---
type: Static
title: Product Support
description: Ongoing senior engineering for platforms in production — including platforms we didn't build. Support retainers from $1,495 a month ex GST.
resource: https://nationaldigital.com.au/services/product-support/
tags:
  - product support
  - application support and maintenance
  - software maintenance services
  - take over an existing application
  - legacy application support
timestamp: '2026-10-15T00:00:00.000Z'
language: en-AU
publisher: National Digital
author: Cameron Young
authorRole: CEO
datePublished: '2026-08-28'
dateModified: '2026-10-15'
pillar: static
canonical: https://nationaldigital.com.au/services/product-support/
---

_Home — Product Support_

# Product Support

*Ongoing engagement*

**Senior engineers keeping your production platform healthy and moving, from one committed team day a month. That includes platforms we did not build.**

- [Book the 30-minute call](https://calendly.com/cameron-at-national-digital/discovery)
- [See what you get](#what-is-included-each-month)

- **Fee** — From $1,495 a month, ex GST
- **Commitment** — One committed team day a month, on 30 days' notice
- **Included** — Monitoring, maintenance, incident response and a written roadmap
- **Scales to** — Five, ten or twenty committed days a month on the same structure

## Trusted by Australian organisations

- [NRMA Parks and Resorts](/case-studies/nrma-parks-and-resorts/)
- [Luxico](/case-studies/luxico/)
- [MyStrengths](/case-studies/mystrengths/)
- [Micro-X](/case-studies/micro-x/)
- [Gratofy](/case-studies/gratofy/)

*Is this the right engagement?*

## Who it is for

Product Support fits when a platform is in production and you want senior engineers responsible for keeping it healthy and moving each month.

- Where we built the platform, you want the same team looking after it after launch.
- Another team built it and you want it monitored, patched and improved by people who can also change it.
- You have an in-house team and want senior capacity inside it for a set number of days a month.
- A legacy estate needs to stay stable while it moves to something better.

If nobody can tell you what condition the platform is in, start with a [Platform Health Check](/services/platform-health-check/). The report becomes the retainer’s first roadmap.

## What is included each month

The entry retainer commits one team day, eight hours, every month, drawn from engineering, design, QA and delivery as the work requires.

- Monitoring, patching and dependency updates.
- Incident response, fixing the cause as well as the symptom.
- Small improvements and change requests, handled inside the retainer instead of queued for a project.
- A written roadmap, reviewed with you and kept current.

Unused hours carry forward as a rolling balance, and holding a retainer unlocks a discount on our standard rate card for work beyond the committed days. The same structure scales to five, ten or twenty committed days a month, with the day rate and the rate card improving as the commitment deepens. The entry retainer runs on 30 days’ notice, so leaving is easy and staying is a decision.

## Embedded engineering at ten days and above

At ten or twenty committed days a month the engagement changes shape. It runs as a resourcing agreement with a named allocation, working inside your repositories and your processes alongside an in-house team, and the notice period lengthens to match. The commitment is capacity rather than a queue of tickets, which is what makes it usable as senior engineering headcount you do not have to hire.

## What the retainer covers

Product Support covers the application and platform layers: code, integrations, infrastructure, performance and reliability, under an engineering retainer. It is delivered by the senior engineers who build our platforms rather than by a separate support tier, so the person fixing an incident can also change the system so it does not recur. We do not manage laptops or office networks, and we do not run a helpdesk ticket queue.

> Switching to National Digital as our primary development partner was one of the best decisions we've made. Their technical expertise and reliability have been outstanding.

— Alex Ormerod, Co-Founder & Managing Director at Luxico

- Verified review

*Platforms we did not build*

## Taking over a platform someone else built

Inheriting a fragile, undocumented or unsupported platform is one of the most common reasons people call us. A takeover starts with a [Platform Health Check](/services/platform-health-check/), a fixed-fee review of the code, infrastructure, security posture and documentation, so you get an honest read on what you own before committing to anything. From there, most platforms move onto a support retainer; some justify staged rebuilding, and the assessment tells you which yours is.

## Legacy platforms, supported through the transition

A legacy estate, such as an ageing WordPress install or an application on an end-of-life stack, can be supported while it moves to something better. We keep it patched, monitored and stable as a path into modernisation rather than as a standing maintenance product.

## Questions buyers ask

### Can you take over an application built by another team?

Usually, yes. We start with a paid platform health check of the code, infrastructure, security posture and documentation, and give you an honest view of what you own. From there the platform moves onto a support retainer, into a staged rebuild, or — if it's genuinely sound — back to whoever runs it, with the assessment as your record.

