Software maintenance and
support that keeps you
current and stable.
Ongoing software support and maintenance: bug triage, dependency updates, security patching, performance monitoring, and coordinated releases. A named engineer. A structured retainer. No surprises.
Ongoing Service Agreement
Your commit history
tells the whole story.
Both versions of
it.
"We hadn't updated our dependencies in 14 months. The audit found 6 high-severity CVEs active in production. None of them showed up in our monitoring because we weren't looking."
Composite from Redefine pre-engagement discovery calls
Build your maintenance
scope before you
speak to anyone.
Select your application type, coverage tier, and the services you need. The scope card updates live. Submit the result as your brief: no discovery call needed before we send a proposal.
Application maintenance
services. One retainer.
All
scheduled and delivered.
Every bug classified. Every fix timestamped.
Bugs reported through your channel go into a triage queue within 30 minutes during coverage hours. Severity is classified against your service level agreement. The fix is deployed within the window. You receive a resolution note with what changed and why.
- P1 bugs acknowledged within 30 minutes
- Root cause documented, not just patched
- Monthly bug pattern report included
CVEs patched in 48 hours. Not discovered after a breach.
Security advisories are monitored daily. When a CVE affects a dependency in your stack, the patch is researched, tested, and deployed within 48 hours. You receive a security advisory note confirming what was affected and what was applied.
- CVE monitoring across your full dependency tree
- Patch tested in staging before production deploy
- Written advisory note with risk assessment per patch
A written record of everything done to your software this month.
Every retainer includes a monthly report delivered as a document: bugs fixed, patches applied, dependencies updated, performance changes measured. You always know exactly what state your software is in.
Weekly check. Monthly update sprint with full regression testing.
Dependencies are audited every week. Updates that require regression testing are grouped into a monthly sprint so your application never accumulates a dangerous debt of outdated packages.
Baseline set in week one. Alerts trigger when thresholds are crossed.
After onboarding, performance baselines are measured for your critical pages and API endpoints. When response times or error rates cross defined thresholds, the engineer investigates before users report it.
A Shopify support retainer
that drove measurable
growth
in every channel.
Core Pickleball
Shopify Ecommerce · Sports and Fitness
Core Pickleball needed ongoing improvements to navigation, homepage structure, and product page engagement to support sustainable growth from their Shopify store.
Automated email campaigns were underutilized. Customer retention strategies like loyalty programs were not yet in place. Search engine optimization and customer reviews needed work to increase trust and conversions. No structured retainer meant these improvements accumulated as debt rather than getting done.
Without ongoing support, every improvement required a new project brief, a new scope, and a new engagement. Nothing was maintained proactively.
Noticeable improvements in online presence, engagement, and sales performance. Enhanced navigation improved conversion rates. Loyalty program increased retention. Automated email campaigns drove repeat purchases.
Strengthened customer relationships and ongoing growth through structured ongoing support
Four things most software
maintenance services don't include.
What chief technology officers and operations leads ask before signing a software support and maintenance retainer.
Software maintenance keeps deployed software healthy: security patches, dependency updates, bug triage, performance monitoring. Ongoing development adds new features to the roadmap. The maintenance retainer covers operational health, not the product roadmap. If you need both, they run as separate scopes with separate budgets. Some clients run a maintenance retainer alongside a dedicated development team for exactly this separation.
Yes. All new maintenance engagements begin with a technical onboarding review: an abbreviated read of the codebase covering architecture, dependency state, known issues, and security posture. This gives the maintenance engineer enough context to respond effectively from day one. Most clients starting from a new codebase request the full code audit first, which is then credited toward the first month's retainer. The audit produces the baseline; the retainer maintains it.
Maintenance retainers run on a month-to-month basis after the initial onboarding period. The onboarding period is 2 to 4 weeks depending on codebase complexity: this is when the engineer reviews the code, sets up monitoring, and establishes the dependency baseline. After that, you can pause or cancel with 30 days written notice. There are no long-term lock-in clauses.
The report covers five sections: (1) Issues resolved this month with timestamps and root cause notes, (2) Dependency updates applied with a list of packages and versions, (3) Security advisories reviewed and actions taken, (4) Performance metrics compared to the previous month's baseline, (5) Recommended actions for next month with estimated effort. The report is delivered as a PDF and a shared document. All supporting commit hashes are linked so every claim is verifiable in the git history.
Every maintenance engagement has a designated secondary engineer who has reviewed the same codebase documentation. They carry the runbook and can respond within the P1 service level agreement window. Vacation or leave periods are communicated 2 weeks in advance, and the secondary engineer is explicitly briefed before any planned absence. The service level agreement commitments apply regardless of which engineer responds.
Application support services are the right tool for some applications. Not all.
The situations on the left are exactly what the maintenance retainer is designed for. The situations on the right suggest a different engagement.
Not sure which side you're on? Tell us your situation and we'll be direct about whether this is the right fit.
Good fit
Live application in production with real users
Maintenance works on running software, not software under construction
No dedicated in-house engineering resource for maintenance
The retainer replaces the capacity you do not have internally
Accumulated technical debt from lack of structured maintenance
The retainer includes an initial catch-up sprint for existing debt
Past incident that exposed a dependency or security gap
A clear event that showed what happens without proactive monitoring
Not the right fit
Application still in active development with no live users
The right tool here is a dedicated build team, not a maintenance retainer
You primarily need new feature development, not maintenance
Consider staff augmentation or a managed product engineering engagement
Tell us your stack. Retainer proposal in 24 hours.
No commitment. No pitch. Describe your application, your current maintenance situation, and what concerns you most. We propose the right software maintenance and support scope and monthly cost before you decide anything.
Submit your application brief
Stack, hosting, current maintenance situation, and last major incident.
Scope and pricing proposal within 24 hours
Exactly what is included, the monthly cost, and the service level agreement commitments: in writing.
Technical onboarding within 1 week of sign-off
Codebase review, monitoring setup, dependency baseline, service level agreement clock active.
Brief received.
Your software maintenance and support retainer proposal will arrive within 24 hours. The engineer assigned to your account will review your application brief before the proposal is written.