WordPress maintenance and care plans
The routine work that keeps a WordPress site running, how to do it yourself safely, and how to decide whether to hand it to someone else.
- By
- WP Ministry
- Published
Maintenance is a short list of jobs done on a schedule: updates, backups, a look at the site afterward, and a check that nothing has got in. None of it is hard. What goes wrong is that it is skipped, or done without a way back.
Doing it yourself. The maintenance checklist says what to do each week, month, quarter and year. Before the first update, have backups that run by themselves and are kept somewhere other than the server. How often to update settles the timing: security fixes as soon as you reasonably can, everything else on a regular round. Then update in the safe order, on a staging copy first if the site takes orders or bookings. If an update goes wrong anyway, the failed update runbook is the way back.
Deciding whether to hand it over. What WordPress maintenance includes says what the word covers and how to check that each part was done. Whether it is worth paying for says who needs a plan and who does not, and whether your host already does it says how to find out. What it costs explains why prices differ so much. If the person who built the site has gone, start by taking the site over.
Handing it over. How to choose a maintenance service gives the questions to put to anyone, us included, and how to check each answer. The cost calculator works out what the upkeep costs you now, from your own figures.
Our own maintenance service is a monthly care plan for one site, with what each plan includes and what it costs written out on the page.
Guides
- