A CRM for website maintenance: keep the client, the site and the work in one record

A sales CRM tracks people moving toward a purchase. A website maintenance CRM tracks something different: a client you already have, the websites they own, and the recurring work you do to keep those sites alive. The two share the word "CRM" and almost nothing else.

Why a sales CRM is the wrong tool

Generic CRMs know a contact's email and the stage of a deal. They have never heard of an SSL certificate, a failed plugin update or a monthly report. So the facts a studio needs every week end up in four other places: a monitor, a WordPress manager, an invoicing tool and a spreadsheet. The client lives in none of them.

The result is familiar. A site goes down and you hear it from the client first. A client asks what they pay for every month and you answer from memory.

What the record should contain

One client record, joined to everything you do for them:

• The client and their contacts, with the company they belong to.
• Their websites, each with its stack, hosting notes and monitoring history. See uptime monitoring for agencies.
• Incidents and audits per site: when it went down and for how long, and the SEO audit score over time.
• Updates performed, with the backup taken before each one.
• Deals, projects and tasks: the proposal that became the build, and the work still open.
• Invoices from draft to sent to paid, with overdue worked out from the due date.
• Requests the client made, landing on your board and not in your inbox.

When those hang off one record, the monthly report assembles itself and the answer to "what am I paying for?" is a link.

What to look for

1. The site is a first-class object. If a website is a custom field on a contact, you will outgrow it at ten sites.
2. Monitoring creates work. An incident should become a task without you copying anything.
3. The client can see it. A client portal with your logo is how a retainer stays visible.
4. Pricing that fits a small studio. Per-workspace pricing beats per-site pricing once you have a few dozen sites; the arithmetic is in the care-plan guide.

Where Bluprent fits

Bluprent is built around exactly this record. It is hosted, it is made for freelance web developers and small studios, and it replaces the monitor, the site manager, the invoicing tool and the spreadsheet with one tool. It will not replace a project-management suite or a time tracker. The Free plan holds three websites, so you can try it on real clients. Already on ManageWP or MainWP? Compare ManageWP and MainWP.