What are Unlimited Web Design and Development Services?
Time to read: 9 minutes
Instead of the traditional pay-per-hour model, or pay-per-project model, businesses are charged a fixed monthly fee that they can pause or cancel anytime, which provides them access to unlimited design and development services.
Rather than hunting around online for iffy freelancers, or incurring a high cost and commitment of hiring employees or traditional agencies, unlimited service plans allow businesses access to top-level services, senior-level designers, and vetted developers all without the commitment, hassles, or financial liabilities of traditional models.
It's like having a Netflix subscription for a service you need, where you pay a fixed amount every month to use it as much as you want, but you can easily pause whenever you're not using it.
This is also known as a "Productized Service" Model.
What is a Productized Services Model?
A productized service is selling your services with predefined deliverables or results as if it were an off-the-shelf product.
Made to order, charged at a fixed price, with standardized outcomes, and accessible immediately... or at least, as soon as humanly possible. Clients know exactly what they will get per service request, how long it should take to finish, and at what price.
An unlimited services plan can allow you access to productized services.
What Is The Point Of Having A Pauseable Unlimited Service Plan?
Because there is a lot more to making an online business successful than simply having a website up. Most businesses require ongoing services at different times throughout their existence.
Many companies launch new offers, and require ongoing leads, traffic, and creative content frequently, which require new funnels, adjustments to various parts of their systems, as well as additional content, split testing, or various other services.
Also, for agencies with multiple clients who need ongoing white-label work - unlimited services are perfect for them.
Pauseable design and development service plans offer a strategic tool for preserving financial stability while growing your business online.
It enhances your internal operations and helps you gain a competitive edge while providing high-quality, flexible, and cost-effective solutions on demand in the most streamlined way possible.
All without the search and guesswork required for a freelancer, or the contracts, proposals, time-waste, and expenses of a traditional agency, as well as without the costs of hiring, training, and retaining an in-house team or employees.
It is a more modern, convenient, streamlined, and simple model.
Since service plans are pauseable, and each service is productized, you pay a predictable rate no matter what services you need. You can predict your spending and grow your business at the pace that is right for you.
These are some of the contributing factors why the productized services model is popular now and is taking over Freelancers, Traditional Agencies, and Employees.
Why Do Businesses Prefer This Model Now?
The Productized Services Model that underpins these 'Unlimited Plans' has gained popularity due to being more simple, efficient, and transparent (when done right).
It's a secret weapon for businesses looking to scale.
They offer huge advantages that business owners can't get any other way.
These advantages include the following...
Pros:
Power: It can give business owners all the power of an in-house design or development team but without the liabilities or commitments of employees, agency contracts, or iffy freelancers.
Cost-effectiveness: Costs less than hiring a full-time employee or traditional agency, reduces your overhead dramatically, and you are only spending when you have work available for the services your business needs. (There's a reason why most traditional agencies don't post their prices publicly and make you contact them for an estimate.) Furthermore, if you were to hire instead, a Web Designer costs $59K - $108K/year plus benefits, and a Web Developer costs $72K - $132K/year plus benefits according to Glassdoor, and good luck finding one available.
Pause, cancel, or even refund (for some) whenever: This is a huge benefit for small to medium-sized companies that need flexibility. Work requirements in business ebbs and flows, and being able to pause your plan whenever you need allows the greatest possible safety, leverage, and convenience for business owners. You can use the work you've paid for, whenever needed for you. Ensuring maximum time on task and ROI for your investment. You can't pause or cancel your employees whenever you want, nor easily pause a contract, but you can with most productized service plans.
Tax savings and simplified documentation:Hiring a productized service agency instead of an employee can provide substantial tax benefits through the deductibility of marketing and consulting expenses, avoiding payroll taxes, reducing overhead taxes, and simplifying your documentation processes.Payments to productized service agencies can be deducted as business expenses as long as they are directly related to the business's marketing activities. This can include content creation, SEO services, email marketing, social media management, web design, development services, and other marketing strategies. Simply issue a 1099 form ensuring that these costs are documented and deductible.
Predictable Pricing: You pay a predictable rate no matter what services you need and grow your business at the pace that is right for you. Because productized services are a pre-packaged set of services at a flat rate, businesses can easily predict and budget for their design or development needs without any surprises or hidden fees.
Standardized Outcomes and Consistency:Equate to predictable results for your business because each service is productized with predefined deliverables or outcomes. Productized services create consistency in output, which maintain quality standards across all clients.
