Setup fees and recurring care
How should a web designer price a website setup fee versus a monthly or yearly maintenance plan?
Charge a setup fee that covers the build with a profit, and a separate recurring care fee for a defined scope, then check both against your real hours, costs and capacity.
What you will be able to do
Price a client website as a one time setup fee plus a recurring care fee, check that each makes a profit after your hours, tools and hosting, and know how many care clients you can carry.
Before you start
- Read Price your websites for how to set a project price in the first place.
Why this matters
Most new web designers charge one number and then look after the site for free. A broken form, a new staff photo, a renewal notice: you fix it because you are nice. Multiply that by fifteen clients and you have a second job that pays nothing.
Splitting the price fixes this. The setup fee pays for building. The care fee pays for hosting management, agreed updates, security, backups and support, and it arrives on a schedule you can predict. As an example offer, take around $2,500 upfront plus $1,000 a year for agreed maintenance. It is a shape, not a price list.
Step by step
Tick each step as you do it. Your ticks are saved in this browser.
Write down your real hours per build
Use your last two or three projects, or an estimate. Count the free draft, the call, revisions, content wrangling, testing, launch and handover. Most people forget the last three.
Compute the setup floor
Pick an hourly target that pays you and the business. Multiply by build hours and add direct project costs (stock photos, plugins, paid fonts). Your quoted price is set by value and market, as in Price your websites, and sits above the floor.
List what care includes, with limits
Hosting management, monthly updates and checks, backups, a fixed number of small edits per year, a support response time. Never write "unlimited". Scoping a maintenance plan goes deeper.
Cost one year of care for one client
Your hours for updates, checks, edits and support, plus hosting, backup storage, monitoring and a slice of shared tools.
Set the care fee and check the margin
Margin is (fee minus cost) divided by fee. If it is thin, reduce the scope or raise the fee. Do not fix it by working faster and hoping.
Work out your care capacity
Monthly hours you will give to care, divided by monthly hours per care client. When you get close, raise prices, tighten scope, automate admin or get help.
Plan the cash flow
Setup: a deposit before work, the balance at launch. Care: yearly in advance (simpler) or monthly (easier to say yes to). Put your default in the proposal template.
Write the "not included" line
New pages, redesigns, new features, extra copywriting, third party subscriptions: each gets a separate quote. This line saves more arguments than any contract clause.
Example
You build sites for physical therapy clinics in Denver. Illustrative numbers, to show the math:
SETUP (illustrative)
Hours per build ............. 30
Hourly target ............... $60
Direct project costs ........ $100
Setup floor ................. 30 x $60 + $100 = $1,900
Quoted setup fee ............ $2,400 (above the floor, set by value)
CARE, PER CLIENT PER YEAR (illustrative)
Hosting and monitoring ...... $120
Share of shared tools ....... $60
Your hours: 1 per month ..... 12 x $60 = $720
Care cost ................... $900
Care fee .................... $1,200
Margin ...................... ($1,200 minus $900) / $1,200 = 25%
CAPACITY (illustrative)
Care hours you will give per month ... 15
Hours per care client per month ...... 1
Care capacity ........................ about 15 clients
The care fee is profitable but thin. One clinic sending four extra edit requests a month turns its margin negative. So the scope says how many edits are included, and extra edits are quoted.
The bad version: "Website $2,400, and I'll look after it, just let me know whenever you need anything." Nothing limits the care or sets a fee.
Common mistakes
- One price for everything. Care bundled into the build is invisible, so the client values it at zero.
- Pricing care from hosting cost alone. Your hours are the real cost, not the hosting bill.
- Ignoring capacity. Twenty care clients feel great until you add up the hours.
- Assuming revenue equals profit. A $1,200 care fee with $1,100 of cost is $100 of profit.
Try it yourself
Fill in the example calculation with your own numbers. Then write your care scope as five to eight lines with quantities, and one "not included" line.
Deliverable: a one page pricing sheet with setup floor, quoted setup fee, care cost, care fee, care margin and care capacity.
Time: about 40 minutes.
Check yourself
Resources
- Maintenance scope template write care scope with quantities
- Website proposal template put both fees and payment terms in writing
- Price your websites how to set the project price itself
- Scoping a maintenance plan the full care scope, line by line
Finished this lesson?
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Last reviewed October 18, 2026. Prices, laws and tool terms change, so check current terms before you rely on any figure.