Product Support
Senior engineers keeping your production platform healthy and moving, from one committed team day a month. That includes platforms we did not build.
- 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
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. 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 roll into the following month, 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.
✓ Verified Review“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.”
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, 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?
What does Product Support cost?
Is this managed IT support or a helpdesk?
Do you support WordPress sites?
What happens if we want to leave?
Who does the work?
Can you work alongside our in-house team?
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 updatesProduction platforms decay without attention — dependencies age, certificates lapse, integrations drift. This is the work that stops that. | ≈ 3 hrs a month |
| Incident response and fixesWhen something breaks in production, the engineers who know the platform respond — and fix the cause, not just the symptom. | ≈ 2 hrs a month |
| Keeping it moving | |
| The improvement work that makes a supported platform better each quarter rather than merely alive. | |
| Small improvements and change requestsThe steady stream of small changes a live platform accumulates — handled inside the retainer instead of queued for a project. | ≈ 2 hrs a month |
| Roadmap and reviewA written record of what changed and why, and a prioritised view of what should happen next. | ≈ 1 hr a month |
| Total Fixed Fee | $1,495 |
Payment Terms
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 roll into the immediately following month only, are drawn down first, and have no cash value.
- 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
5 days a month
$6,600 /month
10 days a month
$12,320 /month
20 days a month
About a full-time team
$22,880 /month
All figures ex GST. Unused days roll into the immediately following month and are drawn down first. 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.
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.
Platform Health Check
Fixed $3,950 · credited against a rebuild
You run one platform and need to know what condition it is in.
Product Development Plan
Fixed $3,950 · credited against the build
You know roughly what you need built.
AI Automation Assessment
Fixed $2,950 · credited against the build
The board is asking about AI and you want a payback figure.
Still not sure which one fits? Compare every engagement on the services page, or book the call and we will tell you on it.