A retainer that absorbed a Shopify 2.0 rebuild.
The team came to us with an outgrown theme and stayed for two years of biweekly development. The 2.0 rebuild happened inside the retainer, not as a separate project.
The tech team that just handles it.
We handle the steady work of keeping your site healthy: software updates, security patches, performance, accessibility, and the small content changes you don't want to think about. When something bigger shows up, a refresh, an integration, an emergency at 9pm, the same team handles that too.
How We Work
What we mean by maintenance
"Maintenance" usually calls to mind a checklist: plugins, patches, backups, uptime monitoring. We cover all of that.
A maintenance package with Magnolia is built around something larger though. It's an ongoing relationship with a team that knows your site, your brand, and your business.
When a campaign needs a landing page, when an integration breaks at the worst moment, when a reporter calls and you need a press post live by tomorrow, you're not explaining anything to someone new because we already know each other. We enable you so that work that needs to happen fast actually can.
When something bigger comes up (like a full site refresh) we scope it as a separate project... but you're not starting from scratch with an unfamiliar team. We know your codebase, your goals, and how you work, so we get started sooner than anyone else can to deliver higher quality results to you at the speed of business.
Getting Started
Simple, transparent pricing
Choose the plan that's right for your business. All plans include our core features, with additional capabilities as you grow.
Steady
For sites that hum along quietly. Brochure sites, low-traffic marketing sites, established storefronts that don't change much. We keep them running, secure, and accessible. Small fixes and content tweaks happen as they come in.
Good for:
Security and software updates, hosting and uptime monitoring, accessibility checks, small content changes, emergency response.
Cadence:
Quarterly strategy call. Asynchronous tickets in between.
Starting at
$2,500/month, with 5 hours of development time included each month
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Security and software updates
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Hosting and uptime monitoring
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Accessibility checks
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Small content changes
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Emergency response
Active
For sites that are part of your day-to-day business. Steady traffic, occasional new work, a few small projects each quarter. Most of our clients sit here.
Good for:
Everything in Steady, plus regular feature and content updates, performance work, planned small improvements, occasional landing pages.
Cadence:
Monthly strategy call. Shared backlog. Faster ticket turnaround.
Starting at
$3,900/month, with 12 hours of development time included each month
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Everything in Steady, plus:
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Regular feature and content updates
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Performance work and monitoring
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Planned small improvements
In motion
For sites that are central to how the business runs. eCommerce stores under active iteration, healthcare practices with frequent campaigns, organizations growing through their digital channels.
Good for:
Everything in Active, plus campaign landing pages, refresh initiatives, integrations as they come up, feature work, frequent QA cycles, reactive capacity reserved for what shows up mid-sprint.
Cadence:
Biweekly strategy call. Sprint-style backlog. Dedicated chat for urgent items.
Starting at
$6,800/month, with 20 hours of development time included each month
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Everything in Active, plus:
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Campaign landing pages
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Website refresh initiatives
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Integrations as they come up
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Feature work
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Frequent QA cycles
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Reactive capacity reserved for what shows up mid-sprint
The hours above are your monthly base allocation. When you need bundled work on top, like campaign landing pages, full refreshes, integrations, custom applications, or any of our other services, those add to the monthly. We tell you the number before any work starts. See the [full Websites service list](/services/websites) for what can be folded in.
Magnolia service details
What every plan includes, no matter the tier
Our maintenance retainers cover more than the visible work. These are baked into every engagement.
Hosting, with uptime and performance monitoring
Annual fees: domain renewals, SSL certificates, third-party platform charges where appropriate
Security updates & patching, on a schedule that matches your platform's risk profile
Emergency response, with SLAs scaled to your tier
Accessibility maintenance against the standard we set during scoping
A real human point of contact who cares about you and your site
These are the baseline we hold ourselves to on every engagement. When a project needs more, we tell you before the work starts, not after.
When things grow
When the work gets bigger, the retainer adapts
Most of the time, a retainer is steady. Sometimes it isn't. A reporter calls and a page needs to be live in three hours. A new product line means a new section of the site. The board asks for a redesign.
When that happens, the same team you've been working with picks it up. We adjust scope, draw on unused hours when they're available, and have an honest conversation about the rest. There's no separate engagement to start, and no new vendor to onboard.
A retainer that handled a HIPAA-aware data incident.
They joined us on a steady cadence of two-week sprints. When an unrelated platform incident touched protected health information, we handled the response inside the same engagement.
Twenty years of platforms
Platforms we love working in
We've shipped on most of the major platforms and a fair number of the minor ones. WordPress and Shopify are where we spend the most time, and Ruby on Rails is where we go when a custom application is the right answer.
If your stack isn't on the list, ask. Twenty years in this industry means we've usually seen it before.
Common questions
Honest answers to the questions we get most
- Will you maintain a site you didn't build?
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Yes, often. Our retainer practice started largely with sites built by other teams. We'll do a short technical and accessibility audit before the retainer starts so we both know what we're working with.
- How fast do you respond to emergencies?
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Response SLAs are tier-dependent and written into your contract. The Steady tier is within two business days for non-urgent work and within twenty-four hours for site-down emergencies. Active and In motion tiers tighten that further.
- Do you charge extra for refreshes, integrations, or new pages?
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Sometimes. Small additions usually fit inside your existing hours. Larger initiatives, like a full refresh or a multi-week integration, often expand scope. We talk about that explicitly when it comes up. There are no hidden charges.
- What happens to hours I don't use in a given month?
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Unused hours roll forward for up to twelve months. If your site is quiet for a stretch, those hours are still yours when something bigger comes up.
- Can we pause the retainer?
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No. The retainer is what reserves our time and keeps us available when you need us, including for emergencies. Pausing breaks that arrangement, and we'd rather you adjust to a smaller tier than pause entirely.
- What platforms do you support?
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All of them, in the sense that we've worked across most major and a lot of niche ones. We're most experienced with WordPress, Shopify, and custom Ruby on Rails applications. If your stack is something we haven't worked in before, we'll tell you that on the consultation, and we'll be honest about whether we're the right fit.
- What's the minimum engagement?
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Retainers start at $2,500 per month, on the Steady tier. We don't take on smaller engagements as retainers because the relationship doesn't have room to be useful at that size. If you have a one-off project, an audit or page build is probably a better fit (see Audits or Page Building).
Let's chat
Curious whether our maintenance support makes sense for you?
A free consultation is the fastest way to find out. We'll talk through your site, your traffic, what's working, what isn't, and we'll be honest about whether we're the right partner.
We've run retainers for eCommerce stores, healthcare practices, community-based businesses, and nonprofits.
If we're not the right fit, we'll usually point you somewhere that is.