WordPress Tips

Ultimate Guide to Recurring Revenue for Your WordPress Business

Recurring revenue is the foundation of any successful WordPress business. No matter how great your products or services are, you need recurring revenue to continue or grow your business. 

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Alexis Bryan

When it comes to growing your WordPress business, recurring revenue is the answer. 

Recurring revenue refers to ongoing earnings generated through existing clients. It’s important for everybody, whether you’re an agency owner, freelancer, or solopreneur. Typically, recurring revenue is on a monthly basis, but it can also be daily, weekly, or yearly. What separates it from other revenue sources is that it’s predictable and stable. 

In this article, we cover why you need recurring revenue, how to set up a recurring revenue strategy, and additional tips to ensure your success. 

Let’s dive in. 

Why do you need recurring revenue?

Recurring revenue is the foundation of any successful WordPress business. No matter how great your products or services are, you need recurring revenue to continue or grow your business. 

With recurring revenue, you also:

  • Have a safety net and peace of mind. Recurring revenue is predictable, so you won’t rely on consistent new sales anymore. 
  • Don’t have to wait on clients. You can get paid more quickly by not waiting for clients to supply assets to finish projects. 
  • Save time and money. It’s easier to upsell and maintain your current clients than to obtain new ones. Plus, you’ll save time and money by not trying to find new clients constantly.

Recurring revenue is an essential part of your long-term business strategy. Without it, you’ll be walking a tightrope without a safety net. 

How to set up a recurring revenue strategy

Now that you understand why recurring revenue is essential, it’s time to generate your own. Let’s explore how you can create a recurring revenue strategy for your WordPress business. 

Minimize your workload

The point of recurring revenue is to make money while doing a minimal amount of work. You should spend most of your time working on new or larger projects. 

But this doesn’t mean you should only use automated services–just minimize your workload. For example, if it takes you multiple hours each day to make site updates to a client’s site, that’s not an effective strategy. Pick another service that you can automate or take little time to do. 

Start with contracts

Contracts are your friend when it comes to recurring revenue. They are the best way to set clear expectations and boundaries with your clients. 

In your contracts, explicitly state what is and is not covered in their recurring plan. Be sure to review this contract with them and address any concerns or questions. 

Pick your services

As mentioned, you want to minimize your workload in a recurring revenue strategy. But there are still many services to choose from. 

The most common services for recurring revenue include website maintenance and marketing.

Here are some specific services to consider:

Security

Every website needs security, especially as more plugins become vulnerable and threats increase. Security can include limiting login attempts, enforcing complex passwords, and more. 

Hosting

Every website also needs hosting. A hosting solution for your clients can help you maintain control and know what to expect. As a result, you’ll be more productive. The best part is hosting doesn’t take much time after the initial setup. 

Backups

Backups are another service that doesn’t require a ton of time on your part. Most can be automated on a daily or weekly basis. You can easily sell this service to your clients as a site protection measure. 

Content updates

Some clients may want you to handle updates to the site’s front end or content. Most WordPress agencies or freelancers will allow for a certain number of monthly updates or specify the allotted amount of time. 

Search engine optimization (SEO)

Search engine optimization may require more time on your part. But if you’re familiar with it or invest in an SEO tool, it may be a viable service to offer. You can offer specific SEO services such as link monitoring, site speed optimization, and ranking reports. 

Digital advertising

Ads on Google Search, Bing, or social media could go hand-in-hand with other services like SEO. Depending on your expertise, this could be an easy way to earn recurring revenue. You could offer up to a certain dollar amount of monthly spending on ads. 

Site updates and audits

WordPress sites need routine updates to stay fast and secure. Offer to do these updates for your clients. You can also ensure you’ll keep track of uptime and downtime and audit page speeds. 

Reporting

Recurring revenue is all about maintaining current clients. What better way to do that than by providing frequent reports? 

You can send monthly reports about other services they have or site analytics and what they mean. Or, if your client prefers, meet with them every month. It’s an easy way to make recurring revenue while building stronger relationships. 

Tips for selling recurring revenue services

After nailing down your contracts and services, it’s time to sell them. Here are some helpful tips. 

Consider your customer’s needs

Not all customers have the same needs, so you shouldn’t be offering the same thing to everyone. 

After all, if you’re providing a service they’re not benefiting from, this could cause you to lose recurring revenue. Therefore, you must consider their unique needs

Here’s how:

  • Ask the right questions. Start by learning where your customer is currently. You don’t have to ask a lot of typical sales questions. Instead, save time and effort by asking a few, like how they’ve approached the desired service in the past. 
  • Be strategic about service packages. Packaged services are key for your WordPress business and recurring revenue. However, not all bundles will speak to every customer–they don’t want to pay for things they won’t use. Find out what’s important to your customers and package them accordingly.  
  • Address concerns as soon as possible. Recurring revenue relies a lot on lasting relationships and ongoing customer satisfaction. So, reach out often and early. This could be when customers are unresponsive or initial results are unexpected.   

Package services into a care plan

As mentioned, you should be strategic about how you package your services. But one of the easiest and straightforward ways is to bundle maintenance into care plans. For example, you can combine WordPress security, backups, and update services into a monthly care plan. 

Ideally, every website you make should opt into a WordPress care plan, but more on that in the next section. 

Don’t make it optional

Some recurring revenue services shouldn’t be optional, especially for customers that want a new website. That includes the care plans mentioned above. 

Put your maintenance or other services in the initial proposal to make it required and guarantee recurring revenue. 

If the client is concerned about their budget, propose a cheaper website build. By doing so, the client will have additional funds for recurring services. 

Monetize Solid Suite for recurring revenue

This information might seem overwhelming, especially as you begin your recurring revenue journey. Fortunately, there is a solution to help: Solid Suite. 

Solid Suite is a 3-in-1 WordPress backups, security, and management solution. It makes maintenance tasks easier since it includes Solid Central. With Solid Central, you can perform any admin function on any or all sites. Plus, you’ll have stronger selling points, such as virtual patching from Solid Security Pro

As a result, you save time and earn more recurring revenue. 

Try it now–risk-free for 30 days.

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