Why we stay after launch

Most of the messages I get about a website or a piece of software are not about building something. They are about something that was built a while ago and has stopped behaving. A contact form that quietly stopped sending. A plugin update that nobody dares run. A developer who moved on and took the passwords with them. An app that worked fine until real users arrived.

None of these are launch problems. They are what happens after launch. That is the reason we price the build and the monthly care together, and the reason I think anyone buying a site or software should ask about the second part before they sign for the first.

Launch is the easy day

On launch day everything is fresh. The code is new, the plugins are current, the person who built it is still around and remembers why things are the way they are. It is the best the system will ever be without someone looking after it.

Then time passes. WordPress, its plugins and the server underneath all release updates, many of them security fixes. Payment providers change how they send confirmations. Browsers change. The email service your form relies on changes its rules. None of this is anyone's fault. It is simply what software does when it lives on the internet.

Our own pricing page says it plainly: the monthly plan is the part most people discover they needed about six months after launch. I wrote it that way because it matches what I see. The build gets a budget, a contract and a deadline. The years after get nothing, until something breaks.

The four ways it usually goes wrong

When I look at a system that has gone wrong, the cause is almost always one of these.

• Updates that stopped. Someone ran an update once, something broke, and from then on nobody touched it. Every month that passes makes the next update riskier, so it keeps not happening.
• Things that fail quietly. A form stops delivering, a backup stops running, a payment confirmation never arrives. Nobody notices for weeks because nothing turns red.
• The developer who left. The person who built it moved on, and with them went the logins, the knowledge of how it fits together, and the only copy of some important detail.
• Nobody owns it. The marketing person thinks IT has it. IT thinks the agency has it. The agency finished the project two years ago.

The last one is the real root. The first three are what it looks like from outside.

We took over a corporate WordPress site for BM Mobil after a security incident, at a point where the original agency was no longer involved. We regained control, checked for planted files before changing anything, closed the common entry points and gave them a ranked, costed list of what was left. That is good work, and I am glad we could do it. But most of it would not have been needed if someone had owned that site all along.

Why the build and the care are priced together

When the same people build a system and then run it, two things change.

First, we build differently. If we know we will be the ones patching it at night, we do not leave clever shortcuts in it. We keep a test copy, write things down, and choose plugins and libraries we will still be happy to update in three years. The incentive is simple: our future selves pay for our shortcuts.

Second, you are never handed a system and left alone with it. The people who know why it works the way it does are the people answering when it does not.

So this is how we work. A fixed price agreed before any work starts, so the build is not open-ended. Then a monthly plan run by the same people. For websites and stores that plan is Care, from €49 a month: hosting, SSL, daily backups, updates tested before they go live, a check every five minutes, and the small changes like opening hours, prices or a new banner. For software it is Run, from €750 a month: updates and security patches, monitoring, backups, a fast response when something breaks, and a budget of engineering hours for small changes. Both are rolling monthly and can be cancelled with 30 days' notice. Both work on systems we did not build.

If you are not sure what state your system is in, the €1,000 System Review is where I would start. We read the code, the hosting and the data, and write down what is broken, what is fragile and what is fine. The full amount comes off the build if you go ahead within 30 days. If we think you do not need us, the report says so.

When you do not need monthly care

I would rather lose a monthly plan than sell one that is not needed. Here is when I think you can skip it.

• You have someone in-house who actually does it. Not someone who could, but someone whose job includes running the updates, checking the backups and answering when the form breaks. If that person exists, pay them well and keep them.
• The site is temporary. A campaign page or an event site that comes down in a few months does not need years of care. It needs to be built cleanly and switched off on time.
• Nothing important runs through it. If the site takes no orders, no payments and no enquiries, and changes once a year, the risk is small. Keep it updated and keep a backup, and check now and then that both are true.
• Nobody uses it yet. If you are still testing an idea, spend the money on finding out whether anyone wants it. Care and review come when real users and real payments are close.

If none of these fit you, then someone needs to own the system every month. It does not have to be us. But it has to be someone, with a name, and you should know who it is.

Questions worth asking before you sign anything

Whoever you hire, these questions will tell you a lot.

1. Who runs the updates after launch, and are they tested on a copy before they reach the live site?
2. How will we know if the site goes down or a form stops sending? Who gets told first?
3. Where are the backups, how often are they made, and when were they last restored as a test?
4. Who holds the logins, the domain and the hosting account? Are they in our name?
5. If you stop working with us, what do we get, and how long does the handover take?

A good answer to the last one matters most. The point of care is not to make you dependent on us. It is to make sure that someone is watching, and that you could walk away cleanly if you ever wanted to.

Both plans and their prices are on our pricing page. If you want to talk about your own site or software, write to us through the contact page and one of us will reply.