As someone who has contracted with a bunch of agencies and contractors for Wordpress sites, I have paid for such retainers even though automatic updates are on.

As someone who has contracted with a bunch of agencies and contractors for Wordpress sites, I have paid for such retainers even though automatic updates are on. I want automatic updates on; its better for security. And I want the folks who built the sites available on short notice, so if automatic updates break something, I can get it fixed quickly without trying to do a contract with some random WP dev on short notice.