Care & growth retainer
Care & Growth
The retainer with a price tag, not a maintenance mystery invoice.
"Maintenance" is almost always sold as an unpredictable hourly rate with no ceiling — a site goes quiet for months, then an invoice arrives nobody can fully explain.
The outcome
Care & Growth is structured the other way round: three defined levels of monthly scope, each with a published price, so a client always knows exactly what a month of attention costs before it happens.
This is the one genuinely recurring line in the whole catalogue, and it reads that way on purpose — closer to a subscription plan comparison than to a project pitch. It works whether arcdesignlabs built the site or product originally or not.
Who it's for
- Anyone with a live site or product that needs ongoing updates and monitoring
- Businesses tired of an open-ended hourly maintenance rate with no ceiling
- Teams who want a single monthly line item instead of a stack of one-off invoices
- Sites or products built elsewhere — this service isn't exclusive to arcdesignlabs builds
Who it's not for
- A brand-new project that hasn't launched yet (start with the relevant build service first)
- A single one-off fix or update (talk to us — this may not need a retainer at all)
- A major redesign or rebuild (that's a new project under the relevant service, not care)
- Anyone unwilling to commit to the three-month minimum term
What's included
Essential Care
- Monthly software/plugin/dependency updates
- Uptime monitoring
- A monthly report of what was checked and changed
Active Care adds
- A defined monthly allowance of small content or design updates
- Priority response within the studio's stated hours
Growth Partner adds
- A larger monthly allowance for updates and incremental improvements
- A recurring check-in call to review performance and plan next priorities
Not included
- Hosting or domain costs (these remain the client's own accounts)
- A full redesign or new feature build (scoped and priced separately, as a new project)
- Emergency out-of-hours response outside the studio's published hours
- Content creation or copywriting beyond small in-scope edits
Compare tiers
Packages
Essential Care
€190/mo excl. VATRolling, 3-month minimum
- Monthly software/plugin/dependency updates
- Uptime monitoring
- A monthly report
Active Care
€480/mo excl. VATRolling, 3-month minimum
- Everything in Essential Care
- A defined monthly allowance of small content/design updates
- Priority response within published hours
Growth Partner
€1,200/mo excl. VATRolling, 3-month minimum
- Everything in Active Care
- A larger monthly allowance for updates and incremental improvements
- A recurring check-in call
How this service runs
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01 Scope
Pick Essential, Active or Growth Partner based on how much ongoing attention your site needs.
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02 Kickoff
Give us access to your site, hosting and CMS; we run a baseline check before the first billing cycle.
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03 Design
Each month, you tell us what to prioritise — or let your tier's monitoring flag what needs attention.
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04 Build
We make the updates, fixes and improvements inside your monthly scope allowance.
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05 Launch
You get a short monthly note on what changed and what we recommend next — no surprise invoices.
This service has no concept case study of its own — it's an ongoing relationship, not a one-off deliverable to showcase. See /pricing/ to compare all three tiers directly.
FAQ
Can I cancel anytime?
After the three-month minimum term, yes — it's a rolling monthly retainer, cancel-friendly from that point. See /refund-policy/ for full cancellation terms.
What happens if I don't use my full monthly allowance?
Unused allowance doesn't roll over month to month — each tier's allowance resets at the start of the next billing cycle.
Do you host the site as part of Care & Growth?
No — hosting and domain costs stay in your own accounts. We work within your existing hosting setup rather than taking it over.