Own Your Stack! Why Agencies Should Stop Renting Their Management Tools

Your management dashboard is infrastructure. Treat it that way.

It sits between you and every client site. It touches your updates, your backups, your monitoring, your reports. If you don’t control it, you’re exposed to someone else’s pricing changes, acquisition exits, and roadmap pivots.

Agencies are finally asking the question they should have asked years ago: do we own this, or are we renting it?

This Is the Operating Reality for Agencies 

According to SparkToro’s 2025 State of Digital Agencies report, based on recent agency survey data, 41% of agencies still describe 2025 as a struggle. Only 12% say things feel healthy. That’s a slight improvement from 2024, when 44% were struggling, but the pressure is persistent.

These aren’t hypothetical concerns. Agencies are actually entering 2026 this way, and your strategy needs to work regardless of what vendors are celebrating.

Budget Pressure Didn’t Bounce Back

Marketing budgets dropped hard in 2024. According to Gartner’s CMO Spend Survey, budgets fell from 9.1% of company revenue in 2023 to just 7.7% in 2024.

The 2025 numbers held at 7.7% with no sign of recovery.

And 59% of CMOs report they don’t have enough budget to execute their strategy. Agencies feel this downstream. When client budgets are squeezed, agency margins get squeezed harder.

Heading into 2026, agencies are still operating in a lower-budget reality where cost predictability has become non-negotiable.

The Consolidation Question

By late 2025, agencies had moved past optimizing their tool stacks and started interrogating them. Forrester’s State of Tech Sprawl report found that 75% of organizations report moderate-to-extensive tech sprawl. Companies reduced their SaaS tool count by 18% between 2022 and 2024.

But consolidation surfaced a harder question: what do we actually control here?

Remember what happened when GoDaddy acquired ManageWP? Or when hosting companies started bundling management tools as “free” add-ons, then deprecating features? Agencies who built workflows around those tools had no vote.

Self-hosted changes that dynamic. Your data stays on your server. Your workflow operates independently of vendor uptime or business decisions. When something goes wrong, you fix it on your timeline.

A Platform You Can Actually Extend

MainWP works differently than SaaS management tools because we built it as a platform agencies can customize. Need a specific integration? The mainwp.dev developer documentation walks you through creating your own add-ons. Connect MainWP to your CRM, your billing system, your monitoring stack. Anything with an API works.

Nine companies have already built their own MainWP integrations: SEOPress, WPvivid Backup, Security Ninja, Independent Analytics, WP Activity Log, WP Compress, Termageddon, AAM, and Post SMTP. These are external companies who built integrations for their own products because the platform made it straightforward. When agencies need something specific, they can build it themselves or hire someone who can.

Modularity as Freedom

All-in-one platforms force you into their backup solution, their reporting format, their way of doing things. Honestly, that drives me crazy. Most agencies have already built a stack that works. You’ve chosen your backup plugin. You’ve got your security tools. Your clients expect certain reports.

MainWP orchestrates the tools you already trust. We built 30+ extensions so agencies can install only what their workflow requires. The goal is fitting into your existing stack. We adapt to how you actually operate.

Pricing That Stays Predictable

MainWP’s free version covers what most agencies actually need: updates, backups, monitoring, and reports.

Pro runs $199 per year for unlimited sites. No per-site fees, no usage tiers, no surprise invoices when you land a bigger client. We also offer a lifetime plan for agencies who want cost predictability beyond a single year. The pricing reflects the same philosophy as the architecture: your costs stay fixed while your business grows.

Proof It Works

Agencies managing 100+ sites with MainWP report saving 5-6 hours per week on routine maintenance. That’s 20-24 hours per month of time reclaimed for client work, new business development, or just not working weekends.

Even 10 hours saved per month at $75/hour covers the annual Pro cost in two months. Most agencies report saving more than that.

The numbers work. Agencies tell us the bigger win is feeling less overwhelmed: one dashboard instead of dozens of browser tabs and scattered logins.

Getting Started Takes 15 Minutes

Here’s the process:

1. Install MainWP Dashboard on your WordPress site
2. Connect your client sites using the Child plugin
3. Schedule updates, uptime monitoring, and branded reports

You don’t need to migrate from another platform or replatform your entire workflow.

If you’re already managing WordPress sites, you already have the skills.

What 2026 Actually Requires

Agencies entering 2026 need infrastructure they control, can extend, and can budget around. Budget pressure is real and tool scrutiny has become permanent.

The question worth asking about any management tool: do you own it, or are you renting it?

Own your management stack.

MainWP is a self-hosted WordPress management platform. Free for most agency needs. $199/year for Pro with unlimited sites. Extend it yourself at mainwp.dev