WordPress maintenance service
A monthly care plan that keeps one WordPress site updated, backed up, monitored and scanned, and restores it if an update breaks it. For site owners who would rather not do the upkeep themselves.
In short
- Every plan covers weekly updates with a visual check and rollback, daily offsite backups, uptime monitoring, security scanning and a monthly report.
- Essential has no time for fixes or edits. Care includes 90 minutes a month, Business 3 hours and Store 5 hours.
- Business and Store test updates on a staging copy first. On Essential and Care, updates go to the live site and are checked there.
- Hosting, redesigns and new features are not part of a plan.
- Plans are per site and month to month, with no minimum term. Start with a free diagnosis.
- A small site that someone already looks after may not need a plan. The guides linked on this page say how to tell.
WordPress needs regular attention. Core, plugins and themes all release updates, and a site that falls behind is left with security holes that are publicly known. Updates also break things now and then, so someone has to look at the site afterward and undo the change if it went wrong.
A care plan hands that work to us, for one site, month to month. There are four plans, and each builds on the one before it. The price of each is on this page and on the pricing page.
Who it is for
A care plan fits a site that matters to the business and that nobody has the time to look after. Usually one of these is true:
- An update broke a page, or the site was hacked, and you do not want to find out the same way again.
- The dashboard shows a list of updates that has been waiting for weeks, and nobody wants to be the one who presses the button.
- The person who built the site has stopped replying. If you no longer hold the logins, start with how to take over a WordPress site.
- You have a list of small changes and nobody to send it to. Care, Business and Store include time for those each month.
Who it is not for
- A small site that someone already looks after. If its updates are applied and a backup of it has been restored at least once, you may not need to pay anyone. Is WordPress maintenance worth it? says when a plan earns its fee and when it does not. The maintenance checklist is the routine to follow yourself.
- A site whose host already does the work. Hosting plans differ in how much of this they cover. Does your web host maintain your WordPress site? shows how to find out from your host's own documents.
- One thing that is broken. A one-time fix covers a single issue, with no plan to join. If the site is down, see emergency support. If it has been hacked, see malware removal.
- A WooCommerce store. The Store plan is the one for a shop. WooCommerce maintenance describes it.
- An agency with three or more client sites. White label is the Essential plan under your agency's brand.
What is included
Every plan, starting with Essential, does the same routine work:
- Updates do not pile up. WordPress core, plugins and themes are updated weekly.
- Each round is checked. A visual check follows the updates, and a rollback follows if something is wrong.
- There is a recent copy away from your server. Backups are taken daily and stored offsite. Essential keeps them for 30 days.
- A bad update can be undone. If an update breaks the site, the site is restored.
- Outages and signs of malware are looked for. Uptime monitoring and security scanning are part of every plan. For monitoring, our server asks your site's address about every five minutes, and the team is told when two checks in a row get no answer or a server error. Your account page lists every outage the checks saw in the month. A check is made from one place and sees only whether the address answered.
- You get a report every month. It is written from the record of the work done on your site and from what the monitoring found, and is mailed in the first days of the next month. The same record is on your account page.
Essential has no time for edits. The other plans add to it:
- Care adds 90 minutes a month of fixes and small edits, malware cleanup, and backups kept for 90 days.
- Business raises the allowance to 3 hours a month, tests updates on a staging copy first, and adds a quarterly speed tune-up.
- Store is for WooCommerce. It raises the allowance to 5 hours a month and adds a checkout and payment test after every update and more frequent backups for order data.
Where the four plans differ:
| Essential | Care | Business | Store | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Updates tested on a staging copy first | No | No | Yes | Yes |
| Checkout and payment test after every update | No | No | No | Yes |
| Daily offsite backups, kept for | 30 days | 90 days | 90 days | 90 days |
| More frequent backups for order data | No | No | No | Yes |
| Malware cleanup | No | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Time for fixes and edits each month | None | 90 minutes | 3 hours | 5 hours |
| Quarterly speed tune-up | No | No | Yes | Yes |
What we need from you to start
The free diagnosis form asks for your name, an email address, your site's address if you can share it, and a few sentences about the site and the plan you have in mind. We reply in writing to the address you give. The diagnosis is free, and you owe nothing after it. Whether to go ahead is up to you.
Hosting is not part of a plan. A plan works beside your host and does not replace it.
How it works
Step 1: Ask for a free diagnosis
Tell us about your site and the plan you have in mind on the free diagnosis page. You get a written reply.
Step 2: Choose a plan
Plans are priced per site and run month to month, with no minimum term.
Step 3: We do the routine work
Updates go on weekly and backups are taken daily. On Care, Business and Store, the fixes and small edits you ask for come out of that month's allowance.
