For most designers, hosting is more valuable as part of a relationship than as a product.
WHY IT WORKS
It converts one-off projects into recurring revenue It keeps you in contact with clients, which produces further work It means sites you built stay on an environment you understand Clients would rather one supplier than three
TYPICAL PACKAGING
Hosting alone, at a modest margin
Hosting plus maintenance: updates, backups, monitoring and a set amount of small changes each month
Hosting plus maintenance plus content or SEO work
BE EXPLICIT ABOUT SCOPE
"Maintenance" means different things to you and the client. State exactly what is included: which updates, how often, how many change requests, what response time, and what is billed separately.
THE RISK TO MANAGE
You become responsible for sites you did not build and cannot fully control, particularly where clients install plugins themselves. Say in writing who may install what.
PRICE FOR THE TIME
The hosting costs you little. The support costs you hours. Price the package for the support, not the disk space, or you will end up doing maintenance for the price of storage.
