When I was running my Web Agency, we gave the client two options, one was an hourly rate, the other a monthly subscription. A majority of our larger clients to

When I was running my Web Agency, we gave the client two options, one was an hourly rate, the other a monthly subscription. A majority of our larger clients took the subscription since it came with a few more benefits in service and response time. The smaller clients wanted to have us doing ala carte work which was also fine. The best part about our sub clients was it built a closer relationship with us. Communication was easier and more streamlined and it was easier to show a real value to the work we were doing on a month to month basis. Our hourly clients didn't care about analytics, they just wanted a part-time content manager or someone to upgrade their design every now and then. It was easy for us to continue to have the incoming revenue and plan a budget based on those numbers. Our smaller hourly clients were just frosting on the cake. We never would have gotten so many smaller companies on board if we only offered sub services to them. The hourly rate was perfect for them to keep the work manageable and on-demand and still within a reasonable budget. My other friends who did the same thing would simply charge a bulk rate for the design and development and then once the site was released, they had to find another client willing to dole out %5-$10K for their services. We built long term relationships with our clients and were able to tailor future services to their needs - which totally blew my friends mind. They were so opposed to a sub based service, all they wanted was the money up front which was a total red flag to me.