What it does not cover
- Hosting, or anything on your hosting account that is not WordPress.
- Redesigns, new features and content writing. Anything larger than a plan's allowance gets a written quote first. See custom development.
- Fixes on Essential. Essential rolls back an update that went wrong and restores the site if an update breaks it. It has no time for other fixes or for edits. Time for those starts with Care.
- Malware cleanup on Essential. Essential scans. Cleaning an infection is part of Care, Business and Store, or a one-time malware removal.
- Time beyond your allowance. It is charged at the hourly rate and quoted before work starts. Unused minutes do not roll over.
- Licenses for paid plugins and themes. A paid plugin whose license has lapsed may not offer updates at all.
- A promise that nothing will ever go wrong. No plan can rule out an attack or an outage.
Before you buy: do it yourself, or check first
A plan is one way to get this work done. Doing it yourself is another, and so is paying for a fix when something breaks. The two guides linked above help you decide whether you need a plan at all. These help with the rest.
- What WordPress maintenance includes lists the jobs and gives a check you can make yourself that each one was done.
- The WordPress maintenance checklist is the routine by week, month, quarter and year, if you would rather run it yourself.
- What WordPress maintenance costs explains the three ways to pay for upkeep and why prices differ.
- How to choose a WordPress maintenance service gives the questions to put to any service, us included, and how to check each answer. It advises keeping the hosting account, the domain and the licenses in your own name.
- The maintenance cost calculator works out what looking after the site yourself costs each month, from your own figures. The downtime cost calculator works out what an outage costs, from your own revenue.
- The site health check reads one page of your site as a visitor is served it: whether it answers, and which WordPress, theme and plugins it shows.
Everything on the subject is listed under WordPress maintenance and care plans.
What it costs
Essential
$39 a month, per siteor $390 a year
Updates, backups, monitoring and security scanning. No edit time.
- Weekly core, plugin and theme updates with a visual check and rollback
- Daily offsite backups kept 30 days
- Uptime monitoring
- Security scanning
- Restore if an update breaks the site
- Monthly report
Care
Recommended$79 a month, per siteor $790 a year
Everything in Essential, plus 90 minutes of fixes and small edits a month.
- Everything in Essential
- 90 minutes of fixes and small edits a month
- Malware cleanup included
- Backups kept 90 days
Business
$149 a month, per siteor $1,490 a year
Everything in Care, plus 3 hours a month and updates tested on a staging copy first.
- Everything in Care
- 3 hours of fixes and edits a month
- Updates tested on a staging copy first
- Quarterly speed tune-up
Store
$249 a month, per siteor $2,490 a year
Everything in Business, plus 5 hours a month and a checkout test after every update.
- Everything in Business
- 5 hours of fixes and edits a month
- Checkout and payment test after every update
- More frequent backups for order data
Common questions
My host already does updates and backups. Do I need this?
It depends on your hosting plan, and you can find out. Does your web host maintain your WordPress site? sets out which jobs hosts take on and which they leave to you, and says when a host's plan is enough. If yours covers every job on that list, you do not need a care plan. Hosting is not part of a care plan, so a plan works beside your host and does not replace it.
Why pay every month for clicking "update"?
Because the work repeats. Updates go on weekly and backups are taken daily. What a plan adds to the button is what comes after it: a visual check, a rollback if something is wrong, and a restore if an update breaks the site. Whether that is worth a monthly fee for your site is a fair question. Is WordPress maintenance worth it? answers it both ways.
How much time for changes do I really get?
A number, written out. Essential has none. Care includes 90 minutes a month, Business 3 hours and Store 5 hours, for fixes and small edits. Time left at the end of a month does not carry over. Work beyond the allowance is charged at the hourly rate and quoted before it starts. Website edits says what counts as a small edit.
Is there a contract? What if I want to leave?
There is no contract. Plans are month to month with no minimum term, and you can cancel any time. Your first payment for a care plan is refunded if you ask within 30 days.
What happens if an update breaks my site?
The visual check after each update is there to catch it, and the update is rolled back. Every plan includes a restore if an update breaks the site. On Business and Store, updates are tested on a staging copy first.
Which plan should I pick?
Essential is for a site you edit yourself and only want kept up. Care adds time for fixes and small edits, and malware cleanup. Business is for a site where updates should be tested on a staging copy first. Store is for a WooCommerce shop.
I only need one thing fixed. Do I need a plan?
No. A one-time fix covers a single issue on one site, with no plan. If you join a care plan within 14 days of a Quick Fix, its fee comes off your first payment.
How do I know the work is being done?
Every plan includes a monthly report, and a sample of it shows what each line is read from. You can also look for yourself. What WordPress maintenance includes gives a check for each job, such as what the Updates screen in your dashboard should read right after a round of updates.