You manage 20 client websites. One goes down on a Tuesday afternoon. How do you find out?
Option A: The client calls you, angry, demanding to know why their site is broken and why you didn't know about it.
Option B: Your monitoring tool alerts you. You fix it. You update the client's status page. The client checks the page, sees it's resolved, and sends a thank-you email.
Same technical problem. Completely different client experience.
For agencies, monitoring isn't just about catching downtime. It's about managing client relationships at scale, reducing reactive support, and turning reliability into a revenue stream. This guide covers how to build a monitoring practice that scales with your agency.
Why Agencies Need Centralized Monitoring
You can't manage what you don't monitor
Most agencies discover client site issues reactively — the client reports the problem. This is backwards, expensive, and damages trust. Proactive monitoring changes the dynamic:
You find problems before clients do
This single shift transforms the relationship. Instead of "why was my site down for 3 hours?" the conversation becomes "we detected an issue, fixed it in 15 minutes, and here's the incident report." Night and day.
You reduce client support volume
"Is my site up?" "Is it slow?" "Why isn't the contact form working?" — these questions disappear when clients can check a status page. Multiply this by 20 clients and you're saving hours per week of reactive communication.
You create a new revenue stream
Monitoring + status pages + monthly reporting can be packaged as a maintenance service. Clients pay $50–$200/month for ongoing monitoring. Your cost per client: $2–$5 in monitoring tooling. The margins are excellent.
You protect your reputation
When a client's site goes down and they find out from a customer, they blame the agency. When you find it first and fix it proactively, you're the hero. Over time, this builds the kind of trust that prevents client churn.
You have data for difficult conversations
"Your hosting plan can't handle your traffic — here's the monitoring data showing response times spiking every afternoon." Data-backed recommendations are harder to dismiss than opinions.
The Agency Monitoring Stack
What you need for 20+ client sites
Uptime monitoring (every client)
HTTP checks every 60 seconds for every client's primary domain. This is non-negotiable. At minimum, monitor:
- •Main website URL
- •Any subdomains (shop.client.com, app.client.com)
- •Key landing pages (if the client runs paid ads)
SSL and domain monitoring (every client)
SSL certificates and domain registrations expire. When they do, the client blames you — even if they own the domain. Monitor all certificates and domains with 30/14/7 day alerts.
Visual monitoring (high-value clients)
Catch theme updates, plugin conflicts, and CDN issues that break layouts. Especially important for WordPress/WooCommerce clients where auto-updates can silently break sites.
Flow monitoring (e-commerce clients)
For clients with checkout flows, contact forms, or booking systems, monitor the complete user journey. A homepage that loads fine while checkout is broken costs your client revenue and costs you trust.
Status pages (every client)
Each client gets their own branded status page. They can check their site's status anytime without contacting you. During incidents, the status page communicates for you.
Reporting (every client)
Monthly reports showing uptime %, response times, incidents, and resolution times. This justifies your monitoring fee and demonstrates value.
White-Label Status Pages: Your Secret Weapon
Your brand, not your tool's
White-label status pages let you present monitoring as your agency's service, not a third-party tool. The client sees:
- •Your agency logo and branding
- •status.yourclient.com or yourclient.com/status
- •Professional incident communication under your name
- •Uptime reports with your brand
No "Powered by [monitoring tool]" — just your agency delivering professional service.
Why this matters
Perceived value increases
A branded status page feels like a custom service, not a $10/month tool you're reselling. This justifies premium pricing in your maintenance packages.
Client retention improves
A client embedded in your monitoring ecosystem — checking their status page regularly, receiving your branded reports — is less likely to leave. Switching agencies means losing all that visibility.
Professionalism differentiates
Most agencies don't offer status pages. Having one for every client immediately sets you apart from competitors who just build and disappear.
