Magento 2 · Support retainers
Magento support and maintenance from developers who know your code
A Magento store needs steady attention: patches, updates, monitoring and the small fixes that stop small problems becoming expensive ones. Our Magento support retainer for UK merchants covers all of it, for Magento Open Source and Adobe Commerce.
What is included
Magento maintenance that covers the whole store
The retainer is an agreed number of hours each month, spent on whatever the store needs most.
Secure and current
- Adobe security patches tested on staging, then applied
- Extension updates through Composer, checked for conflicts
- A plan for the next version upgrade, so it is never a surprise
- PHP and service versions kept within what Magento supports
Running
- Uptime, error log and performance monitoring
- Bug fixes, with the cause found and not just the symptom
- Checks on cron, indexers and queue consumers
- Working with your hosting provider on server issues
Improving
- Small improvements to templates, checkout and admin
- Advice on extensions before you buy them
- A monthly report: what was done, time spent, what is next
- A backlog you can see and reprioritise at any time
How requests are handled
One queue, clear priorities, no gatekeepers
Every request goes into a shared issue tracker, so nothing lives in an inbox and you can see the state of each item at any time.
Requests are triaged by severity. A fault that stops customers ordering goes ahead of everything. A cosmetic issue waits its turn. You set the order of everything in between.
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Logged
Each request becomes a ticket with a description, a severity and an owner.
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Triaged
We assess impact, estimate the work and flag anything that needs your decision first.
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Answered by a developer
You deal directly with the people working on your code. Nothing is outsourced.
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Released properly
Changes go through Git, code review and staging before they reach production.
Onboarding
Taking on a store we did not build
Most stores we support were built by someone else. This is how we take one over safely.
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01
Find out what is there
Code quality, core modifications, extensions, patch level, performance and hosting, written up with priorities.
- Audit report
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02
Secure the accounts
Repository, hosting, admin and third-party accounts are moved into your name where they are not already, and old access is removed.
- Access register
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03
Set up a safe route to production
A local build, a staging site that mirrors production and a repeatable deployment with a rollback path.
- Staging site
- Deployment process
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04
Write it down
Integrations, scheduled jobs, customisations and known quirks are recorded, so the knowledge belongs to you.
- Store documentation
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05
Stabilise first
Missing security patches and the most serious faults are dealt with before any new work is started.
- Stabilisation plan
Ad hoc or retainer
Ad hoc fixes compared with a retainer
| Ad hoc fixes | A retainer | |
|---|---|---|
| Security patches | Applied when someone remembers, or after an incident | Scheduled as each patch is released |
| Knowledge of your store | Relearned on every job | Kept by the same developers month to month |
| Monitoring | You find out from customers | Problems are picked up by alerts |
| Priorities | Whatever broke most recently | A visible backlog, ordered by you |
| Budget | Unpredictable, with spikes after failures | A known monthly figure |
| Upgrades | Put off until they are urgent | Planned ahead and spread out |
Ad hoc work suits a small, stable store with little custom code. For anything busier, the cost of neglect tends to exceed the cost of a retainer.
Emergencies and limits
What happens when something breaks, and what a retainer is not
Emergencies
If the store is down or customers cannot pay, that work goes ahead of everything else in the queue. How quickly we respond, during which hours and by which contact route are agreed with you and written into the retainer. We do not advertise a blanket response time here, because the right cover depends on your trading hours and what is at stake.
After an incident you receive a short written account: what happened, what was done and what will stop it recurring.
What is not included
A retainer is for care and steady improvement. Larger pieces of work are scoped as projects with a fixed price, so they do not consume the hours that keep the store healthy.
Time to move?
Signs you need a new Magento support partner
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Patches are months behind
Security releases come and go and nobody mentions them until you ask.
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The same bugs return
Fixes treat the symptom, so the fault comes back after the next deployment.
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You never speak to a developer
Every question passes through an account manager and comes back vague.
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You cannot see the work
No tracker, no report and invoices that do not say what the hours were spent on.
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You do not hold the keys
The repository or hosting account is in the agency’s name, not yours.
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Every change is a risk
There is no staging site, deployments happen by hand and releases are dreaded.
Questions
Magento support questions
What does Magento support and maintenance include?
Magento support and maintenance covers the routine work that keeps a store secure and running: applying Adobe security patches, updating extensions, monitoring uptime and errors, fixing bugs, planning version upgrades and making small improvements. Under a retainer this is done by the same developers each month, with a report of what was done.
How much does a Magento support retainer cost?
The cost depends on the size of the store, how much custom code and how many integrations it has, and the cover you need. We do not publish a price list. After an audit we propose a monthly number of hours and a fixed monthly figure, in writing, before you commit.
Can you take over Magento support from another agency?
Yes. We begin with an audit of the code, extensions, patch level and hosting, then move repository and account access into your name, set up staging and a repeatable deployment, and document what we find. Missing security patches and serious faults are fixed before any new work begins.
Do you offer emergency Magento support?
Retainer clients can raise urgent faults, such as a store that is down or a checkout that fails, and that work goes ahead of everything else. Response terms, covered hours and contact routes are agreed and written into each retainer. We do not publish a general response time or service level.
How often should a Magento store be patched?
Adobe publishes security patches several times a year, and occasionally an urgent fix between scheduled releases. Each should be tested on staging and applied soon after release, because published vulnerabilities are quickly targeted. Stores should also stay on a version line that Adobe still supports.
Do you support both Magento Open Source and Adobe Commerce?
Yes. Both editions share the same core, so patching, upgrades, monitoring and bug fixing work the same way. For Adobe Commerce we also work with the B2B module and with stores hosted on Adobe’s cloud, alongside the vendor support included in the licence.