### What does Product Support cost?

The entry retainer is $1,495 a month ex GST for one committed team day (eight hours). The same structure scales: five days a month is $6,600 ($1,320 a day), ten is $12,320 ($1,232 a day) and twenty — about a full-time team — is $22,880 ($1,144 a day), with a growing discount on our standard rate card for work beyond the committed days. Unused hours carry forward as a rolling balance of up to half the month’s included hours.

### Is this managed IT support or a helpdesk?

No. Product Support covers the application and platform layers — code, integrations, infrastructure, performance and reliability — under an engineering retainer. Device management, office networking and end-user helpdesk are different services, and we don't offer them.

### Do you support WordPress sites?

As a transition, yes. We'll keep a legacy WordPress estate patched, monitored and stable while it moves to a platform that fits better. What we don't sell is a standing WordPress maintenance plan with no destination.

### What happens if we want to leave?

Thirty days' notice at one or five committed days a month — sixty at ten, ninety at twenty — and you keep everything: code, infrastructure, documentation and runbooks live in your accounts and repositories wherever practical. Support is meant to be worth keeping, not hard to cancel.

### Who does the work?

The same senior Australian engineers who build our platforms — support isn't handed off to a separate tier. That's deliberate: the person fixing an incident should be someone who can also improve the system so it doesn't recur.

### Can you work alongside our in-house team?

Yes, and from ten committed days a month that is how the retainer is written: a resourcing agreement with a named allocation, working in your repositories and your processes. Below that the retainer still covers work done alongside your team, with the capacity committed monthly rather than allocated to named people.

## What Product Support costs

An ongoing engineering retainer for platforms in production — including platforms National Digital did not build. One committed team day each month covering monitoring, maintenance, small improvements and roadmap work, delivered by the senior team. The committed capacity scales to twenty days a month on the same structure.

### Keeping it healthy

The standing work that stops a production platform decaying: monitoring, patching and answering when something breaks.

- **Monitoring, patching and dependency updates**: Production platforms decay without attention — dependencies age, certificates lapse, integrations drift. This is the work that stops that.
- **Incident response and fixes**: When something breaks in production, the engineers who know the platform respond — and fix the cause, not just the symptom.

### Keeping it moving

The improvement work that makes a supported platform better each quarter rather than merely alive.

- **Small improvements and change requests**: The steady stream of small changes a live platform accumulates — handled inside the retainer instead of queued for a project.
- **Roadmap and review**: A written record of what changed and why, and a prioritised view of what should happen next.

**Total Fixed Fee:** $1,495

**Payment terms:** Invoiced monthly, ex GST. 30 days' notice either way at the entry tier. Unused hours carry forward as a rolling balance of up to half the month’s included hours.

**Key Assumptions:**
- One team day (8 hours) per month is the minimum retainer — below that an active support arrangement isn't viable.
- The hours shown against each line are an indicative split of the committed day and vary month to month — the day is what is committed, not the split.
- Unused hours carry forward as a rolling balance of up to half the month’s included hours, with no one-month expiry; surplus above that expires at month end. Ordinary work may run into debit by up to a quarter of the month’s hours, which the next month absorbs first; beyond that, work pauses unless top-up hours are approved.
- Holding a retainer unlocks a discount on the standard rate card for work beyond the committed hours — 5% at one day a month, rising to 15% at twenty.
- The structure scales: five days a month is $6,600 ($1,320 a day), ten is $12,320 ($1,232 a day) and twenty — about a full-time team — is $22,880 ($1,144 a day), all ex GST. Notice is 30 days at one or five days a month, 60 at ten and 90 at twenty.
- Taking over a platform National Digital did not build starts with a paid platform health check.

*Scale it to the need*

## One structure, sized to the platform.

Every retainer is the same commitment at a different size: a set number of team days each month, drawn from engineering, design, QA and delivery as the work requires. The day rate falls as the commitment deepens — and so does the rate card for work beyond it. Scale up or down as the platform’s needs change.

- **1 day a month (Entry retainer)** — $1,495/month, $1,495 a day, −5% rate card for extra work
- **5 days a month** — $6,600/month, $1,320 a day, −10% rate card for extra work
- **10 days a month** — $12,320/month, $1,232 a day, −12.5% rate card for extra work
- **20 days a month (About a full-time team)** — $22,880/month, $1,144 a day, −15% rate card for extra work

All figures ex GST. Unused hours carry forward as a rolling balance of up to half the month’s included hours, and work may run ahead of the balance by up to a quarter. Notice runs 30 days at one or five days a month, 60 at ten and 90 at twenty — from ten days the engagement runs as a resourcing agreement with a named allocation.

