Tier 2
$850
per month
Guardian is maintenance plus active care: everything in Watchdog, faster 24-hour response, performance tracking, small content and design edits, and a monthly strategy call. It’s $850 a month and includes about 7 hours of work. Extra hours are $110. I work in person around Worcester County, Boston and New England, and remotely for anyone else.
Who it’s for
- Businesses whose website brings in customers and can’t be slow or broken for long
- Teams that regularly need small changes made without starting a new project each time
- Sites with many plugins that sometimes fight with each other
What’s included
- Everything in Watchdog: updates, offsite backups, uptime monitoring, a monthly security scan and a monthly status email
- 24-hour priority response
- Performance monitoring, including Core Web Vitals tracking
- A monthly 30-minute strategy call
- Minor content and design edits
- A quarterly security report
- Plugin conflict resolution when two plugins stop working together
- About 7 hours a month of work, with extra hours at $110
What the hours are for
The included hours cover the small jobs that pile up: a new page, a changed form, a broken layout after an update, a slow page that needs looking at. You ask, and it gets done within your hours, without a new quote every time.
Terms for all retainers: billed monthly in advance, with a 3-month minimum commitment and cancellation on 30 days’ notice after that. Unused hours don’t roll over, but they can go into a prepaid hour bank at your discounted retainer rate.
Compare the retainers
- Watchdog: updates, backups, uptime and security monitoring, about 3 hours ($350/month)
- Guardian (this plan): adds performance tracking, small edits and a monthly call, about 7 hours
- Partner: adds active development, SEO and compliance monitoring, about 15 hours ($1,800/month)
- Embedded Dev: effectively a part-time developer, about 40 hours ($4,200/month)
Common questions
How much does the Guardian retainer cost?
$850 a month, including about 7 hours of work. Extra hours are $110.
What counts as a minor edit?
Small changes to existing pages and layouts, such as text, images, a new section or a form field. Larger new features fit better in Partner or a fixed-price project.
What’s the difference from Watchdog?
Faster response, performance tracking, a monthly call, a quarterly security report and more than twice the hours.
Book a free 30-minute call to talk it through, or email info@jeremyanderson.tech.