Hours for monthly maintenance

How many hours do you quote per month?

[Bradley]

I am following up on this thread here: [webmasterworld.com...] ( I tried replying to the thread, but it is too old).

I am seeking feedback from individuals/companies that have over 50 clients and maintain these 50 sites on a monthly basis.

I am trying to determine the number of hours to quote for each of the 50 sites for monthly maintenance. Maintenance would include content changes, design/graphics, and programming tweaks/updates. Outside the realm of maintenance, we also need to quote for search engine promotion and internet marketing.

My question to you: How many hours per month do you quote each of your 50 clients for 1) maintenance and 2) search engine promotion and internet marketing? Look forward to your replies.

[fathom]

I am seeking feedback from individuals/companies that have over 50 clients and maintain these 50 sites on a monthly basis.

Tough question!

per one consultant that is 1/50 of your total dedicated time. For math purposes say 150 hours/month = 3 people hours/client/site.

I am trying to determine the number of hours to quote for each of the 50 sites for monthly maintenance. Maintenance would include content changes, design/graphics, and programming tweaks/updates. Outside the realm of maintenance, we also need to quote for search engine promotion and internet marketing.

3 hours is not alot of time to due all of the above.

My question to you: How many hours per month do you quote each of your 50 clients for 1) maintenance and 2) search engine promotion and internet marketing? Look forward to your replies.

remembering that it also takes time to run your business beyond client concerns (thus the other 10 hours - 20 work day/month 2 -3 day left over.)

you can only guarantee 3 hours per consultant used - unless you include overtime. (possibly another 2 - 3 hours there).

[mincklerstraat]

This might sound a bit like a no-brainer answer to your question (I certainly don't fit the bill for the kind of respondants you are asking for), but if you don't actually log the minutes / hours you or your company spends per account, wouldn't it be better not to bill clients by a per-hour basis, but per-service, with perhaps a per-hour for special work on top of the stipulated contract?

The thread you refer to is quite interesting, and the "nickel'n'diming" issues do seem to point toward basically a standard mainenance contract, and an hourly charge for extras (those telephone calls, "what's that thing called a printer driver?"). Your contract has to be pretty clear so your clients understand you are there for the reasonable mainenance of their site, and not for all their tech questions and needs. A friendly answer now and then to the oddball questions might warm up your clients for you and get you referrers, but the ones which abuse this should be told that the next kind of this question will get charged by the hour, or refer them to the yellowpages for people offering general computer services (if you're local, network and find somebody who can refer your services in exchange for your referals).

If you charge per-hour fees and you're not basing what your charge on the actual hours, well, you could find yourself getting into problems. Remember the movie "The Firm"?

If you really do want to charge per-hour, you should be able to find cheap or free software that allows you to log your time spent per client, and adds it up for you based on a set of rules (like, is the minimum charge half an hour, even though you just changed six words on a page?).