Fully Managed vs Self-Hosted Websites for Your Clients (and You)

As a digital marketer creating websites for clients, you’re often responsible for hosting and infrastructure for the websites you create. But hosting never comes alone. You can’t simply click a hosting button and be done with it, no matter what the hosting company makes you believe. There are updates, breakdowns, downtime, customer questions, and plugins to contend with.

A self-hosted CMS is exactly that: a provider hosts the website, but you’re left with the responsibilities of upkeep for the website. The alternative?  A fully managed CMS relieves you of the pressure of handling everything that comes with the hosting. There are plenty of options in between the two, but only a fully managed CMS makes sure every part of the website’s infrastructure is handled.

What should you expect from a fully managed CMS?

A fully managed CMS is an all-in-one infrastructure solution. It doesn’t give you hosting, one or two tricks, and then the responsibility to go in regularly and make sure the machine is still going as it should. Instead, a fully managed CMS gives you one final solution that frees you from updates, answering questions from clients, handling downtime, and researching which plugins won’t break your (client’s) website.

Fully Managed Features vs Hosting Providers & Open Source CMS Platforms

Having a fully managed CMS means you don’t have to worry about making sure the website is doing fine. It just always is. When your client may feel it’s not, we’ll answer the questions. The biggest advantage of a fully managed CMS isn’t just that it takes care of everything you need, it’s that it takes care of everything your clients need. 

Any other “managed CMS solution” is like the breakfast cereal that promises you a great body “when combined with an active lifestyle”. In dieting, there is no pill that solves all, but in hosting there is.

What are the advantages of a fully managed CMS?

If you deliver websites to clients, you can either deliver a product that quickly turns into a hassle for clients or an all-in-one solution. Offering a website together with a fully managed CMS solution means you’re offering a fully managed hosting solution together with other extras. At the same time, you can divert the questions of your clients to the technical experts, leaving you with time to do what you do best.

By offering our fully managed hosting and CMS solution, you can address some of the concerns of your price-sensitive clients. By combining all the technical infrastructure needs of a website in one place, you ultimately save your customers money and earn some brownie points in the process.