## Bring us the platform you’re worried about.

Book a 30-minute call with an engineer for an honest read on the state of what you’re running and what supporting it properly would take. No pitch deck, no obligation.

- [Book the call](https://calendly.com/cameron-at-national-digital/discovery)
- [Start with a Platform Health Check](/services/platform-health-check/)
- Email: enquiries@nationaldigital.com.au
- Phone: 1300 800 855

*Not in production yet?*

## Four fixed-fee ways to start.

Each starting point ends in a written document you keep, and each is credited against the work that follows it.

### Technology Roadmap

**Fixed $4,950 · credited against the first initiative**

Several systems need rationalising and the order matters.

[See the Technology Roadmap](/services/technology-roadmap/)

### Platform Health Check

**Fixed $3,950 · credited against a rebuild**

You run one platform and need to know what condition it is in.

[See the Platform Health Check](/services/platform-health-check/)

### Product Development Plan

**Fixed $3,950 · credited against the build**

You know roughly what you need built.

[See the Product Development Plan](/services/product-development-plan/)

### AI Automation Assessment

**Fixed $2,950 · credited against the build**

The board is asking about AI and you want a payback figure.

[See the AI Automation Assessment](/services/ai-automation-assessment/)

Still not sure which one fits? [Compare every engagement](/services/) on the services page, or book the call and we will tell you on it.

## Related

**Related:**
- [National Digital - Custom Software, AI & Platforms](/okf/home.md)
- [Talk to an engineer.](/okf/contact.md)
- [Careers at National Digital](/okf/careers.md)
- [Graduate Full-Stack Web Developer](/okf/australia-remote-graduate-full-stack-developer.md)
- [Senior Software Engineer (Frontend)](/okf/australia-remote-senior-software-engineer-frontend.md)
- [Senior Software Engineer (Backend)](/okf/australia-remote-senior-software-engineer-backend.md)
- [Privacy Policy](/okf/privacy.md)
- [Website Terms of Service](/okf/terms.md)
- [Accessibility Statement](/okf/accessibility.md)
- [Small team. Serious platforms.](/okf/about.md)
- [Real platforms, in production.](/okf/case-studies.md)
- [Senior engineering, end to end.](/okf/services.md)
- [Knowledge library.](/okf/expertise.md)
- [QA & Test Automation Engineer](/okf/australia-remote-qa-automation-engineer.md)
- [Booking systems built around your operation.](/okf/booking-systems.md)
- [Custom software, built by senior engineers.](/okf/custom-software.md)
- [AI that survives contact with production.](/okf/ai-automation-services.md)
- [NewBook Integration & Custom Development](/okf/newbook-integration.md)
- [cruisePAL (Resco) Integration & Custom Development](/okf/cruisepal-integration.md)
- [Customer portal development, built around your access rules.](/okf/customer-portals.md)
- [An Australian software development company you can talk to directly.](/okf/software-development-company.md)
- [Custom appointment scheduling, built for how your service actually books.](/okf/appointment-scheduling-systems.md)
- [Venue booking systems built around your capacity, not a vendor's template.](/okf/venue-booking-systems.md)
- [Web application development for products that have to hold up.](/okf/web-application-development.md)
- [AI agent development that answers, escalates and knows its limits.](/okf/ai-agent-development.md)
- [Document and workflow automation, wired into the systems you already run.](/okf/document-workflow-automation.md)
- [AI consulting from the engineers who would have to build it.](/okf/ai-consulting.md)
- [Governance and Credentials](/okf/governance.md)
- [Information Security and Privacy Statement](/okf/governance/information-security-and-privacy.md)
- [Quality Policy](/okf/governance/quality-policy.md)
- [Work Health and Safety Policy](/okf/governance/work-health-and-safety-policy.md)
- [Modern Slavery and Ethical Sourcing Statement](/okf/governance/modern-slavery-and-ethical-sourcing.md)
- [Environmental Policy](/okf/governance/environmental-policy.md)
- [What will it cost to build?](/okf/estimate.md)
- [Product Development Plan](/okf/services/product-development-plan.md)
- [Replacing a legacy booking system — without losing a booking.](/okf/legacy-booking-system-replacement.md)
- [Civic software we build and run](/okf/projects.md)
- [Platform Health Check](/okf/services/platform-health-check.md)
- [AI Automation Assessment](/okf/services/ai-automation-assessment.md)
- [Technology Roadmap](/okf/services/technology-roadmap.md)
- [An AI automation assessment that ranks the work and trains your team](/okf/ai-automation-assessment.md)
- [Connect an AI assistant](/okf/agents.md)
- [AI Visibility Management](/okf/services/ai-visibility-management.md)
- [Standard rate card](/okf/services/rate-card.md)