White-label WordPress maintenance can prove to be a game-changer for every growing agency, as it means you never again have to miss out on opportunities for growth due to a lack of talent or resources.
In this guide, we’ll outline exactly how outsourcing website maintenance tasks can help you satisfy client needs, grow your agency, and, above all, boost your revenue.
What Does a White Label WordPress Maintenance Service Do?
Before we dive in, we should start by ensuring we’re both on the same page when it comes to the meaning of the word ‘white label.’
White-label providers deliver services to your clients on your behalf and under your name.
The way it works is pretty simple:
A client asks for your help with a task that you don’t currently offer in-house.
Instead of turning them down and leaving money on the table, you say, “Sure, no problem!” and accept the job. You then outsource that job to a white-label company like UnlimitedWP, who work quietly yet diligently in the background to complete it for you.
You then inform your client that the job is done, taking all of the credit with none of the hard work or increased overheads involved.
Your client is happy because you just solved their problem, you’re happy because you created a brand new source of revenue outside your normal scope, and because you’re happy, your white-label partner is happy, too.
What is White Label WordPress Maintenance?
Now that you understand the idea of a white-label service, you’ll have a better idea of what we mean when we talk about white-label WordPress maintenance.
In essence, it means crucial maintenance tasks on your client’s WordPress websites are carried out by an outsourced third party and presented to your clients as if they were carried out in-house.
Exactly what these tasks will entail ultimately depends on the nature of your client’s websites and any issues they may be facing, but they typically fall into one of the following five categories:
1. WordPress Updates
WordPress is an ever-evolving ecosystem with lots of moving parts. Themes, plugins, and even the core installation often need updating.
If you fail to make those updates, your clients’ websites will eventually become riddled with security vulnerabilities and performance issues.
Not only does that put your client’s business and their customers’ personal data in jeopardy, but it also poses a threat to both your reputation and your bottom line if you were entrusted to keep that site running smoothly.
White-label WordPress care plans eliminate this problem by ensuring core updates and other essential tasks like PHP upgrades are handled for you.
2. Website Security
An outdated website isn’t the only way security vulnerabilities can creep in.
WordPress’s position as the world’s most-used CMS (Content Management System) makes it a prime target for bad actors.
Any good WordPress maintenance plan worth its salt will include a proactive plan to find and thwart security threats before they become a problem.
For example, at UnlimitedWP, we protect your client’s sites with daily malware scans, firewalls, and the integration of industry-leading WordPress security suites, SolidSecurity (formerly iThemes Security Pro).
3. Backups and Restoration
Whether it’s a security breach, a server problem, or simply human error, there’s a whole host of common WordPress problems that can wreak havoc on the websites you manage.
When you partner with a white-label maintenance provider, you get daily backups of your entire WordPress portfolio.
That way, if any problem arises with the functionality of any given site, you’ll always have a copy of its last known good version on hand. Your white-label partner will even take care of restoring that backup for you, working so efficiently that you’d never know there was a problem in the first place.
4. Bug Fixes and Technical Updates
The amount of time a white-label developer will spend fixing bugs and technical troubles will all depend on the nature of your SLA (Service Level Agreement).
UnlimitedWP sets aside 30 minutes per month for these kinds of maintenance tasks, and it’s usually more than enough for the majority of our white-label clients.
After all, when we’re keeping your portfolio of client sites updated and secured to the highest standards, we find there are very few bugs slipping through the cracks to begin with.
5. Reporting and Recommendations
As an agency ourselves, we know how important it is to demonstrate your value to your clients and prove a tangible return on their investment in your service.
That’s why our service includes technical site audits, monthly reports, and recommendations on how to improve core web vitals, all of which are presented to your clients under your branding, with no mention of UnlimitedWP.
In the long run, this helps you to strengthen and solidify relationships with your client, maintaining clear communication and fostering trust by consistently demonstrating your value.
How Can White Label WordPress Care Plans Boost Your Agency Revenue?
Now that you know what white-label maintenance can do for you and your clients, you can probably start to imagine how it can help you increase reviews.
If you haven’t quite connected the dots yet, allow us to break it down for you.
1. Cost-Effective Expansion
Turning down a client request for website maintenance support because you lack the time or talent to handle it in-house essentially means you’re turning down vital revenue.
Let’s be honest;
In an increasingly competitive industry, that’s not something any agency can afford to do.
One option, of course, is to simply expand your in-house operation, bringing in additional WordPress experts or broadening the job remit of your existing developers.
Either way, that expansion is going to prove costly.
