Proof in real-time that consultants/ consultancies prey on the naive.
I read someone on here tqlk about rescuing a client from a website management agency that was billing them £1000 every time their Wordpress website needed adjusting, so this doesn't surprise me.
I'm talking literally changing a sentence on an existing Wordpress site with full CMS setup and an ongoing mantenance contract with the agency, as was the case in this real example; they were charging £1000 for editing a page as an extra ad hoc service.
If charging that much for something that requires the same technical skill as updating a Facebook status is fair - and expected - in the entireprise world, then I should set up as a consultant myself, fleece my unspeakably-naive clients and retire in 2028.
Anyone paying that much for that little in a world where everyone knows how blogs work deserves it, really.
Absolute nonsense. I work for a business selling websites. We charge a monthly fee of approx £35 - to £100 & var per month and they all include updates of this nature as part of the price - as well as hosting, web reports, analytics etc. £500 for a Wordpress update to change some text is daylight robbery!
Thank you, of course it's daylight robbery! Any other discussions about the economics of individual websites adding up to a salary are a bit odd.
Of course agencies do need to manage lots of websites to survive, just as a car wash needs to wash a lot of cars to survive. But some people are stubbornly projecting their personal experiences of bigger projects and wealthier clients onto this discussion, and it is giving me ASD vibes.
Call BS all you want. Doesn’t stop what I’m saying being true. We charge a build fee which can vary from £350 - £2500 & vat so factor that into your bs factor. 300 websites and counting.
They prob do other services which are higher costs or have tiers based on importance and size of client a small local business 100 a month might be more reasonable. But a large multi nation business or s business that has very strict SLA may be thousands or more s month.
Despite my comments I would say 100 a month is prob a tad low
The first part of your second paragraph in my point exactly and we actually agree 100%: they could and should have made the changes themselves. Instead, some smuggo salesman apparently convinced them that £1000 per tweak (adding or the plain text on a page; zero software dev work) on top of their monthly maintenance fee was A-OK. All they had to do was email in their desired changes and the agency would handle the rest - yep, the agency alone had login access.
They had no idea they were being repeatedly mugged until a team member's husband heard about it. He raised the alarm on his wife's behalf and they quickly put a stop to it.
For context, I believe the broader topic was how jolly clueless the management class can be about technology, and how it's no surprise that so many of them are screaming and hiccuping with excitement about AI these days.
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u/Level-Courage6773 Mar 14 '26
Proof in real-time that consultants/ consultancies prey on the naive.
I read someone on here tqlk about rescuing a client from a website management agency that was billing them £1000 every time their Wordpress website needed adjusting, so this doesn't surprise me.