Updated Hosting Prices and Terms
For clients that joined us in 2023, and the latter part of 2022, read no more. This update does not affect you. The update only affects clients who joined Primal Space before July 2022. If you joined us with your WordPress website before then, please read on…..
A recurring theme from 2022 and 2023 that your organisation is probably already all too familiar with is the rising costs within all areas of your business operations. We’re feeling it too! So in line with the cost increases being felt around the world, we are no longer able to retain historical rates for existing clients for managed web hosting services. We’ve worked hard to hold off on these increases for as long as possible, and have absorbed many costs along the way in recent years. This is our only hosting cost increase since 2019. Although some clients have been with us for almost 8 years now, and have largely had no cost increase applied to date. This alongside the increased costs we’re experiencing in our business means the time has come to increase our hosting prices.
During our internal cost assessments, we’ve discovered that our costs have increased by over 90% within the last 2 years alone. Up more than 150% over the last 5 years….. Largely in relation to energy price increases, which have caused cost increases with our suppliers for servers we lease in data centres. We’ve therefore increased our website hosting prices as a direct result of this. Up to now, we’ve absorbed the costs for longstanding clients to help as best we can. This has resulted in us running a loss for the hosting element of our agreement for multiple clients. It has now become unviable for our business to sustain this any longer.
WordPress Website Hosting Updates
The new managed website hosting prices and terms will come into effect for all existing clients from the 1st of July 2023. If they have not already been in touch, a member of our team will contact all clients at least 1 month prior to this date to provide complete updates to those affected by the changes. The hosting increases will affect WordPress hosting only at this time including WooCommerce hosting. Clients that use our managed Magento hosting services will be unaffected at this time. As our Magento website hosting prices are not changing.
Our basic WordPress website hosting packages now start at £45 + VAT for package 1. All WordPress hosting packages still include the same features as always. Including automatic updates for the WordPress core, theme and plugin updates (assuming all WordPress subscription licenses are in place for your site). We continue to offer automated on-server and off-server backups running every 24 hours. Our team are still here to support you with anything related to your WordPress website. The new hosting rates being applied to existing clients have already been in place for new clients’ onboarding through the latter part of 2022 and 2023.
Website Maintenance & Support Terms
As we operate and improve, we continually update our company terms. Endeavouring to help streamline our operations and keep our development rate competitive. In order to continue achieving this, we have made changes to ad-hoc website development and maintenance services. Going forward, the hosting service will be website hosting specific and maintenance will be treated as a separate service. So as part of the new terms, for clients without any maintenance or development hours bundled into their hosting agreement, a block of development hours is required to be purchased. So if you don’t already have a maintenance package with us, you will be required to buy a block of hours to draw down from to support these ongoing updates to your website.
The minimum hours available to purchase is an 8-hour block for WordPress clients. Meanwhile, for our Magento development clients, it’s a minimum of 16 hours in a development block to draw down from. All blocks need to be paid in full before development can be scheduled. The changes will continue to help us optimise development time for clients by working in blocks. Collating multiple tasks together is a substantially more efficient way of working.
If you’re someone who is confident updating your own website then website maintenance may not be required. We’ve included many helpful guides on our blog to support you along the way. However, if you do require assistance updating your site then we recommend purchasing a block of maintenance hours. This will ensure that you have hours available for us to work on your website when these updates are required. This includes changes you may wish to make to your site such as updating images, and text, writing blog content and adding pages. As well as updating headers and banners on your website and adding or revising contact forms.
These new additions will not affect existing terms for any clients on retainer monthly services, particularly in relation to business critical issues. These will continue to go to the top of the list to be addressed daily.
Website Hosting Terms Updates
To continue to offer a high level of service, we have made a number of improvements to our business in the last 12 months. Also adding lots of new digital web services. As well as a number of operational improvements to help keep our agency’s hourly rate down. With these updates, our company terms have been updated and expanded with new sections and additions.
Other notable changes include the need for us to always have direct access to the DNS and nameservers of any website we offer some services for. These services include website hosting, website maintenance, website support and SEO for example. Going forward from the 1st of July 2023, all websites will need to have nameservers controlled within Cloudflare. You the client will be added as a user there, so both entities have constant access to the nameservers. You can also add your IT company for access to Cloudflare. Should they need to make any changes relating to your email setup for example.
The latest terms with all updates will be sent directly to all clients throughout 2023 at the point of your agreement renewal with us. If you have any queries, please reach out to your client account manager. Or you can email us through our contact page. Likewise, if your website is due some updates and you’d like to purchase a block of hours for website maintenance then get in touch with your client account manager to arrange this.