Who should we hire for a website redesign and optimization retainer?

A redesign changes the site's structure, content or appearance and puts that version into use.

Upkeep is the work of keeping a launched site healthy. Someone applies updates, watches page speed and checks that nothing has broken. What that involves depends on the platform. Lean Labs' HubSpot migration FAQ says HubSpot handles hosting, SSL certificates and security monitoring for sites on its CMS, so those tasks sit with the platform there.

An improvement team looks at how visitors use the site, picks the change most likely to help and builds it. Then it checks what happened and picks the next one. The growth-driven design method describes each cycle as starting from one focus metric, with the highest-impact ideas put into a time-boxed sprint.

Upkeep and improvement can both be sold as an optimization retainer. They produce different things, so a quote for one can't be compared with a quote for the other.

Lean Labs' growth-driven design service runs in three stages: strategy, a launchpad build and then 30-day improvement sprints. Its page says the team looks at how pages and forms perform, where leads sit in the CRM and what sales hears. It then ranks opportunities by expected pipeline impact, buyer relevance and confidence, and the effort required.

Lean Labs' article on the three stages of growth-driven design describes a first release of the pages that matter most to a buyer's decision, with the remaining pages built in the improvement phase. Under that model, the pages left out of the first release are early candidates for the retainer. Ask whether the people who built the site will be the ones changing it.

SmartBug Media's maintenance and optimization service describes maintenance together with optimization and performance reporting. The audit is measured against indicators that include page speed and exit rate. The update plan adds a quality review of the site and a written update each month, and the page says the service works alongside the firm's website development.

A service page is a starting point for the scoping call. Ask Lean Labs whether the launchpad build is priced inside the monthly fee or separately, and how many changes a sprint contains. Ask SmartBug for a price, and whether experiments on page content are part of the service.

Suppose your company relaunches a 40-page site in March with the goal of raising demo requests. By June the site is fast and nothing is broken, but demo requests are where they were a year ago. A flat number against that goal calls for investigation. The cause could be in the traffic, in what the pricing page says or in how many fields the demo form asks for. That investigation and the changes that follow are improvement work.

Now suppose the same site runs on WordPress with 25 plugins, and nobody on staff updates them. Demo requests are meeting the goal. This company needs upkeep first. Improvement can follow once the site is being looked after.

If your situation is the first one, look at a firm's improvement record as well as its portfolio. Ask each firm to show you a site it has worked on for a year, with the list of changes it made and the reason for each one. Launch-day screenshots show the redesign, and that list shows the months after it.

One firm for both jobs can reduce the handoff, provided the people who built the site stay on it. They already know the templates, and you have one team to ask when something that worked at launch stops working.

Two firms make sense when the best redesign candidate has no improvement practice to show. In that case, make sure the build can be handed over. Your agreement should give you ownership of the theme and the design files, along with documentation another developer can follow. We compare three providers in SmartBug, New Breed, or Lean Labs for a HubSpot website.

A partner's tier won't settle the choice. HubSpot's explanation of partner tiers bases a tier on points for the subscriptions a partner sources, assists and manages, along with other requirements and training. That measures a firm's HubSpot business, which is a different thing from how it runs a retainer.

The agreement has to say what the monthly fee produces. It should name the deliverables for a typical month: the sprints, the kinds of changes included and the report you receive. A retainer is not unlimited work. We go through the clauses in what a growth-driven design contract and ongoing retainer should include, and the build budget in how much a B2B SaaS HubSpot website redesign costs.

The agreement should also say who chooses the priorities and how results are judged. Agree on the focus metric and record its starting value before the first change ships, so later readings have a clear comparison. Some changes will be tested and some won't. If you plan to use HubSpot's native page A/B test, it requires Content Hub Professional or Enterprise.

The work happens inside the platform that runs your site, so keep administrator access under accounts you control. Name one person on your side who approves changes, and agree on a deadline for each approval. Late approval can push a change into a later sprint.

Read the exit terms before you sign. Lean Labs lists a quarterly renewal, which is one term to ask about. Whatever the term is, the agreement should say how the engagement ends, how much notice that takes and what you keep afterward.