How to set it up
- 1.Use a monitoring tool with white-label support
- 2.Configure your agency branding (logo, colors)
- 3.Create a status page per client with their site components
- 4.Set up custom domains (status.clientdomain.com) or use your agency domain
- 5.Add the status page link to your client onboarding materials
PerkyDash Agency plan includes white-label status pages for all clients. One dashboard, unlimited client-facing status pages, your branding.
→ See Agency plan (€39.99/mo)Managing Alerts Across Dozens of Sites
Alert fatigue is real
With 20+ client sites monitored every 60 seconds, alert management becomes critical. Without proper configuration, you'll get hundreds of notifications and start ignoring them — defeating the entire purpose.
Alert strategies for agencies
Tiered alerting by client value
Not all clients are equal. Your $10K/month retainer client gets immediate SMS alerts. Your $200/month maintenance client gets email alerts during business hours.
| Client Tier | Alert Method | Response Target |
|---|---|---|
| Premium | SMS + Slack + Email | < 15 minutes |
| Standard | Slack + Email | < 1 hour |
| Basic | Email only | < 4 hours |
Alert routing by team member
Route client-specific alerts to the team member who manages that client. Don't send every alert to everyone — that's how alert fatigue starts.
Confirmation intervals
Configure alerts to fire only after 2–3 consecutive check failures. This eliminates false positives from momentary network blips and prevents unnecessary panic.
Incident escalation
If an alert isn't acknowledged in 15 minutes, escalate to a second team member. If not acknowledged in 30 minutes, escalate to the agency owner.
Quiet hours with exceptions
Set quiet hours (e.g., 10 PM–7 AM) for non-critical clients. Premium clients still get 24/7 alerts. This prevents burnout from overnight notifications for low-priority sites.
Client Reporting and Transparency
The monthly report that justifies your fee
A monthly monitoring report transforms monitoring from an invisible service to a tangible deliverable. Clients see the value and understand what they're paying for.
What to include in a monthly report
Uptime summary
"Your site was available 99.97% of the time this month — that's 13 minutes of total downtime across 2 minor incidents, both resolved within 7 minutes."
Response time trends
Average response time, trend over past 3 months. If it's getting slower, this is your evidence to recommend a hosting upgrade.
Incidents
Brief summary of any incidents: what happened, when, how fast you responded, how it was resolved.
SSL and domain status
"All certificates and domains are valid. Next SSL renewal: March 15 (automatic)."
Recommendations
Based on monitoring data, suggest improvements: hosting upgrade, CDN implementation, plugin optimization, etc.
Tip: Keep it to one page. Use charts over tables. Lead with the uptime number (it's almost always good news). End with recommendations. Email it on the first of each month — consistency builds trust.
Pricing Monitoring as a Service
Turn monitoring into revenue
Monitoring is one of the highest-margin services an agency can offer. Your cost per client is minimal. The value to the client is significant.
Model 1: Included in maintenance retainer
Bundle monitoring + status page + monthly report into a maintenance package.
Model 2: Standalone monitoring service
Offer monitoring as an add-on to any client engagement.
- •$29–$49/month per site for basic monitoring + status page
- •$79–$99/month per site for comprehensive monitoring + reporting
Model 3: Included in project pricing
Bake 12 months of monitoring into your project fee. After year one, it converts to a monthly retainer. This creates post-project recurring revenue.
Key positioning
Don't sell monitoring as "we check if your site is up." Sell it as "we proactively protect your online presence, detect issues before your customers do, and give you 24/7 visibility into your site's health."
The first framing is worth $10/month. The second is worth $200/month. Same service, different positioning.
Math for agencies: PerkyDash Agency costs €39.99/month. With 10 clients each paying $99/month for monitoring, you generate $990/month from a $40 investment. That's 24x ROI.
