Monthly maintenance contracts

I usually hand off my sites with a PDF document showing how to maintain the site, which usually means adding or changing text and/or photos. The Content Management System is thus a selling point as a means of easy in-house updates as well as a means to save money and not have to deal with the hassle of contacting the web designer for every update.

However, some companies or organizations may prefer a monthly maintenance contract. I had a friend web designer who priced his services as Bronze, Silver and Gold plans in order to make as much money as possible. I do not charge for database backups (yet) but simply use an extension that emails me the database and if a site is ever hacked or compromised by the client, I would certainly charge a fee to restore the site with the database. I simply can't imagine telling a client who signed up for the Bronze plan (with no database backup) that they need to sign up for the Silver plan before I can restore their site.

Or charge for domain name management. I simply have clients tick the auto-renew box in their account so that their domain automatically renews. While I could charge for this, it seems like it would be a pain and if something ever happened and you slipped up and allowed a client's domain name to expire, you could be sued.

Do you enter into one of these with every client? It seems very unpractical for an independent web designer.