Immediate time to value: Productized services can help you understand what each service request is and what each can provide you, even if you are unsure what will give you the results you're looking for. Clients benefit from clear expectations, knowing exactly what they're getting, how much it costs, and when they'll receive it even if there is room for some custom work. With productized services, everything is optimized to provide a specific outcome as quickly as possible.
Same-day onboarding: Onboarding often takes less than 5 minutes. You can sign up for a productized service immediately and get services the same day.
Continuity of Care and Service On Demand: Without the constant drain on your resources.
Streamlined operations: By standardizing services and communications, productized service providers can create more efficient workflows and processes, reducing the time and effort required for each project and can therefore allocate more resources to improving service quality, finishing your requests sooner, and providing better customer support, and innovation. This approach fosters long-term relationships between clients and service providers based on trust, reliability, and mutual benefit.
Speedy Services: The ability to execute, deploy, and iterate faster than your competitors commands success. The productized services model is highly optimized to deliver specific services rapidly and will therefore have more time to dedicate to your business's needs and the capacity to handle multiple clients better than traditional agencies. Many promise an average turnaround of 48-hours for most service requests.
Scalability (Even for small to medium-sized businesses): Affordably scale and evolve as needed, even if you're a newer business. Productized services can be strategically better since they offer predictable costs, reliable results, and the ability to pause whenever you need. Many online businesses have fluctuating needs and limited budgets, requiring efficient scaling without a constant drain on their finances. Productized services help control spending while ensuring quality outcomes, unlike unreliable freelancers, costly employees, or traditional agencies. This instead allows you to gradually increase work as you grow, but with consistent pricing and dependable results, eliminating the need for constant job pricing and management.
It's important to note that the advantages mentioned above may not apply to all unlimited services plans or productized services. The specific drawbacks can vary depending on the nature of the service and the provider.
Some disadvantages may include the following...
Cons:
Not ideal if you know you just want a small-one-time job and nothing else ever.
Many productized service providers want you to sign up for 30 days or more: Ideally, you should find one that allows you to try for free, and/or allows refunds incase you're not sure about committing yet.
Some productized service providers use overseas workers: so they can undercut their competition in price. Unfortunately, this often results in questionable quality, bad experiences, and wasted money for clients who choose these providers
May have to adjust to the value you receive per result, not per hour: Many business owners may be use to paying per hour, or paying a lump sum per project. Moving into a streamlined model where you are more so paying per result per day, may take some adjustment.
Less customization: Some unlimited services plans or productized services may not offer the level of customization that some customers may require. Since these services are often standardized, they may not be able to meet the specific custom preferences of individual customers.
Hard to compare productized service providers: Due to a lack of standardized offerings, varying differences in service quality, unique value propositions, and the complexity of service offerings. It can be very hard to compare unless you can try each for free first.
It's important to note that the disadvantages mentioned above may not apply to all unlimited services plans or productized services. The specific drawbacks can vary depending on the nature of the service and the provider.
Things To Watch Out For:
Check their cancellation policies: Make sure you can actually pause or cancel anytime without hidden fees. This will help you avoid unnecessary costs if your needs change.
Check their refund policy: Watch out for no refunds. If you ever decide to go with a different provider, you'll want to be able recover any amount of money left in your account.
Make sure the results or deliverables are defined for each service: Make sure the services offered by your unlimited plan or productized service provider are transparent. Ensure the deliverables are defined, you know what the results can create for your business, and ideally, the estimated time to finish is shown.
Do they make it easy to request services?: You shouldn't be expected to know everything they need from you when you request services. Does their service request form ask you questions so you don't have to worry about what is needed from you each time you request services? This saves so much time and reduces effort on your part as well as reducing the likelihood of miscommunication.
Are there time-to-finish estimates?: A.K.A "Turnaround Times". Ensure it is shown how long each service request may take so you can plan effectively.
Do they use workers from other countries? It's generally a good idea to avoid providers that are using overseas workers. They may be unqualified, provide you with questionable quality, and endure poor business practices. Providers who use overseas workers may do so to cut prices and pay their employees less, and this ultimately creates poor service results for your business.
Can you contact them face-to-face?: Some productized service providers may seem almost impossible to compare against each other. Be sure that you can contact them face-to-face or via video call first, get to know them, and question how they can deliver the specific results you are seeking for your business before buying. If you're thinking long-term, it's always better to deal with someone you know and trust.
