I’m writing to inform all Clockpunk clients about an increase in the costs of our services starting in January of 2024. The Tl;dr is: our hourly work rate is increasing from $110 US per hour to $120 US per hour. Also, each site support fee is increasing by $200 per site per year. I’ll explain a bit why below, and what your options are. If you have any questions after reading that, just let me know! Please read carefully to the end for next steps. (And if you get this email in error, as you have no existing support agreement with us, my apologies! You can delete this)
What’s the reasoning?
There are a few reasons for our price increases this year. The first one, unsurprisingly, is that inflation is hitting us hard like everyone else, and our costs are rising dramatically in 2023. We try to put off rate increases for as long as we can, but unfortunately, to keep the Clockpunk gears turning smoothly, we need to increase our rates.
The hourly rate is a relatively standard small incremental increase, but I expect some to be surprised by our annual support plan increase, which is larger than we have done in the past. This is the hardest increase in pricing I’ve ever had to make, and it comes down to a few reasons as to why we’re making this leap in cost.
In the past couple of years, we have been undercharging for the level of services we provide; the amount of time we have spent on our maintenance plans has grown quite a bit. The volume of sites we support has made it difficult to juggle our other commitments around major events in WordPress due to our client base size. WordPress has undergone some major changes in the last few years – new requirements for PHP versions and the Gutenberg editor have increased the complexity of supporting sites. More things break. We spend more time fixing them, or answering questions. It’s really just not as easy to support a large number of WordPress websites as it was 5 years ago, and our prices now need to reflect that.
We completely understand that this increase might put us outside of the realm of affordability for some clients. Unfortunately, for us to continue to provide the level of service that we expect from ourselves, the cost must reflect the work better. This may result in losing some clients, and we totally understand. We’ll do our best to help transition you to self-maintenance or to another service provider before your existing agreement ends.
When do these pricing changes take effect?
I’ve cancelling any and all auto-billing arrangements on everyone’s existing support agreements so nobody is auto-charged the new pricing. If you have a renewal invoice still in 2023, you won’t see the new pricing until late next year. I’m trying to give everyone ample notice of these changes. These increases will only take effect for any renewals in January 2024 and on.
The hourly rate goes into effect in January for any work done then.
Your Specific Dates and Prices
You can see renewal dates and pricing details across all your sites with us (if you have more than one) here:
https://clockpunkstudios.freshbooks.com/
I want to discontinue services. How do I do that?
Just drop me an email and let me know so I can disable the recurring invoices. We’ll maintain services until your current support plan ends, and then we will remove our management tools and access to your site. We’ll cancel any recurring invoices that are sent. You will be able to keep installed licenses for pro plugins as long as we maintain them, even if you no longer have a support agreement, but any requests for work on your site from that point forward will be billed hourly.
I’m good with the new prices. How do I continue?
You’re welcome to let us know with a quick note. We’ll update your invoices with the new pricing described above in late 2023, and your next invoice will reflect those changes.
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Regardless of whether you continue to be a Clockpunk Studios client due to these changes, I want to take a moment to thank all of your for your past business. I hope that we can continue to work together, but if not, I still wish you every success in your endeavors and I totally understand. Thank you for your time! And as always, if you have any questions at all, please don’t hesitate to reach out.
-Jeremy Tolbert
Owner, Developer, Clockpunk Studios