The evidence base says 9.8% of all billing is recurring update work. This page is the internal proposal for how we package and price it — the tier ladder, the numbers we landed on, the cross-functional debate behind them, and the open calls. Not customer-facing. Each client eventually sees only their own tier.
The model
A monthly plan for the steady work · fixed quotes for the big upgrades
Two cost behaviours, one offering. Continuous maintenance (security patches, dependency/module bumps, monitoring) is predictable → a flat monthly plan. Major events (Magento & PHP majors, Hyvä cycles) are lumpy and externally timed → pre-priced per event, quoted before work. We reject bundling events into the monthly fee: the 2025 supercycle proves event load is too volatile to flatten.
Events → per-event fee 2,633 h · 66%Maintenance → monthly plan 1,338 h · 34%
Plan fee is funded on the normalized maintenance run-rate, never on the supercycle peak — the single most important pricing safeguard.
The four tiers
Three fixed-fee tiers + a tailored band — banded by avg update hours/yr (2024–25), not revenue
Heavy integration & active Hyvä 60–100 h/yr · 5 clients
Avg work~69 h/yr
T&M today~€9,000/yr
Plan/yr€10,740
Fixed?Yes
Custom T&M
Tailored
Too lumpy to fix-price 100+ h/yr · 5 clients
Avg work105–191 h/yr
Of all update hrs~44%
PlanScoped
Fixed?No
Custom isn't a fixed fee — it's the band for the 5 high-variance accounts (T&M / scoped roadmap). It stays on the ladder so the fixed tiers read as the sensible choice beneath it.
S. van Huissteden (191), ivol (165), Maxima (148), Tropilex (105), Bunzl (93*)
* Bunzl averages 93 h/yr but did 187 h in 2025 alone (post-merge, one year of data) — flagged borderline; current call is to keep on T&M.
The pricing debate
Four perspectives anchored the ladder — then we split the wide upper band
Concrete monthly fee proposed by each lens. We anchored on the aggressive end (Sil's call) — deliberately at/above the buyer's stated walk-away line — then split the broad 40–100 h band into two tiers so price tracks usage.
Monthly fee
Finance (floor+margin)
Marketing (max sticker)
Buyer WTP (walks above)
Strategist
Chosen
Standard (<40 h)
€175
€295
€150–200 (>€250)
€225
€295
Upper fixed band (40–100 h)
€450
€795
€500–650 (>€750)
€650
split →
→ Integrated (40–60 h)
usage 47–59 h/yr — lower half of the band
€595
→ Complex (60–100 h)
usage 66–72 h/yr — upper half, extends the ladder
€895
⚠ The contested call
The ladder is priced at the aggressive end — Standard €295 sits at/past the buyer's walk-away line, and the upper band is set above the strategist's €650. It maximizes per-client revenue but raises churn/adoption risk. It is only defensible if we ship the guarantees that lift willingness-to-pay: 72-h security SLA, quarterly rollover of unused hours, written event-price caps, and a quarterly transparency report. Fallback: list at these prices and discount ~15% on a 12-month commit (price holds, commitment is the trade).
Per-event fees
The big upgrades — fixed, quoted before work; non-members pay open T&M at €130/hr
Event
Standard
Integrated
Complex
Note
Magento major upgrade
€5,500
€8,500
€11,000
scales with customisation depth
PHP major version jump
€3,200
€3,200
€3,200
−€1,000 bundled with a Magento major
Hyvä upgrade cycle
scoped
scoped
scoped
per-project fixed bid
Revenue impact
~€122k
23 fixed-fee clients billed today (T&M, lumpy)
~€146k
recurring plan fees / yr (retainers only)
+ events
pre-priced upgrades on top
+~20%
and now contracted & recurring
The bigger prize isn't the +20% — it's converting uncontracted, reactive T&M into contracted recurring revenue across the 23 fixed-fee clients, with the lumpy upgrades captured per-event on top.
Risks & open decisions
Aggressive ladder vs adoption. Hold €295/€595/€895, or adopt the list-high/discount-on-commit fallback? Decide before the first pitch.
Adverse selection on the plan. Heavy-maintenance clients opt in first; mitigate with the fair-use cap (1.5× funded hrs → T&M) and annual repricing.
9.8% is a floor and the 66/34 event/maintenance split is the least-robust number (all PHP forced to event; Magento split on wording). Per-client % isn't comparable — denominators include build work.
Band edges — clients near a breakpoint (Albeka 59, Goedhart 67, Bunzl 93) need a manual tier call + a re-tier trigger at annual renewal.
Coverage — ~60 h of "vulnerability"-worded dependency maintenance still un-counted; 47 non-Elements clients not yet analyzed.