How your website support works

Applies to: all Rhythm Digital clients

There are two ways clients work with us for ongoing support. It's worth knowing which one you're on, because it changes how requests are handled and billed.

Which one are you on?

A hosting and support plan. You pay a set amount each month, which covers hosting and a monthly allocation of our time for updates. If you receive a regular monthly invoice from us, this is you.

Ad-hoc support. No monthly plan. You send work through as you need it and we bill for the time it takes. If you only hear from us when you've asked for something, this is you.

Not sure? Just ask. Email support@rhythmdigital.com.au and we'll tell you.

Either way, you send requests the same way and we look after your site the same way. The difference is in what's already paid for.

If you're on a hosting and support plan

What the plan covers

• Fast, secure hosting, including the security certificate
• Monitoring, so we know if something goes wrong
• Performance and speed upkeep
• Access for your team to edit your own content
• A monthly allocation of our time for updates and improvements

The amount of time included varies by plan. Yours is set out in your proposal, and if you can't put your hands on it, just ask.

How quickly things get done

• We acknowledge your request within one business day.
• Most standard updates are completed within three to five business days, depending on complexity and current workload.
• Critical issues are reviewed the same day during business hours.

Time that isn't used

On most plans, unused time rolls over for one month, so a quiet month can fund a bigger job the next one. Beyond that it expires, and the most you can have available at once is twice your monthly allocation.

Rollover doesn't apply to every plan, so check your agreement or ask us if you're not sure where yours sits.

The point of the rollover is flexibility, not banking. If you're consistently not using your time, that's usually a sign the plan is bigger than you need, or that there's work worth doing that nobody's got around to asking for. Either way, it's worth a conversation.

If a job is bigger than your monthly time

We'll tell you before we start, not after. You'll get an estimate, and you can decide whether to go ahead, use next month's time, or park it.

You will never get a surprise invoice for support work. If it's going to cost more than your plan covers, you'll hear about it first.

If you're on ad-hoc support

How it works

Send your request through to support@rhythmdigital.com.au the same as anyone else. We'll look at what's involved, come back to you with an estimate of the time and cost, and get started once you're happy.

Work is charged at our standard hourly rate, which we'll confirm with the estimate. Small jobs are billed for the time they actually take rather than rounded up to something artificial.

What to expect on timing

Without a plan there's no reserved time each month, so your work is scheduled alongside everything else. We'll give you an indication of timing when we come back with the estimate.

If something is genuinely urgent, like your site being down or forms not working, say so and we'll treat it accordingly. We're not going to leave you stuck because you're not on a plan.

You'll always get an estimate first

Nothing gets billed without you knowing what it will cost. If a job turns out to be bigger than expected once we're into it, we'll stop and check with you rather than pressing on.

Would a plan suit you better?

If you're sending work through most months, a plan usually works out better value and gets your work turned around faster. If you're only asking twice a year, ad-hoc is the sensible choice and we won't push you onto something you don't need.

Happy to run the numbers on your last twelve months if you'd like to compare.

What support covers, either way

• Text, image and link updates
• Adding and updating content in your collections, like blog posts, team members or projects
• Minor layout and design tweaks within the existing site
• Troubleshooting and fixing things that aren't behaving
• Speed and performance improvements
• General refinements as your business changes

How much gets done in an hour depends on the job. Swapping a phone number takes minutes. Reworking a services page takes longer.

What sits outside support

These are quoted as separate pieces of work:

• Copywriting and content creation
• Photography, video and design assets
• New functionality or advanced integrations
• Major design changes
• New sections that need substantial design work
• Website rebuilds or structural changes
• Third-party subscriptions and platform fees, like apps or stock imagery

The line falls roughly where a change stops being an update to what exists and starts being something new being built.

Not sure whether something's included?

Send it through to support@rhythmdigital.com.au and ask. We'll tell you either way, and if it needs quoting, we'll quote it.

We're available 8:00am to 5:00pm, Monday to Friday, excluding NSW public holidays.