Is Your Agency Ripping You Off?

I've engaged with so many clients that have fallen victim to one of the web design industry’s dirty capitalist secrets: the perpetual retainer. Everyday, countless clients are convinced to sign up for ongoing or perpetual retainers that they just don’t need. These retainers usually cover services like SEO, content edits, or routine maintenance, sometimes packaged with hosting in there as cover.

This idea of squeezing the client by leveraging their technical ignorance to manipulate them into thinking that they need something that most of them really don't has never sat well with me, so I am writing this essay to share my thoughts on it.

Disclaimer: Before anyone gets riled up, yes, retainers are useful when they are actually needed, but that isn’t what this essay is about. This is about agencies and freelancers alike pushing perpetual retainers as a recurring revenue stream when they damn well know that they're not going to spend more than a few minutes a month on the client. Hell, some go months or even years without doing any actual work, letting the client think they’re pushing buttons and pulling levers to improve the site’s performance. I believe that is wrong.

There Are Only Two Types of Clients

Let's be honest, most clients either fall into one of two categories:

1. Dormant - Website not integral to business operations: They don't use their site as more than a brochure and contact point, and don’t need updates made more than once or twice a year, if that
2. Active - Website is integral to business operations: The site is a living part of their business operations, they're regularly updating it themselves, or are running active marketing campaigns and using it as an interactive hub.

I have never had a client fall in between. They’re either active then dormant, or they’re perpetually active. Convincing dormant clients that they’re actually active clients is the seam I am ripping open.

The manipulation that agencies run on the mass B2B public is despicable. While many of the offenders I speak of hide behind faceless, generic brands like “CyberNet Techs” or “GrowthMasters,” faking a US address and charging $300-500/mo until the client realizes nothing is happening and attempts to cancel (which can be difficult and uncomfortable,) prominent domestic agencies are just as guilty, and they charge a lot more.

Once a client has experienced the ringer that is an unnecessary perpetual retainer, they often have gained a sour taste for the industry as a whole, leaving the rest of us honest actors to clean up their mess and re-educate clients about how these things really work.

Freelancer’s Freedom

I think that being a freelancer gives you an opportunity to not participate in the corporate capitalistic cons run by bigger businesses, cons like the unnecessary perpetual retainer. Corporations in the agency space run these retainers because they're unfeeling capitalist entities—they're not here to make websites (not talking about the web designers themselves)—they're here to make money. Think: Spotify as a tech company designed to serve stakeholders, not a music company designed to serve artists and listeners. Many agencies are popping up to cash in on the (currently volatile) digital marketing/web design market, not to pursue passion or to genuinely help clients.

As freelancers, we have a choice, and I actually made the choice to both enter and then exit perpetual-retainer-land.

I’m exposing myself here, because that is what needs to happen for systemic change to occur, and stoking systemic change is my life’s purpose. I’ve been doing that through my music and art for my whole life, but I’m just getting around to figuring out how to do it through this channel.

A few years back, I got most of my clients to sign up for a 6 month retainer that came out to around $125/month. The recurring money started coming in and I wasn’t complaining, but because of the way that I live my life and the beliefs that I hold, it was constantly eating away at my conscience. I knew that I was ripping these people off.

It's true that I was providing a service of “clicking update on plugins and themes once a month,” but is that worth $125? It's not. Now, imagine this at scale, and with monthly rates as high as $500 and even $1000. This is not fantasy—this is real—as you will see from the email thread at the end of this essay.

This is the capitalist’s markup at play, remaining hidden because the client doesn’t know any better and will pay for something they think they need. The reason I'm in business for myself is so that I don't have to perpetuate the slimy extractive methods of capitalistic business. This is a global heist that is being pulled on hundreds of thousands of businesses, and I’m blowing the whistle.

I Don’t Hide Technological Advances

I retired the perpetual-retainer “maintenance” service when I moved 90% of my WordPress clients to static earlier this year. There was NO way I was going to be able to keep charging them for something that was now literally a lie due to the change in technology.

While I still offer maintenance retainers for clients that actually need it, that's not how I want to increase my revenue. I won’t knowingly scam unwitting clients on an overblown service that some shouldn’t even be spending money on, given the competition in some markets.

Upgrading my clients from WordPress to static actually improves their site’s performance AND saves them money. Their savings were to my detriment, but I did it anyway, without hesitation, because that is the kind of businessman I am—human first.

In keeping this ultra transparent, I’m still charging a marked up rate for hosting, but that is something clients need and something that I charge a cut rate for—it’s not client extraction or built on a lie.

Work With chadworks™

While my wallet has taken a meaningful hit, almost dangerously, it is forcing me to go after what I really want to bill for: my vision, perspective and unique combination of soft and hard skills.

I’ll tell you what you need to hear, not what you want to hear or what fills my bank account.

I won’t sell you things you don’t need, and I won’t pad invoices or hide fees.

I also work incredibly fast, so fast now with AI that I’ve had to switch from billing by the hour to billing by the minute, because hourly is starting to feel like a ripoff too.

So if you think your agency is ripping you off, contact chadworks™ and I'll tell you if they are. Then see the email thread below for a taste of how I go to bat for my clients.