Understand Service Limits: Yes, "Unlimited" Plans all come with some kind of limitations. For example, limiting how many active requests you can have at one time, or limiting access to some services. Before purchasing, clarify what's included in your chosen unlimited plan and what constitutes extra charges if any (ideally no extra charges). Be aware of services that may not be covered under your plan and find the best fit for your needs.
Quality Assurance: Investigate how the service provider vets their professionals and deals with quality control.
Make sure you see past client reviews, testimonials, or a portfolio of past work: Look into feedback from previous clients to gauge reliability and satisfaction levels before committing to a service plan.
Make sure revisions are allowed: If you don't like something created for you, you need to be able to request a revision before it is finalized.
Ensure full ownership and commercial rights: Make sure that is stated that you will have full ownership and commercial rights of all service requests that are finished for you even if you cancel your plan!
Trello is used for managing your projects, which may be nice for those already familiar with Trello.
Is an Agency of One - Designjoy is a operated only by its founder, Brett Williams. This means that clients work directly with Brett, ensuring a personalized experience.
· Full access to all Site Threader services· 30 Service Days, use as needed · Pause or cancel anytime · Keep remaining Service Days when paused · Remaining Service Days are refundable· One active request at a time · Request as many services as needed · Full ownership of all finished services & creative assets · Track progress and be notified· Unlimited brands · Unlimited users (Invite your team!) · White label
Pro Unlimited Services Plan: $7,995/30-Days
· Full access to all Site Threader services · 30 Service Days, use as needed · Pause or cancel anytime · Keep remaining Service Days when paused · Remaining Service Days are refundable · Two active requests at a time · Request as many services as needed · Full ownership of finished services & creative assets · Track progress and be notified · Unlimited brands · Unlimited users (Invite your team!) · White label
14-Day Services Plan: $2,495/14-days
· Full access to all Site Threader services · 14 Service Days, use as needed · Pause or cancel anytime · Keep remaining Service Days when paused · Remaining Service Days are refundable · One active request at a time · Request as many services as needed · Full ownership of all finished services & creative assets · Track progress and be notified - - -
· One Project at a Time · 48-Hour Average Delivery · Unlimited Requests & Revisions · Premium Stock Photo Access · Easy Project Management · Pause or Cancel Anytime
· Unlimited Support · 24-72 hour average turnaround · We keep your website info up to date · Best for: Simple websites. Blog uploads, copy changes, link, & image changes, etc. · Support via: Slack, Email, & our Dashboard
Growth plan: $4,995/month
· Unlimited Development · 24-72 hour average turnaround · We Develop your Figma files in Webflow · We write custom code for complex features · Best for: Ongoing development needs, Landing pages, & CMS Development. · Support via: Slack, Email, & our Dashboard
Pro plan: $7,995/month
· Unlimited Design and Development · 24-72 hour average turnaround · We Design in Figma & Develop in Webflow · We write custom code for complex features · Best for: Complex Design & Development needs. *Migrations to Webflow and *New Webflow builds. · Support via: Slack, Email, & our Dashboard
Offers priority requests - something that needs completed within 24hrs or less
Offers Migrations to Webflow
Includes Managed Integrations such as: Google Analytics, Google Search Console, Zapier, Airtable, Hubspot Forms, and more
Conclusion
Unlimited design and development services represent a revolutionary approach to accessing professional expertise, offering businesses a flexible, cost-effective solution through a productized services model.
This innovative model allows companies to leverage top-tier design and development capabilities without the constraints of traditional billing methods, providing unparalleled value and efficiency. By incorporating a pauseable feature, businesses gain even greater control over their expenses, aligning service usage with their operational needs and budget cycles.
The growing preference for this model among businesses underscores its numerous advantages, including predictable pricing, scalability, and the ability to tap into high-quality services on demand.
As the business landscape continues to evolve, embracing innovative solutions like unlimited design and development services becomes increasingly vital. By understanding the nuances of this model, businesses can make informed decisions that not only meet their immediate needs but also position them for sustained growth and success throughout their future.
While there are considerations to keep in mind, such as ensuring clear communication and setting realistic expectations, the benefits largely outweigh potential drawbacks.
Through real-world examples, we've seen how this model can transform the way companies approach their digital presence, fostering a more collaborative and results-oriented partnership between service providers and clients.
As the business landscape continues to evolve, embracing innovative solutions like unlimited design and development services becomes increasingly vital.
By understanding the nuances of this model, businesses can make informed decisions that not only meet their immediate needs but also position them for sustained growth and success throughout their future.
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