2023 Web Care Survey Results: What we learned.

The 2023 version of the Web Care Survey just seemed to come up short in my estimation. For one, we didn’t get the kind of participation we had in the previous years.

Perhaps the lower turnout was due to me being late or us not being able to get the survey to more people. I’m not sure. I will say this: organic reach on social media isn’t what it was when we started, and that may be an issue.

That being said, we had about 64 responses. In doing so, we were able to see a few changes in the industry from one year to the next.

Here are some of our observations:

• Monthly, Yearly, and Quarterly are the dominant payment durations.
• Slight increase in consultants charging yearly in 2023.
• Optional, New question on pricing for eCommerce sites reveals higher values.
• Membership sites: Highest price point observed was $600.
• Three tiers remain most popular, with two and four tiers maintaining 2022 percentages.
• Custom offerings are prevalent, especially for larger sites requiring more resources.
• A small percentage (6%) manage 250-500 websites, none managing more than 500, according to the survey.
• Similar to 2022, SEO services are the most offered, followed by content creation, email marketing, and PPC/SEM & Paid Ads.
• It appears more consultants are entering the hosting space, possibly due to platforms like CloudFlare and Runcloud.
• In 2023, more consultants are blogging consistently.
• Email newsletters are still not widely adopted, but more consultants are using them.
• Most web care consultants target small to medium-sized businesses, followed by B2B enterprises.

See previous surveys:
2022 Web Care Survey Results
2021 Web Care Survey Results

Pricing for web care plans.

Duration of payments.

As last year, Monthly, Yearly and Quarterly are the largest answers. It appears that there is a slight increase for consultants charging yearly in 2023. Perhaps economic conditions have caused this change. I like to think it is easier to manage yearly payments than opting for another duration.

Website Care Plans.

A smaller percentage of consultants indicated they charge in the $100-200 per month range in the 2023 results. The percentages might be off because we had fewer respondents or less people have opted for that higher range. However, the difference in the question this year is I wanted to exclude eCommerce and Membership sites. Those sites usually require more resources and have a higher value.
eCommerce Sites

For eCommerce websites, you see a sign of a higher value. This question was optional, so I didn’t have defined answers. As you will notice, there indicates a different price, with several being higher. A few showed they charged the same amount as the other sites. Six of the 38 responses listed less than $100.

For membership sites, results were like the eCommerce sites. The highest price point I noticed was $600. A few were less than $100 and one respondent showed they charged a $20/month addon fee.

Tiers/Packages offered.

Three tiers continue to be the highest percentage. Two tiers and four tiers have the same percentage as 2022. Not much has changed. Giving customers an option seems to be a good idea. There are several answers of custom offerings.

Several consultants mentioned they offered custom packages based on a variety of situations. Therefore, not everything is pre-packaged. Larger sites require more resources and thus, a custom package.

Sites managed.

Asking how many sites a consultant manages is a new question in 2023. I had the idea to ask after a discussion in the MainWP Users Group on Facebook.

I know several consultants who manage hundreds and at least one who is approaching 1000. So I was curious where everyone fell.

By the numbers, most people manage 10-49 websites. That seems to be the baseline.

A small percent (6%) manage 250-500 websites. No one indicated they managed over 500 websites in the survey.

Number of customers.

I was curious if web care consultants manage customers with multiple sites for different agencies. I am certain that some handle website management for other agencies. However, according to the survey, mostly, each customer corresponds to a website.

Do some consultants work with customers from multiple agencies and have one customer with multiple sites? I know for sure some manage websites for other agencies. However, according to the survey, each customer corresponds to a website.

Addon Services offered.

Asking web care consultants about other services they offer, the results were similar to 2022. Number one on the list is SEO services followed by content creation, email marketing, and PPC/SEM & Paid Ads.

Regarding the other services, website design and development still tops the list. There was a slight uptick for Accessibility and Privacy Policies.

Software & Licenses included in plans.

It’s not surprising in 2023 that most web care consultants include software/plugin licenses in their plan. As you can see from the chart, 65% showed they do.

Second was the answer depends. Some consultants will include certain software such as backups, frameworks and other functionalities.

One person showed it depended on the tier. As one person mentioned, they have multiple lifetime licenses, so those are included.

The smallest number said they do not include licenses and there is a good reason. Not including the licenses separates the pricing for the client from the agency.

Hosting plans offered

The hosting question turned up an interesting result. It seems more people have gone into the hosting space. I believe there are a couple of reasons for this. First, with the proliferation of platforms such as CloudFlare and Runcloud, agencies can set up their own hosting platform for multiple clients.

The second reason, I see, for more consultants choosing to host is that they can choose their hosting environment and ensure its security.

Interestingly, most people offering hosting are using shared hosting.

Content Marketing

The past couple of years, I have asked consultants about their blogging habits and their email newsletters.

There was a bit of a change in 2023. While most consultants aren’t consistent, there seems to be a greater effort in 2023, as more people showed they are blogging consistently.

Additionally, more people are trying and fewer people have given up. I found this to be an insightful development.

As for email newsletters, most consultants are still not using email newsletters. As for blogging, a few more consultants are sending email newsletters.

Further, we asked consultants what other types of content marketing they use. Only 8 responded, but podcasting and YouTube videos were the top answers. A distant third was Facebook.

Target Audience

We asked web care consultants about their target market. The most common response is small to medium-sized businesses (93.8%), followed by business-to-business (B2B)57.8% and Enterprise businesses (17.2%).

Other freelancers & consultants came in third with a variety of other industries following. The results in 2023 are consistent with results in 2022.

Wrapping it up

For everyone who filled out the form, I want to say thank you. Thanks to Bojan Katusic for the images of the charts! Those images made them look a lot better. I also want to thank Keith Crain for finding mistakes.

Every year I try to make this is a better survey, so your participation is invaluable.

What do you think of the results? Let us know in the MainWP Users Facebook Group.

2023 Web Care Survey Infographic