Ongoing retainer

After launch, the same monthly retainer that funded the build covers the ongoing work — hosting, maintenance, monthly SEO, technical support, and reasonable content / layout updates. There isn't a separate "post-launch retainer SOW" to sign; it's the continuation of the engagement you already signed up for.

This page covers what's included, where the fair-use line is, what's scoped separately, and what cancellation looks like after the minimum term.

What's covered

While the retainer is active, the monthly fee covers:

• Hosting and infrastructure — managed deployment, CDN-backed delivery, server configuration, performance and uptime monitoring, platform updates as required.
• Ongoing maintenance — dependency updates, security patches, plugin / library updates where applicable, anything needed to keep the site operating as intended.
• Monthly SEO audits — once-monthly review of search performance, indexation, and on-page issues, plus the fixes that come out of the audit.
• Reasonable content updates — small content changes, image swaps, minor page edits, copy tweaks, adding pages that fit the existing design system.
• Technical support — business-hours channel for questions and issues; urgent issues (production down, payments failing, site offline) are responded to within 15 minutes.

If your SOW also covers paid ads management, additional integrations, or other services, those are listed there explicitly.

Fair-use policy

The retainer is a flat monthly fee, not a metered hour pool, so there's a fair-use line on what counts as "reasonable ongoing updates" vs. what becomes separately scoped work.

Inside fair use:

• Small content / copy changes
• Image replacements
• Minor page edits
• Adding pages that match the existing design and IA
• Bug fixes for things that should be working

Outside fair use, scoped separately:

• Full redesigns
• Major feature additions
• New system integrations not contemplated in the original SOW
• Rebuilding large portions of the site

When something falls outside fair use, you get a written note before any work starts: what it is, why it's outside the retainer, the additional cost, the additional time, and our recommendation. You decide.

Cadence

Most months are quiet. We're monitoring uptime and performance, applying maintenance updates, running the monthly SEO audit, and making whatever content changes you've asked for. You don't have to do anything to make that happen.

Active months — campaign launches, seasonal pushes, content overhauls — pick up. We coordinate via your preferred channel (email, Slack, Teams, or the support portal) and turn around updates inside the SLA in what's in the retainer.

A monthly check-in is available if you want one — usually 30 minutes, what shipped, what's queued, anything to flag. Most clients on smaller retainers prefer async; clients running larger sites typically want the call.

Cancellation after the minimum term

Once the 12-month minimum is complete and all invoices are paid in full, you can cancel with 30 days' written notice. See minimum term & cancellation for the exact mechanics, including the early-termination fee if you need to leave before the minimum is up.

After cancellation, hosting transition options are available if you want to migrate the site to your own infrastructure. That's a separately scoped project — see code ownership & handoff for what migration involves.

If you'd rather stay on Solagon-managed hosting after the minimum term, you can — the retainer simply continues at the same fee, with 30 days' notice to cancel.

Where to go next

What's in the retainer → Minimum term & cancellation → Code ownership & handoff →