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The State of WordPress Agencies in 2026: Why Retainers Aren't Dead · Wpfavs - Your favourite WordPress news

• 0:13
  Welcome back to WPfavs.
• 0:15
  Today we're checking our own homework.
• 0:17
  In earlier episodes we said routine maintenance retainers were basically obsolete,
• 0:22
  because terminal agents could run updates in seconds.
• 0:25
  Then CloudLinux and WebPros published the State of WordPress Agencies in 2026,
• 0:30
  a survey of 210 agency founders and freelancers run in April and May.
• 0:35
  It says the real world is messier than our take.
• 0:38
  And I'll own it, I got carried away.
• 0:40
  The demos are real.
• 0:42
  Novamira CLI lets Claude Code, Codex CLI or Gemini CLI run shell commands,
• 0:48
  PHP and database operations against a WordPress site.
• 0:52
  But look at who's doing the work.
• 0:54
  78% of agencies are solo operators or small shops with ten people or fewer,
• 1:00
  and about one in five manage more than 100 client sites.
• 1:04
  That's not a team that has time to experiment on production.
• 1:08
  The part that surprised me is that headcount doesn't predict workload.
• 1:11
  47% of solo and small agencies manage more than 20 client sites,
• 1:16
  while 34% of agencies with ten or more staff manage 20 or fewer.
• 1:20
  So a freelancer can be carrying a hundred sites alone.
• 1:23
  That is exactly the person everyone says agents will rescue.
• 1:27
  Here's the number that matters most for this debate.
• 1:29
  Among agencies managing more than 100 sites, 45% still update manually,
• 1:34
  one site at a time.
• 1:36
  And across the board, 65% name keeping plugins and themes updated as their top
• 1:41
  security challenge, rising to three in four at the largest portfolios.
• 1:45
  That ranks far above responding to an actual breach.
• 1:49
  The daily grind is patching, not hacking.
• 1:51
  But that makes my case, not yours.
• 1:53
  If patching is the pain, that's the perfect job for an agent.
• 1:57
  Run the updates, check the result, move on.
• 1:59
  Why is nearly half of the biggest shops still clicking through sites by hand?
• 2:03
  Because an update isn't done when the command finishes.
• 2:06
  It's done when someone knows the checkout still works and the header didn't shift.
• 2:11
  The survey backs that up.
• 2:13
  92% of agencies say they use AI, but only 16% use it for monitoring or maintenance
• 2:18
  automation.
• 2:19
  They use it for content at 59%, code at 53% and SEO at 39%.
• 2:24
  Creative output is easy to review.
• 2:26
  Operational risk isn't.
• 2:27
  And look at what they say they want next.
• 2:30
  38% want automated WordPress updates with intelligent testing before the update goes
• 2:35
  live.
• 2:35
  35% want automated security across their client sites.
• 2:39
  Nobody is asking for blind updates.
• 2:41
  They're asking for updates they can trust.
• 2:43
  That's a verification problem, and it's still open.
• 2:46
  Okay, but I'd push back on one thing.
• 2:48
  This is a snapshot.
• 2:49
  38% of these agencies are already running agents like Cursor,
• 2:53
  Claude Code or Windsurf for multi step coding tasks, and 63% call AI and automation
• 3:00
  the defining force for the next two to three years.
• 3:04
  The direction is obvious even if the maintenance layer lags.
• 3:07
  I agree on direction.
• 3:09
  I disagree on timing.
• 3:11
  Right now, a maintenance retainer isn't dead, it's the product with the biggest gap
• 3:15
  between what clients need and what's automated.
• 3:18
  If you can sell updates plus proof that nothing broke, you've got something agents
• 3:22
  haven't delivered yet.
• 3:24
  Let's talk about what's squeezing these agencies besides patching.
• 3:27
  37% describe performance work as significant, heavy or overwhelming.
• 3:32
  That's heavier than security at 28%.
• 3:34
  And the causes are mostly client decisions.
• 3:37
  59% blame plugin bloat.
• 3:39
  Slow third party scripts that clients add after launch and tight budgets for CDN or
• 3:44
  hosting tiers come right behind.
• 3:46
  That connects to what I care about, how sites get read by AI assistants.
• 3:50
  A bloated site with five tracking scripts isn't only slow for humans.
• 3:55
  It's noisy for everything that has to interpret it.
• 3:58
  The agency that cleans that up is doing performance work and AI visibility work in
• 4:03
  the same pass.
• 4:04
  That's a real service you can sell, and it turns a complaint into a package.
• 4:09
  Audit the scripts, cut the plugin pile, then monitor it.
• 4:13
  In just a few clicks, a client sees what's slowing them down.
• 4:17
  It's the same shape as the update story.
• 4:19
  The value isn't the action, it's the evidence that the site is healthy.
• 4:23
  Now the part agencies should worry about.
• 4:26
  50% of hosting providers say they plan to expand professional services,
• 4:30
  like site builds, maintenance and security remediation, to raise revenue per
• 4:34
  customer.
• 4:35
  Hosts are becoming competitors.
• 4:37
  And 90% of agencies managing more than 100 sites run at least some of them on self
• 4:43
  managed VPS or dedicated servers, so agencies are moving closer to infrastructure
• 4:47
  while hosts move closer to clients.
• 4:50
  So the border war is real.
• 4:52
  If a host bundles maintenance and an agent, the agency can't compete on running
• 4:56
  updates.
• 4:57
  It has to compete on judgment, on knowing which client can't break on a Friday and
• 5:02
  which plugin always conflicts.
• 5:04
  Agreed.
• 5:04
  And the tooling is heading that way.
• 5:06
  The Abilities API and experiments like Benjamin Intal's Ahentic AI workspace let
• 5:12
  agents act inside WordPress without external middleware.
• 5:16
  Dashboard tools like WPadmin.AI promise bulk edits and troubleshooting.
• 5:22
  But agencies are still cautious about autonomous updates on client production sites
• 5:26
  without verified visual safety.
• 5:29
  Whoever solves visual and regression testing wins this category.
• 5:33
  One caution on the numbers.
• 5:34
  This is a survey of 210 people, so treat it as a strong signal,
• 5:38
  not the whole market.
• 5:39
  And 70% of these agencies also build on React, Next.js or Shopify.
• 5:44
  Only 30% are WordPress only.
• 5:47
  So the agency of 2026 isn't loyal to a platform.
• 5:51
  It's loyal to outcomes.
• 5:52
  My takeaway, then.
• 5:54
  Use agents everywhere they're cheap to check, like drafts, code and audits.
• 5:59
  Be slower where a failure costs a client money.
• 6:03
  And don't tell clients maintenance is automated until you can show them it's
• 6:06
  verified.
• 6:07
  Mine is simpler.
• 6:09
  Pick one maintenance workflow this week, add a visual check before and after,
• 6:13
  and time it.
• 6:14
  If it saves hours across your portfolio, you've found your first real agent job.
• 6:19
  Thanks for listening to WPfavs.