How do you charge clients for ongoing costs?

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turb

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#293009 20-Dec-2021 18:47

Hi All,

I'm a hobbyist-level web developer doing this kind of thing, just starting to get a bit of paid work.

How do you charge clients for setting up hosting etc? They don't know enough to do it themselves, so do I pay for the first month and then they take over the billing for the account?

Similarly, if it's a Wordpress site, and I need to use a paid plugin, how do they take over the subscription?

I guess I could charge an ongoing fee for maintenance, future editing etc that would include that stuff, but I don't think either the client or I would necessarily want to commit to that.

Sorry these are really noob questions...

Interests: HTPC, Web App authoring.

timmmay

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#2836103 20-Dec-2021 18:51

Charge for your time doing things, and charge monthly fees for hosting and support if you want to. You could alternately have customers directly buy anything that has recurring fees, but that's a hassle.

xpd

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#2836118 20-Dec-2021 20:08

Sign up as a reseller with a host - that way you pay $xx amount to the host each month, and you can on-charge a monthly fee to the customer for hosting etc

Any paid plugins etc, you get them to pay it or you pay and on-charge it, and use an email on their domain to register etc. Then if they ever want to leave your services, they have everything under their domain already and move on without hassle.

XPD / Gavin

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Dynamic

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#2836175 21-Dec-2021 07:23

Is your client taking on:

the risk of web site hacking?
doing or ensuring updates are applied promptly?
ensuring the site is backed up on a regular basis?
Keeping an eye on WordFence alerts?

If no, do it and charge for it. If you want this to be a side hustle that grows, recurring billing keeps the relationship at the top of your client's mind. If a mate mentions web site trouble, do you want your client to say 'yeah we have a guy and here are his details' or 'we used a guy once, can't remember who he was'

I like the plan of using something like Xero to do automatic monthly, quarterly, or annual billing. Set and forget.

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turtleattacks

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#2836211 21-Dec-2021 09:02

Dynamic:

Is your client taking on:

the risk of web site hacking?
doing or ensuring updates are applied promptly?
ensuring the site is backed up on a regular basis?
Keeping an eye on WordFence alerts?
If no, do it and charge for it. If you want this to be a side hustle that grows, recurring billing keeps the relationship at the top of your client's mind. If a mate mentions web site trouble, do you want your client to say 'yeah we have a guy and here are his details' or 'we used a guy once, can't remember who he was'

I like the plan of using something like Xero to do automatic monthly, quarterly, or annual billing. Set and forget.

I have a client that incurs about $10USD of AWS hosting costs per month.

Think I charged them something like $200+GST and then will absorb the excess for the next 2 years. They are a good client.

Will just charge them that again in 2 years.

----

Creator of whatsthesalary.com and whatstheincometax.com

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#2836235 21-Dec-2021 10:16

If its something you dont want to be paying for
get their CreditCard info & use that when setting up .
You cant get reseller rates on many things .

Ive done that several times .
Otherwise it can get messy adding in a profit margin when they can see the original cost to you . Dont pay for services yourself unless you add a
profit margin in (just as they add margins when they charge customers ).

turb

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#2836247 21-Dec-2021 10:32

Dynamic:

Is your client taking on:

the risk of web site hacking?
doing or ensuring updates are applied promptly?
ensuring the site is backed up on a regular basis?
Keeping an eye on WordFence alerts?
If no, do it and charge for it. If you want this to be a side hustle that grows, recurring billing keeps the relationship at the top of your client's mind. If a mate mentions web site trouble, do you want your client to say 'yeah we have a guy and here are his details' or 'we used a guy once, can't remember who he was'

I like the plan of using something like Xero to do automatic monthly, quarterly, or annual billing. Set and forget.

Seeing this, I realise how much I'm doing for other people!

Interests: HTPC, Web App authoring.

Samsung

Shop now on Samsung phones, tablets, TVs and more (affiliate link).

turb

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#2836254 21-Dec-2021 10:43

Thank you everyone for the input. Moving to a more professional setup is a big step, as the rest of my non IT work is either in public healthcare or voluntary, but I'm going to have to get more hard-nosed for paying clients.

At this stage, I quite like the idea of just asking for their credit card details. Let's face it, we need to trust each other, or it's not going to go anywhere. And then I can just bill them for my time as agreed.

Interests: HTPC, Web App authoring.

raytaylor

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#2837817 24-Dec-2021 14:02

One tip though - use a cpanel based web host. That way if you ever leave the industry or decide you dont want to do the work anymore in keeping the site maintained, it can easily be moved to another web hosting company that uses cpanel quite easily.

Ray Taylor

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deadlyllama

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#2837967 24-Dec-2021 15:32

We used to charge a monthly rate the same as our hourly rate. Hosting plus the first hour of chargeable time included.

cwd

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#2864583 10-Feb-2022 11:03

We work with a lot of design agencies and developers for this type of thing.

Happy to come up with a solution for you should you still need one. Flick us an email support@coasthosting.net or DM

Dave
Coast Hosting