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Mention this idea on Reddit and you’ll be obliterated off of whatever subreddit you happen to be residing in. Most hate this idea and few can pull it off, but if you play your cards right, it can make for a legit way to make (mostly) passive income. The key to A White-Label WordPress Support Business is marketing yourself as a reliable WordPress agency and finding clients looking to make a switch from their current provider, or clients who’ve yet to protect their WordPress website with a care plan.

Is There A Market For This Business?

According to Hostinger, WordPress is used by 43.4% of all websites, which accounts for 810 million total WordPress websites in existence. (source)

WordPress websites take a lot of work to maintain, between plugins (there are over 72,000 plugins in the WordPress directory) WordPress system updates, and security. Outdated plugins can result in security breaches, and WordPress updates can break themes.

WordPress sites need a maintenance and support plan to ensure they stay secure, functional, and optimized. Regular updates to themes, plugins, and the WordPress core protect against vulnerabilities that hackers often exploit. A maintenance plan also includes performance monitoring, backups, and troubleshooting to prevent downtime or errors that can negatively impact user experience and search engine rankings.

Additionally, having expert support ensures that technical issues are quickly resolved, minimizing disruptions to a website’s operations. By investing in a maintenance plan, website owners safeguard their website’s long-term health and ensure it runs smoothly to serve an audience effectively. In simpler terms, WordPress is a literal pain to maintain, so a security and maintenance plan is a no-brainer and will give owners more time to do what they do best – plan their content calendars, create content, and hire others to do the same thing.

The Blueprint:

A step-by-step guide on how to pull off this side hustle.

Start An Agency

Start a WordPress maintenance and support agency. Do some brainstorming and come up with a name, establish an LLC, and create the logo. Perform a quick search on Bing for WordPress maintenance plans to get a general idea of what to name your agency. It could be anything really, as long as it’s not something already in use.

I recommend you consult a lawyer so as to not infringe on anyone’s trademark. Once you’ve got a name picked out, use canva or Pixlr to create a PNG logo for free to use on your website. You can also head to Fiverr to find a designer who can likely create a suitable logo to use for a relatively affordable price.

Start A Website

I recommend Webflow for an agency website. Webflow has many agency website templates available that you can easily make your own by changing the copy and images to fit the description of what your agency will offer — WordPress security, WordPress maintenance, etc. You won’t need eCommerce functionality, because you’ll link your monthly WordPress care plans to a sleek checkout page on Stripe.

So why use Webflow for your agency website (after all, you’re a WordPress agency) instead of WordPress? As mentioned above, WordPress websites are a literal pain to maintain (hence the need for your agency) and you want to the least amount of work possible for your own website. If you do choose WordPress as the platform for your agency website, however, you can use your own agency to maintain your site.

Sign Up For A Payment Processor

Sign up for a Stripe account. It’s basically free and they just take a small percentage of sales each month plus a small fee. Instead of customers checking out on your website, they’ll be redirected to your custom checkout page on Stripe. It’s much easier to collect money, make monthly WordPress plans a recurring charge, and cancel customer’s plans as needed.

Outsource Your Agency To A White Label WordPress Support Agency

Here is the golden nugget of this side hustle. You won’t actually be providing the maintenance, security, and support for your client’s WordPress websites. Instead, you’ll outsource all of this to the professionals. This is best done with a white label plan from WP Buffs. They’ll seamlessly provide all of the CMS updates, plugin updates, security monitoring, uptime monitoring, backups, and miscellaneous updates for your client’s websites, along with unlimited content editing on some plans – something just about every WordPress website owner will definitely be looking for.

You pay WP Buffs for each plan at a discounted rate, set your own rates accordingly, and pocket the difference, while they take care of everything. They’ll even send your clients emails with your agency branding and domain so it looks like all communication is coming directly from your WordPress agency. Offer something extra to make signing up with your agency the logical choice, like quarterly SEO audits or monthly keyword research, which can be done with simple sites like Google Keyword Planner or a service like SEM Rush.

Affiliate Merchant Accounts

If you don’t already have a network of WordPress clients and WordPress bloggers, then a solid marketing plan is necessary to find enough clients to make this venture worthwhile. A good place to start is by creating your own affiliate program with an offer good enough for WordPress bloggers to promote – think $100 per referral or more. This sounds like a lot of money upfront, but the clients you’re seeking will be on monthly plans with recurring revenue so a good offer to affiliates is worth the cost.  The best place to start is with a merchant account on Shareasale, because the brand integrates with Skimlinks so well.

Paid Ads

If you have a moderate to significant marketing budget, using paid ads is a powerful way to find clients by reaching targeted audiences quickly and effectively. Platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and Google Ads allow you to craft highly targeted campaigns based on demographics, interests, and behavior to ensure your ads are seen by people most likely to need the WordPress support and maintenance services your agency offers.

To maximize results, write unique, compelling headlines, clear calls-to-action, and incentives like exclusive content, discounts, or a lead magnet (like an eBook, checklist, or free guide) in exchange for signing up for your newsletter. Paid ads are especially useful for scaling up your client list, and thus your recurring monthly revenue because they provide immediate visibility to potential clients.

Content Marketing

If you’re looking to bootstrap this business and a marketing budget just isn’t there, content marketing is a better way to go than paid ads. It will take much longer, but featuring a blog on your website with helpful articles on everything WordPress maintenance plans is the way to go. Brainstorm relevant content ideas such as “Why Your WordPress Site Needs a Maintenance Plan”, “Wordpress Hacks To Protect Your Website”, and other similar ideas and post them on your site.

With proper SEO and sharing your articles on different social media platforms, your content will slowly trickle out to the masses. From there, you can funnel these potential customers to your agency’s website where you lay out your WordPress maintenance plans. Even if you have a budget for paid ads, content marketing should be done as well to cast a wider net.

My Results

I started this type of side hustle several years ago under the name WP Rooster, and did everything I showed you here, except for the paid ads. I likely would have scaled it a little higher had I ran paid ads with it, but unfortunately at the time I was short on disposable business cash and didn’t have enough set aside for side projects. I ended up with six clients after a few months, with each bringing me in around $60 for about $360 a month in gross passive income.

Monthly recurring expenses were around $23/month for a webflow plan and the 2.9% + 30¢ stripe charges for each plan I billed clients for monthly. One-time fees were $60 for a webflow theme, and a few hours of my time making my own logo and customizing my webflow theme.