Website Support Retainers With a Developer to Call
Ongoing support that keeps your site updated, monitored, backed up and improving, with a UK team that knows how it is built. On WordPress, Laravel or whatever your site runs on, and sites we did not build are welcome.
Some of our direct clients
Why Businesses Retain Us
A UK team that keeps your site current, watched and backed up, understands the platform it is actually built on, and is on hand for the changes that come up rather than a scramble when something breaks.
Updates, Done Carefully
Core, plugin and dependency updates applied and checked rather than pushed blindly, so an update never quietly breaks something in production.
Monitoring and Backups
Problems caught before a user reports them, and backups that have actually been tested by restoring them, not just scheduled and assumed.
Security Kept Current
Software patched, permissions sensible, known vulnerabilities closed promptly rather than left open until they are exploited.
Development Time Each Month
An allocated block for the small changes and improvements that would never justify a whole project, so the site keeps moving forward.
A Team That Knows Your Site
The same people stay close to it, so a routine update and an urgent fix are both faster because nobody is learning the site from scratch.
Any Platform, Any Origin
WordPress, Laravel or another stack, and sites we did not originally build are taken on as standard after an honest look at what is there.
The Sites We Keep Running
WordPress, Laravel and other stacks kept updated, monitored, backed up and secure, with allocated development time for the small changes, and the hosting and integrations each one depends on.
Laravel & Bespoke Platforms
For systems and platforms that require bespoke processes, data handling complex integrations or internal business platforms with security at the forefront of the build.
WordPress & WooCommerce
For fast, reliable and easy to manage brochure based websites built following best practice with a bespoke theme powered by ACF Pro and supporting custom built plugins.
Shopify & Shopify Plus
For eCommerce and retail brands looking to grow revenue significantly online. Built using a bespoke theme specific to your brand and with a full seamless migration from legacy platforms.
Recently Completed Projects
Clintons Cards
A full migration from Magento 2 to Shopify Plus, with order, customer, product, stock and finance integrations kept live through the switch.
Ecommerce · Shopify Plus · Integrations
QualityHive
A Laravel platform that web agencies use to capture, assign and close website bugs, taken from wireframe to launch, then handed over as clean, documented code.
SaaS platform · Laravel · API integrations
The Sauce Foundry
A brand, a WooCommerce store and product photography for an artisan hot sauce startup, launched to a 3.8% conversion rate from day one.
Ecommerce · Branding · WooCommerce
Have a project like these in mind?
Get in touchHere's What Our
Clients Say
Consistently rated 5* on Google by our full build clients and retainer clients.
Zestcode really have proven to be “website design & development specialists” whilst maintaining the very best customer service. Not easy to find a well-rounded company like Zest these days that tick all the boxes. 5*
Head of Marketing, Masterclip
After working with Zestcode for over 2 years I wouldn’t trust any other web developers. An agency that are committed to getting the project right and going above and beyond expectations.
Director, Novus Digital
Harry and his team have just finished producing our new website, his team have done an amazing job producing our website and their continuous communication throughout made the process a lot easier.
Director, JL Phillips
The whole process was efficient, fast and incredibly well managed. Communication was clear throughout, they understood exactly what we were trying to achieve, and they delivered without unnecessary delays or complications.
Director, Teaching Tomorrow
The main project Zestcode did for us was developing our bespoke Laravel system, which involved complex API integrations and secure data management. They were knowledgeable, responsive and easy to work with throughout.
Managing Director, Heath Crawford
Zestcode are a superb web design and development agency. Everything they produce is top quality. Harry is super responsive, always gets back to you quickly, and is an absolute pleasure to work with.
Marketing Manager, Which Health Cover
Working with Zestcode has been a genuinely positive experience from start to finish. What stood out most was how much time they took to understand how the project would fit into our existing processes before diving in. Rather than just building to a spec, they asked the right questions upfront.
Marketing Manager, Roof Maker
Zestcode Digital have just finished my website and I am beyond thrilled with it! I highly recommend their services not only are they professional and proficient but incredibly helpful.
Director, Select Art Gallery
It's an easy and enjoyable process working with Zestcode Digital, highly recommended.
