Ongoing support
Keeping what was built working as the business around it changes. Monitoring of what is live, fixes when a vendor changes something underneath it, and a running allowance for the small changes a working business always needs. From $500 per month.
It is optional, and it is only worth taking on once something is live. Before that there is nothing to look after. After that, the question is whether you want to spend your own attention noticing when an automation has quietly stopped.
Why anything needs looking after
Optional, and only worth taking on once something is live. Vendors change their software, volumes grow, and a process that fitted in March needs a different shape by September. This covers monitoring, fixes, and a running allowance for small changes.
An automation is not a finished object. It sits between systems that other people own and keep changing, and it carries assumptions about how your business works that were true on the day it was built. Both of those drift. Support is the work of noticing the drift early and correcting it, rather than finding out about it from a customer.
Monitoring of the automations that are live
An automation that stops working does not usually announce itself. It simply stops, and the first sign is a customer asking why nobody replied, or a month-end that does not reconcile. The automations built for you are watched so that a failure is noticed here rather than discovered by you.
Fixes when a vendor changes something underneath
The software your automations connect to is not standing still. Vendors change their interfaces, retire the way a login works, rename a field, or alter what an export contains. None of that is your doing and none of it is predictable, and putting the automation back into service afterwards is part of the retainer rather than a new project.
A monthly allowance for small changes and additions
A business does not stop moving because a process was automated. A new form, another step in the handoff, a report that needs one more column. The retainer carries a running allowance for that kind of work, so small changes get made when they are needed instead of waiting to be big enough to justify a quote.
A named person to call, who is the person who built it
This is a founder-led practice, so support is not a queue and not a ticket that gets routed to somebody reading your system for the first time. The person who answers is the person who designed and built the thing you are calling about.
Who it fits
Businesses running automation they now depend on. If an automation now sits in the path of your orders, your invoicing or your customer replies, then the cost of it failing quietly is no longer a technical inconvenience. That is the point at which a retainer earns its keep.
- Monitoring of the automations that are live
- Fixes when a vendor changes something underneath them
- A monthly allowance for small changes and additions
- A named person to call, who is the person who built it
If nothing is live yet, this is not what you need. Start with the free call, and if something should be built, the plan and the build come first.
What it costs
From $500 per month. Where a specific retainer lands depends on how much is live, how many systems it touches, and how much change the business expects over a year. Whatever it lands at is agreed and fixed before it starts, so there is no hourly meter running in the background.
The pricing page sets out this figure alongside everything else this practice publishes, so you can see where support sits against the cost of the work that comes before it.
Questions people ask about support
- What does ongoing support cost?
- From $500 per month. Where a particular retainer lands depends on how much is live, how many systems it touches, and how much change the business expects. The figure is agreed and fixed before the retainer starts, and it is published as a starting point on the pricing page rather than quoted only on request.
- Do I have to take it?
- No. It is optional, and it is only worth taking on once something is live and the business has come to depend on it. Before that it is a waste of money. Plenty of clients take the build and run it themselves, which is why every build is documented and handed over rather than kept in a black box.
- What if I would rather run it myself?
- Then you can. The build comes with documentation of what was made and how to change it, and a handover session with whoever will live with it. Nothing is locked so that only one person can maintain it. The retainer is for businesses that would rather not spend their own attention on this, not for businesses that have no choice.
- How quickly does something get fixed?
- That is agreed with you when the retainer is set up, because what counts as urgent is different for a business that takes orders overnight and a business that reconciles once a month. No blanket promise is published here, since a promise made to everyone in advance is a promise made to nobody in particular.
- What is not covered?
- Building something new. The retainer covers keeping what exists working and absorbing the small changes around it. A genuinely new automation, or a substantial extension of an existing one, is scoped and quoted as build work in the normal way, at a fixed figure agreed before it starts.
- Can I start support if somebody else built my automation?
- That is a conversation rather than a yes or a no. Taking on responsibility for a system built elsewhere means first understanding it well enough to be honest about whether it can be kept working, and that is what the free call is for. If the answer is that it should be rebuilt rather than propped up, that is what you will be told.
How it starts
With the same free 30-minute call as everything else here. It costs nothing and commits you to nothing. If you already have automation running, the call is about what it does, what it touches, and what would actually happen if it stopped. You leave knowing whether a retainer is worth having, and if the honest answer is that it is not, that is the answer you get.