Onboarding New Clients
When you sign a new client, add monitoring on day one. Don't wait until the site is "finished." Here's the onboarding checklist:
Day 1 — Add monitoring
- ☐Add HTTP uptime check (primary domain + subdomains)
- ☐Add SSL certificate monitoring
- ☐Add domain expiry monitoring
- ☐Create client status page
Day 7 — Expand monitoring
- ☐Add visual monitoring on homepage and key pages
- ☐Add flow monitoring for forms/checkout (if applicable)
- ☐Configure response time thresholds
- ☐Set up alert routing to the client's account manager
Day 14 — Client handoff
- ☐Share status page URL with client
- ☐Add status page link to client onboarding docs
- ☐Explain what the status page shows
- ☐Set expectations: "You'll receive a monthly monitoring report on the 1st"
Day 30 — First report
- ☐Send the first monthly monitoring report
- ☐Review any issues detected and actions taken
- ☐Make recommendations based on monitoring data
This process should be systemized — create a checklist or SOP so every new client gets the same setup automatically.
Common Agency Monitoring Mistakes
1. Monitoring only the homepage
Your client's homepage can be fine while their contact form, checkout, or login is broken. Monitor the pages that generate business.
2. No alert routing
Sending every alert to every team member creates noise. Route alerts to the person responsible for that client.
3. Not using the data
Monitoring generates valuable data. If you're not using it in client reports and recommendations, you're missing the relationship-building opportunity.
4. One status page for all clients
Each client should see only their own site's status. A shared page where clients see other clients' issues is unprofessional and potentially a confidentiality problem.
5. Reactive only
If you only contact clients when something breaks, monitoring feels like a cost center. Monthly reports, proactive recommendations, and status pages make monitoring visible even when everything works perfectly.
6. Forgetting SSL and domain monitoring
The most embarrassing agency failure: a client's SSL certificate or domain expires because no one was tracking it. This is 100% preventable and 100% your fault in the client's eyes.
7. Not white-labeling
If clients see "Powered by [third-party tool]" on their status page, they realize the monitoring is a $10 resold service, not your agency's expertise. White-label maintains the perception of value.
Conclusion
For agencies, monitoring is where reactive support transforms into proactive service.
The setup takes 15 minutes per client. The tooling costs $2–$5 per client. The value — in saved support time, client trust, retained accounts, and monthly recurring revenue — is enormous.
Start with your top 5 clients:
- 1. Add uptime and SSL monitoring
- 2. Create a white-label status page for each
- 3. Set up alert routing
- 4. Send a monthly report
Then expand to every client. Make monitoring part of your standard service offering, not an afterthought. The agencies that monitor proactively keep clients longer, charge more, and sleep better at night.
Build your agency monitoring practice today.
PerkyDash Agency (€39.99/mo): White-label status pages, unlimited clients, one dashboard.
Frequently Asked Questions
How should agencies monitor client websites?
Use a centralized monitoring tool that supports multiple sites, white-label status pages, and tiered alerting. Monitor each client's primary domain, SSL certificates, and domain expiry at minimum. For e-commerce clients, add checkout flow monitoring. Send monthly reports to demonstrate value.
What is a white-label status page?
A white-label status page displays your agency's branding instead of the monitoring tool's. Clients see your logo, colors, and domain. This positions monitoring as your agency's professional service rather than a resold third-party tool.
How much should agencies charge for website monitoring?
Agencies typically charge $29 to $399 per month per client depending on the monitoring scope and service level. Basic monitoring with a status page can be priced at $29 to $49 per month. Comprehensive monitoring with reporting, priority alerts, and proactive recommendations ranges from $99 to $399 per month.
How many websites can an agency monitor at once?
Most monitoring tools support dozens or hundreds of monitored endpoints. The practical limit is managing alerts and reports, not technical capacity. With proper alert routing and automated reporting, a small agency team can effectively monitor 50 or more client sites.
Should agencies include monitoring in project pricing?
Yes. Including 12 months of monitoring in project pricing creates post-project recurring revenue when it converts to a monthly retainer. It also ensures clients have monitoring from day one rather than only adding it after a problem occurs.