I always host clients' sites. In the past it was such a nightmare dealing with all of the various shared hosting companies that I made the decision to only wor

I always host clients' sites. In the past it was such a nightmare dealing with all of the various shared hosting companies that I made the decision to only work with clients who agreed to my hosting. The way I did that is by offering subscription billing for the site, so instead of paying one huge upfront fee, clients pay a setup fee and then a monthly ongoing charge that covers hosting and maintenance. If you want to keep your own hosting, there is an additional charge for setup, and you still pay the same rate, so no one ever opted for that. Now that I host on The Rackspace Cloud, Rackspace handles technical support for $3/mo/domain (US-based), and basic website maintenance is handled transparently in the Philippines.