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Discussion on: Have you used Netlify for real client projects?

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stu profile image
Stu Finn

Hi Alexa, I have been running into this lately too.

Until now I have kept client sites on my own Netlify account. So far it works because they are small businesses with low traffic but I can see it causing issues down the road. I would prefer to hand off everything to the client, but retain access to the account for support. The Netlify Pro plan is definitely overkill and too pricey for my use-cases.

The only alternative option I can see is to create a new free account for them and have them add me as an ad-hoc team member for $15 US a month. Still not ideal. Have you found a better solution to this since you posted about it?

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Alexa Steinbrück

Hi Stu!
The workflow that works best for me now is the following:

  1. During development, I keep the project on my own Netlify account
  2. Once it is ready, I ask the client to create a (free) Netlify account and pass me the password via onetimesecret.com
  3. Then I transfer ownership via a request to the Netlify support

2+3 seems a bit hacky, but it works. Paying the $15/month for an extra team member doesn't seem necessary to me, since the clients themselves probably won't work actively on the Netlify setup, and your work as the developer will be finished at a certain point.

I also explicitely asked Netlify if the Free Plan is reliable for small business projects (and not “personal projects, hobby sites or experiments” only), and the answer was YES. You can read the thread here

I am planning to write a blog post about this (and the practical implications of using JAM stack for non-technical clients). Hopefully soon!

Cheers!

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Taylor Page

Do you have continuous deployment linked up to these kinds of websites? I've been wondering about this use-case method myself with some Gatsby and now an 11ty site that I'm working on for some clients. Was curious about the handoff with site ownership and how this should be handled. Would be nice if they had site owners and dev access as separate things rather than paying $19/member.

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Alexa Steinbrück • Edited

Yes, I usually have CI/CD from Github in place. In this case I also create a Github account for the client. I am still struggling a bit with this approach, because it feels like it involves the client a bit too deep into the infrastructural/development part of the project. Seems like this is a side-effect of the JAM Stack...