come up with. I may even post my proposal in case someone wants to use it.

Thanks again!

Mulder

Sounds good Mulder - keep us posted as to how it turns out ;)

Here is how we do maintenance. At the beginning of the year they select a chunk of hours per month (5,10,15,20...have to be in 5 hr increments) and we charge them 1/2 price for it. any hours they don't use is non refundable, but they are actually getting 5 hours for the price of 2.5 hours. if they go over that amount in a month, additional hours are charged at hour normal rate in 15 min increments

so if they wanted to have 5 hrs per month in maintenance they would pay $1500 ($50/2 * 5 * 12). If in one month we did 7.5 hours of work, we would send them an invoice for $125 ($50 * 2.5).



from our experience it is the best way of doing it. you are selling a chunk of your time and eventhough they might not use it, it was still available therefore they need to pay for it. (if I set apart 20 hrs per month for a client and he doesnt use it one month, I still had set aside 20hrs that month in which I could have been doing work for another client). The paying half hourly rate usually removes any concerns that they might be overpaying. But most of all, it keeps you a recurrent stream of income and if there is any future work needed, they are currently in contact with you so they will use you.



also, do the maintenance and web design contract separate. give them an estimate of what the maintenance would be but don't commit yourself to it until the project is completed. projects change and what you were expecting to do before the project started isn't always what you will do once it is completed. I also get a hosting agreement signed when they are signing the contract (not included in contract though) that basically states hosting costs $XX/ year and will be charged every year unless the client requests a termination of hosting. That way you don't need to get together and sign another hosting agreement every year, just have it keep renewing until the client no longer wants it.

Thanks for the info!

BTW, are there generic web design contracts floating around on the web somewhere? What about proposals?

Mulder

http://www.scottmanning.com/services/contract/

you can get much better documents if you buy something like ProposalKit's Contract Package (http://www.proposalkit.com/kits/proposalkit.htm) or The Web Design Business Kit (http://www.sitepoint.com/books/freelance1/) from Sitepoint.