WordPress is arguably now middle-aged, the boomer of digital platforms!
In the digital world, WordPress powers more than 40% of websites globally. Businesses are turning to WordPress due to its flexibility, ease of use, and vast plugin ecosystem. However, the difference between a successful website and one that languishes often lies in how the service is delivered. While many agencies prefer to sell individual components such as hosting, development, and support, there is a growing trend towards offering WordPress-as-a-Service (WaaS), which packages everything into a single, comprehensive solution.
This is what we do. In fact, we’ve been providing WaaS for over a decade. In fact, since our inception in 1996, we’ve always marketed digital services as a service.
Selling WordPress-as-a-Service is a far superior approach to selling individual components. It provides businesses with a unified customer experience that simplifies management and support, ensures predictable costs and better overall value, and allows clients to focus on their core business goals while staying agile and innovative. As businesses increasingly seek streamlined, effective, and future-proof solutions, the WaaS model offers an unmatched value proposition in today’s digital world.
Why Selling WordPress-as-a-Service is Better than Selling Individual Components
Here, we explore three key reasons why WordPress-as-a-Service is a far superior approach than selling individual components.
1. Unified Customer Experience and Simplified Management
The biggest advantage of WordPress-as-a-Service is the unified, all-in-one experience it offers to customers. Instead of dealing with multiple service providers for hosting, design, development, and ongoing support, clients get everything under one roof. This simplifies their life considerably.
One Point of Contact
For most businesses, especially those with limited technical expertise, managing multiple service contracts and troubleshooting across different platforms is cumbersome. If the website goes down or requires optimisation, it’s often unclear which vendor is responsible, leading to delays in resolution. WaaS eliminates this complexity by providing a single point of contact. With a unified service, the provider takes responsibility for every aspect of the website, giving clients peace of mind that any issue will be handled swiftly and without finger-pointing.
Streamlined Support
With a WaaS model, businesses benefit from a streamlined support experience. Instead of bouncing between a web host, a development agency, and potentially multiple plugin providers, customers work with a single team. This reduces friction and ensures issues are resolved efficiently, without the blame-shifting that can occur when multiple suppliers are involved. In a WaaS framework, the provider is accountable for the entire system, ensuring continuity and a seamless customer experience.
Consistent Updates and Maintenance
Another crucial aspect of WaaS is the proactive management of updates and maintenance. WordPress itself is an ever-evolving platform, with regular updates for core files, themes, and plugins. When sold separately, hosting providers, developers, and support teams may not always synchronise efforts, leading to potential breakdowns during an update. In a WaaS model, updates are handled seamlessly as part of the service. Providers ensure that everything is compatible, tested, and deployed in a way that keeps the website running smoothly with minimal downtime.
2. Predictable Costs and Better Value for Money
Selling individual components often means clients face unpredictable and sometimes escalating costs. In contrast, the WaaS model provides clear pricing and better overall value.
Transparency in Pricing
With individual services, customers often find it difficult to predict how much they’ll need to spend over the long term. Hosting costs may be fixed, but development work and support can fluctuate wildly depending on the needs of the site. A WaaS model eliminates this uncertainty by offering a predictable, often subscription-based pricing structure. Clients pay a fixed fee for all-inclusive service, knowing that they are covered for development updates, security fixes, hosting, and any support needs.
Lower Total Cost of Ownership
When businesses opt for the WaaS model, they are often getting a better deal in terms of total cost of ownership (TCO). Instead of paying separately for hosting, development, and support, WaaS bundles these services into a cost-effective package. While the upfront price may seem higher compared to purchasing hosting alone, clients often find that WaaS saves them money in the long run. They no longer need to hire multiple vendors or face unexpected bills for emergency development work. Everything is covered, making it easier to manage budgets and keep costs in check.
Scalable Solutions
Another financial benefit of WaaS is the inherent scalability of the service. As a business grows, its website needs will evolve. For example, a company might need to add e-commerce functionality or integrate with third-party platforms. With WaaS, scaling up becomes far more straightforward and cost-effective, as the provider is already familiar with the setup and can adjust the solution accordingly. Clients don’t need to hire separate developers or switch to more expensive hosting plans – the WaaS model is designed to grow with the business.
3. Focus on Business Goals and Innovation
One of the major advantages of the WaaS model is that it allows clients to focus on their core business goals rather than getting bogged down in the technical aspects of website management.
Expertise On-Demand
WordPress is powerful, but it can be complicated, especially for businesses without dedicated in-house teams. By offering WordPress-as-a-Service, agencies take on the technical complexity, leaving businesses free to focus on their strategic objectives. Whether it’s marketing, customer engagement, or launching new products, WaaS enables organisations to use their website as a tool for growth without having to worry about the day-to-day technical challenges.
Innovation and Future-Proofing
Another advantage of WaaS is that it allows businesses to stay at the forefront of technological advancements without having to make heavy investments in development. With WordPress constantly evolving, clients on the WaaS model benefit from continuous improvements in performance, security, and functionality. Providers are more likely to invest in cutting-edge tools and technologies, ensuring clients remain competitive in the digital landscape. As the digital world evolves, WaaS providers adapt their services to include new innovations, keeping clients ahead of the curve without the need for costly migrations or development projects.
Increased Agility
For businesses aiming to innovate and experiment with their digital presence, WaaS offers the flexibility to make changes quickly. Whether launching a new service, adding content, or adjusting the design, WaaS providers can implement these updates rapidly, allowing clients to respond to market conditions in real time. This agility is often lacking in traditional models, where clients may have to wait for developers or juggle conflicting schedules between service providers.
the whole of the digital space is moving towards a services model, albeit quite slowly, as clients care less about the myriad of individual components required to build digital services and care far more about the total offering. It’s the primary reason for our insane levels of client retention and drives our focus on providing value today and into the future. We have clients who have been with us for over twenty years, and of those that have left us most it is due to acquisition or the business closing down. We can count on the fingers of one hand, the number of clients who have left in the last five years due to going to another agency, and a couple of those ended up coming back to us.
We turn twenty eight years old this year, here’s to the next couple of decades!
