WordPress: Business Models, Licenses, Maintenance, Whitelabeling, and Working with Devs

Every now and then I did some coding for WordPress, mostly for people who manage sites for other clients. They’d only want to pay $20 to $30 max for a freelancer, which makes me think they were pocketing most of the money as middlemen. So I figured I could cut them out and just deal with clients myself. I do get some customers here and there, but I’m still figuring out the business models, especially around licensing and what to charge monthly.

What do you guys usually charge your clients? Someone told me they charge $100 a month just for maintenance. They take a screenshot of the site, get an alert if anything changes, and handle updates or fixes as needed. Seems simple enough, but what work should I avoid? And how can I automate more of this stuff?

What are the solid business models with clients—like, what’s a good monthly rate? How do you handle all the software licenses? What do you typically charge for those? I’d love to see some real numbers from people who are already doing this successfully, and how much time you’re actually putting in.

Also, what’s the end goal here? Are you trying to keep customers long-term with recurring maintenance, or is it more about just selling a one-off page with a theme? Are you guys building full shops too?

Do you work with foreign developers a lot? Any recommendations, or tips on how to find some good ones?

Also, can someone explain how the whitelabel stuff works? Any real-world examples would help a lot.

I do not want to be disrespectful, but I think this depends at least on:

A) Quality of Work
B) Power / Standing towards clients / References
C) Country you live
D) Way of Negotiation: I prefer packages, But some customers are just trying to dump the price.

WIthout some more Information (at least How they work, How long you are working with them, Country where you live & Your References)
Its hard to get a holistic overview, to answer honest

Kind regards

What do you guys usually charge your clients?

Click to expand...

It depends on so many factors. I know you´re trying to get some sort of industry average or something around those lines but its going to be hard for you to find common ground with the rest of the market.

Why?

First and more important...DIFFERENT AGENCIES OFFER DIFFERENT LEVELS OF VALUES TO THEIR CLIENTS!

The difficult part here is that every agency out there think they offer the best service and/or can provide the most value to their clients.

Truth be told, that´s often NOT the case.

On the other hand, you need to define what services are you offering, what type of deliverables, do you have any case studies that can back up your claim to be the best option out there for potential clients, etc.