Most of our clients have a website that's quietly degrading — slow pages, broken links, accessibility gaps, stale analytics, security vulnerabilities. Nobody is watching. They don't have the staff, and project work doesn't cover ongoing ops.
Compass is the answer: a continuous, multi-specialist digital operations retainer that keeps their site healthy, compliant, and improving every single month. Think of it as giving a mid-market organization their own private digital operations department — at a fraction of the cost of staffing one.
This is not a support plan or a maintenance package. It's a proactive, expert-driven program that treats a client's website as a living business asset requiring continuous attention to perform at its peak.
What's out there today
✕WordPress shops: $300–500/mo, just backups & plugin updates
✕SEO agencies: narrow focus, no accessibility, security, or UX
✕IT staff: not digital specialists, no SEO/UX/content depth
✕Annual audits: one-time snapshots, nothing changes after
What Compass offers
✓20+ specialists across every digital discipline
✓SEO + accessibility + security + analytics + UX — unified
✓Ongoing, not episodic — results compound over time
✓ROI reporting tied to marketing & financial goals
✓AI-augmented workflows for faster, higher-quality delivery
Mid-market organizations without a full-stack digital ops function in-house. They have a website, they care about it, and they know something is probably wrong — they just don't know what.
Non-profits
Government / Municipal
Healthcare
Mid-market B2B
Education
Associations
Less ideal: <$500K revenue orgs
Less ideal: 40M+ clients with full IT depts
→
Open
Find the pain
"Who's watching your site right now?" Most clients: nobody. That's the opening.
→
Hook
Sell the assessment
Offer the paid baseline first. It closes itself — they see exactly what's broken.
→
Convert
Build the scope
Use assessment findings to design the retainer. They see the gap; we close it.
Retain
Make value visible
Reports show proof. Renewals are easy when clients can see progress monthly.
Primary sales path: Upsell to existing Northwoods clients first. Every client we've built a site for is a candidate. Start with the assessment offer — it's low-risk for them and positions us perfectly for the retainer conversation.
Why a retainer, not a fixed bid
Some clients ask for the old waterfall deal — a fixed bid, a locked deliverables list, a single price. It feels safe, but it forces both sides to pretend a project will unfold exactly as imagined on day one. It never does. Compass runs on monthly sprints scoped from the assessment and the proposals we plan to deliver, which means the work can flex to match how projects actually behave. Selling the retainer is not selling a worse deal — it's selling an honest one.
Be clear about our obligations. A retainer does not mean vague. We still owe the client detailed proposals, reasonable estimates of time and effort, and solid, measurable goals for every sprint. What changes is that we name those numbers as estimates up front — and we build in the room to revise them as discovery, client feedback, and real-world conditions reshape the work, the way they do on every project.
Fixed-bid waterfall
✕Scope is frozen before anyone has learned anything
✕Every change becomes a change order — friction, delays, hard conversations
✕We pad the bid to cover unknowns, so the client overpays for risk
✕Incentives split: we want to ship the list, they want what's actually best
✕Relationship ends at delivery — no one is watching the site after
Sprint-based retainer
✓Each sprint is scoped on what we've actually learned so far
✓Priorities can shift sprint to sprint with no contract renegotiation
✓Estimates stay honest — no risk padding, the client pays for real work
✓Incentives aligned: we both want the highest-value work done next
✓Ongoing relationship — results compound and the site stays healthy
Better for the client
✓Pays for value delivered, not for padding against worst-case unknowns
✓Can reprioritize as the business changes — new urgency, new opportunity
✓Transparent monthly reporting shows exactly where the hours went
✓Predictable monthly cost instead of a large lump-sum commitment
✓A standing team that already knows their site — no re-onboarding
Better for Northwoods
✓Steady, predictable revenue instead of feast-or-famine project cycles
✓No margin lost absorbing scope creep on a fixed price
✓Estimates can be revised openly — no defensive change-order battles
✓Specialists stay deployed across a portfolio of retained clients
✓Deeper client relationships drive renewals and natural upsell
Bottom line for the sales conversation: don't apologize for not handing over a fixed bid. The sprint-based retainer is the more honest, more flexible, and ultimately lower-risk model for the client — and a healthier business for us. Frame estimates as estimates, commit to clear goals and reporting, and let the flexibility be the selling point.
Pricing framework (internal)
$TBD
Baseline assessment
one-time, paid upfront
$4K–$6K
Typical monthly retainer
custom-scoped per client
30–40
Hours / month allocated
mix-and-match services
Retainer pricing is custom per client based on assessment findings and agreed scope. The onboarding fee is one-time. Month-to-month available, but a 12-month initial term is recommended for best results.
"We already have someone who handles our website." +
Great. This goes deeper than content updates or plugin management. When did they last run a WCAG 2.2 accessibility scan, a penetration test, or a consent management audit across global audiences? Those aren't things a generalist covers.
"Can't we just do a one-time audit?" +
We offer that as the entry point — and it's valuable. But digital performance degrades continuously: algorithms change, code drifts, new content breaks things, compliance requirements evolve. A one-time look is better than nothing; ongoing stewardship is how results compound.
"That's a lot of money." +
Compare it to one ADA lawsuit settlement ($25K–$100K+), a Google ranking penalty recovery, or the cost of hiring even one digital specialist in-house ($70K+ salary, before benefits). The 20+ person bench you get for $4–6K/month would cost $400K+ to staff yourself.
"We'd rather have a fixed bid with guaranteed deliverables and a set price." +
Completely fair — and we'll still give you detailed proposals, reasonable time-and-effort estimates, and clear, measurable goals for every sprint. The difference is honesty about what those numbers are: estimates. A fixed bid only looks safer. To guarantee a price before discovery, we'd have to pad it for every unknown, and any change you ask for later becomes a change-order negotiation. The sprint-based retainer lets us scope each month on what we've actually learned, shift priorities as your business changes, and show you exactly where the hours went — without renegotiating a contract. You pay for real work, not for risk padding, and the site keeps improving instead of stalling at "delivered."
"We don't have budget right now." +
Start with the baseline assessment. It's a contained investment, produces immediate value (a prioritized remediation roadmap), and makes the case for the retainer internally. Many clients find the assessment findings create their own budget urgency.
