Retainer or project work: which one you actually need
A retainer here is a monthly line, such as Care at EUR 100 to 300 a month or SEO growth at EUR 500 to 800 a month. Project work is quoted once, per step: EUR 600 to 900 for a single-page landing at step 01, up to EUR 3.500 to 7.500 for an advanced site or web app at step 04, and from EUR 7.500 for a custom SaaS platform at step 05, after discovery.
If you are not sure which you need, the default is the project now and nothing monthly until you have a reason. A monthly fee that buys work nobody asked for is a subscription to nothing, easy to sign and easy to forget.
The case for paying nothing every month
A finished website does not decay on a schedule. What genuinely needs doing after launch is a short list: platform and dependency updates, backups, uptime monitoring, and the occasional small fix or copy change. On a step 01 landing page with a form and analytics, that list can produce no work at all.
You are also not locked in. You own the code, the repository and the database, so no monthly fee is quietly paying for access to your own site. Hosting is agreed per project, and the studio can host when that is what we agree.
So the first question is not which retainer to take, it is whether anything is going to change. If nothing is going to change, take the project, skip the monthly, and come back when there is work.
What each line actually covers
Care and SEO growth are monthly. SEO foundation is a one-off piece of work, paid once, not a subscription.
| Line | Price | What it covers | Not included |
|---|---|---|---|
| Project work, step 01 to step 05 | EUR 600 to 900 at step 01, up to EUR 3.500 to 7.500 at step 04, and from EUR 7.500 at step 05 | The build itself, priced at the step it belongs to: pages, CMS and forms lower down, heavier features higher up | Anything after the 14 days of support on launch defects |
| SEO foundation | EUR 450 to 750, one-off | Search Console, analytics, indexation, technical hygiene, titles, internal links, and a plan covering three to six months | Publishing that plan month after month |
| Care | EUR 100 to 300 a month | Updates, monitoring, backups, small fixes | Redesign, quoted as project work. New features, quoted as add-ons |
| SEO growth | EUR 500 to 800 a month | Technical and on-page work, service and location pages, internal links, reporting | The build itself |
Step 04, at EUR 3.500 to 7.500, is where a login, a dashboard, an API, a CRM connection, payments or a chatbot live. A site with those parts has more that can break, so Care starts to earn its keep.
Three questions before you sign a monthly fee
- Does something on the site change every month anyway? Prices, stock, a new service, a new location. If it does, someone is already doing that work and the only open question is who.
- Would anyone on your side notice a broken form or a failed backup? If nobody checks, monitoring is worth paying for. If you are in the site every week, you are the monitoring.
- Is the site earning yet? A site taking bookings or leads has a real cost when it goes down. A brochure page nobody has visited does not. Care is cheap insurance on the first and an expense on the second.
Two yes answers and Care at EUR 100 to 300 a month is straightforward value. Three no answers and you are buying a feeling.
SEO growth is production, not maintenance
Care protects something that already exists. SEO growth at EUR 500 to 800 a month produces something that did not: service pages, location pages, internal links between them, technical and on-page fixes, and a report you can actually read. It is monthly because the work is monthly, and a page published early is still working later.
It is also the line most worth refusing early. If the site has few pages and no search presence, the one-off SEO foundation at EUR 450 to 750 gives you Search Console, analytics, clean indexation, titles, internal links and a plan covering three to six months. Follow it yourself, and come to the growth line when you run out of easy work or time.
How it runs and when each thing starts
Scoping comes first, and a fixed quote always follows scoping. Then the build runs to the step: 1 to 2 weeks for a single-page landing, 2 to 3 weeks for a mini-site, 3 to 6 weeks for a business website, 6 to 12 weeks for an advanced site or web app. A custom SaaS platform is scoped in discovery before a number goes on it. Design and engineering describes what happens inside those weeks.
The part that waits on you is content and approval. Copy you have not written and photos you have not chosen sit still, and no monthly fee moves them. Care starts after launch, not during the build, and every build includes 14 days of support on launch defects.
SEO foundation belongs at launch, while the structure is fresh and indexation is worth getting right once. SEO growth, if it starts at all, starts after that.
When to spend less
If your site is a landing page or a mini-site, you can edit your own copy and the platform is managed, skip Care. Ask us when something breaks and pay for that fix. Paying every month to avoid an invoice you may never receive is not a saving.
If the budget is tight, put it into the build instead of around it. A step 03 business website at EUR 1.500 to 3.500 that is genuinely finished does more for you than a step 02 mini-site at EUR 900 to 1.500 with a monthly fee stacked on top of it.
And if you are still working out what the business sells, do not sign anything monthly. Take the smallest step that puts a real page and a real form in front of real people, watch what happens, then decide. If that is where you are, do not hire us on a retainer yet.
Questions we get asked
Can I add a retainer later, or is it now or never?
Later is fine, and later is the safer order: launch, live with the site, then decide whether Care at EUR 100 to 300 a month is buying you anything. The build is the same either way.
Does Care include new features or a redesign?
No, and that line stays hard. Care is updates, monitoring, backups and small fixes: a changed phone number, a new team photo, a dead link, a dependency bump. A new booking flow is an add-on at EUR 350 to 750, and a new section or a visual overhaul is project work, each with its own quote. Folding features into a monthly fee is how retainers turn into arguments about what was included.
What happens to the site if I stop paying?
Updates and monitoring stop, which matters more on a step 04 build with a login and an API than on a static landing page. You own the code, the repository and the database, so nothing is being held over you. Whether it stays online depends on the hosting, which is agreed per project.
Can Care and SEO growth run at the same time?
Yes. They are separate lines doing separate work: EUR 100 to 300 a month to keep the site healthy, EUR 500 to 800 a month to make it bigger in search. Neither contains the other, and neither depends on the other.
Can I pay per job instead?
Yes. Buy project work when you need it, each piece with its own fixed quote after scoping. The full ladder is on packages.
Tell us what the site does and who edits it, and we will say which of these lines to skip. Start with the project.
Building something?
JP Studio designs and builds websites, storefronts and product interfaces.