Director, Whoisvisiting
Their team is highly responsive, especially in time-sensitive situations, and their ability to deliver reliable solutions quickly has been a huge asset. I wouldn’t hesitate to recommend them to anyone looking for dependable web development support.
Marketing Manager, Slick Gorilla
Having close communication with Harry throughout the whole project has been invaluable. He always makes sure to explain things thoroughly and helped me understand all the different aspects of the project that I needed to know.
Director, All Abroad
Frequently Asked Questions
Choosing a Website Support Retainer
Most people arrive here with the same questions: what a support retainer should actually cover, whether it is worth it over paying as you go, and whether the right arrangement differs depending on what the site is built on. Here is how we answer all three, and where the platform-specific detail lives.
What a support retainer is actually for
A website is not a finished object at launch, it changes shape. The platform ships updates, the packages it depends on move on, browsers change, and the business keeps asking the site to do a little more. Left alone, that drift is exactly how a site becomes slow, broken or insecure, and it is almost always discovered at the worst possible time.
A support retainer exists so that does not happen. It is a standing arrangement where a developer keeps the site current, watches for problems, and is on hand for the changes that come up, instead of a scramble to find someone each time something goes wrong. The difference between a real retainer and a line on an invoice is whether there is a developer who genuinely knows your site at the other end of it.
What a good one includes
The specifics flex by platform, but the shape is consistent. Careful updates to core, plugins and dependencies, applied and checked rather than pushed blindly. Monitoring, so a problem is caught before a user reports it. Backups that have actually been tested by restoring them, not merely scheduled and assumed to work. Security kept current, with software patched and permissions sensible. And a block of development time each month for the small changes that would never justify a project on their own.
If an arrangement is missing any of those, it is worth asking what you are actually paying for. A fee that covers updates but not tested backups, or monitoring but no time for changes, is only part of a support retainer wearing the whole name.
Why a retainer usually beats pay-as-you-go
With no arrangement in place, every problem starts from cold. You find someone, they learn the site from scratch on your time and budget, and the fix is slower and dearer than it needed to be. A retainer removes that friction because the same team stays close to the site and already knows how it is built when something needs attention.
That familiarity speeds up everything, from a routine update to an urgent fix at an awkward hour, and it means the small improvements actually get made, because there is standing time for them rather than a quote to approve every single time. For a site that matters to the business, that is almost always the cheaper arrangement over a year, not the more expensive one. If your site genuinely needs very little, we will say so rather than sell you cover you will not use.
Not sure what your site needs?
Send us the site and a line on what has gone wrong before. We will take an honest look and tell you what a sensible support arrangement would cover, with no pressure to take one.
The right retainer depends on the platform
A WordPress site and a Laravel application both need support, but not the same support, and pretending otherwise is how sites end up under-looked-after. WordPress support turns on plugins, themes and hosting, and the detail lives on our WordPress support retainers page. A Laravel application needs framework upgrades, queue and schedule monitoring and dependency patching, which is covered on our Laravel support page.
Where a Laravel product is still actively being built rather than simply maintained, that is a retained Laravel developer arrangement instead, which is development capacity rather than upkeep. We will point you to the right one for what your site actually is, because a generic plan applied to the wrong platform is worse than no plan at all.
Sites we did not build
Most sites that come to us for support were built by someone else, and that is routine rather than a problem. We start by looking at what is there, across the build, the hosting and the state of updates and backups, and tell you plainly what is solid and what is not. If an audit turns up something that should be fixed before a retainer makes sense, you hear it up front rather than finding it absorbed into a monthly fee.
If a site turns out to need more than support, for instance a rebuild because the original build has run out of road, that moves into website design and development or our WordPress development agency work, and we will tell you honestly when maintaining what you have has stopped being the sensible option.
If you are an agency rather than a site owner
Not everyone who needs ongoing support is the end client. Agencies that want to offer their clients a support retainer, without carrying the engineers to deliver it, use us behind the scenes under their own brand. That arrangement for WordPress is set out on our white label WordPress support retainers page, and for Laravel on our white label Laravel support retainers page.
Either way the delivery standard is the same as our direct work, the only difference being whose name the client sees on it.
Partner with Zestcode for Industry Leading Quality and Reliability
Tell us what you're looking for and we'll see how we can help. Quotes are typically provided within 2 working days of the initial call.