Numerous reports put the cost of finding and onboarding a new employee at anywhere from $4,100 to $28,000. That’s before we get into soft costs, such as the loss of productivity and a small but significant increase to your overheads.
Even if you simply give your current team more responsibility, you will undoubtedly increase their pay to compensate them for the extra work involved.
Outsourcing the work instead proves much more cost-effective.
Some WordPress white-label maintenance packages cost less than $50 per month for each managed site.
This means you get all the advantages of hiring an in-house specialist with none of the financial drawbacks, allowing you to expand your service offer and make a solid profit in the process.
2. Skilled Specialists Vetted for You
There is a third alternative to both in-house expansion and white-label outsourcing:
Hiring freelancers.
On the plus side, this gives you the flexibility to bring in specialists on an ad-hoc basis, paying only when you really need the help.
On the downside, sourcing and vetting skilled, reliable freelancers can still eat up time that would be better spent on revenue-generating projects that better align with your brand.
Partnering with a white-label agency saves you that trouble. Your agency has already vetted and selected top WordPress talent who are assigned to the maintenance tasks that best suit their skills.
Ultimately, that gives you the freedom to focus on growing your agency, safe in the knowledge that there’s a team of experts waiting in the wings should your clients ever need help.
3. Fast Response and Resolution for WordPress Emergencies
Even if you’re lucky enough to find a talented freelancer capable of the task, what happens if a maintenance request comes in at the last minute and they’re too busy working for other clients to take it on?
When you outsource to a specialist WordPress agency, that’s never something you have to worry about.
Our agency proudly boasts a 98% success rate in responding to problems within 24 hours of receiving a support ticket and getting right to work on solving those problems as quickly as possible, without compromising on quality of work or attention to detail.
Being able to offer your clients this fast, effective support means there’s no chance clients can claim you failed to deliver on your SLA and ask for their money back.
What’s more, this swift, proactive approach can serve as a major selling point to potential new clients, reassuring them that when they work with your agency, you’ve got their back day and night.
4. Improved Client Retention Rates
Of course, it isn’t just new clients who are likely to be impressed by your ability to keep their website performing at its best at all times.
Existing clients will be, too, meaning they’re more likely to stick with you for the long haul.
The more of your clients need your agency meets, the fewer reasons they have to go elsewhere looking for help.
Imagine a client comes to you for their development needs but has to turn to a competing agency for maintenance. Should that client develop a solid relationship with that competitor, it only takes one timely and well-delivered pitch to make them jump ship.
However, if you can deliver the same great value for money by providing a maintenance package, they have no reason to go anywhere else.
Given that it typically costs five times more to land a new client than it does to retain an existing one, you can see how this alone can make a significant difference to your long-term revenue.
5. Increased Referral Potential
Securing a new client can certainly be expensive, but it’s much cheaper when your existing client does the hard work for you by recommending you to others.
Naturally, they’re only going to do that if they feel you consistently deliver optimum value.
By making a small investment in a white-label WordPress care plan, you’re able to go above and beyond for your clients without taking a large chunk out of revenue. Going above and beyond typically means happy clients, and happy clients mean more referrals.
How Much Does White Label WordPress Maintenance Plans Cost?
WordPress maintenance plans typically vary from one white-label provider to the next.
Here at UnlimitedWP, our care plans start from as little as $47 per month per site, and include all of the following essentials:
- Daily cloud backups and backup restoration
- Daily malware scanning
- Firewall protection
- iThemes security integration and configuration
- Updates to themes, plugins, and WordPress core files
- Monthly reports presented with your agency branding
- Audits and recommendations
- 30 additional minutes allocated to edits and bug fixes each month.
Why Choose UnlimitedWP as Your White Label WordPress Partner?
If you’ve read this far, you should have a good idea of how your agency can benefit from working with a white-label WordPress maintenance service.
For example, you know that services like ours aren’t just about fixing bugs and problems when they arrive but proactively tackling updates, backups, and security on your client’s websites so that those problems don’t occur in the first place.
Still, what you may not know yet is that at UnlimitedWP, it’s not just what we do but how we do it that we’re most proud of.
Serving as your dedicated white-label partner, we treat your success as our own, doing all we can to enhance your brand’s reputation for quality service and expert support.
With staffed offices in both the United States and India, there’s always a WordPress specialist on hand when you and your clients need us. What’s more, you can invite your clients to a dedicated white-label project management tool with your agency’s branding so they can monitor our progress.
Don’t just take our word for it, though.
Get in touch today for a free consultation and discover how our white-label support can help your agency boost revenues in 2024 and beyond.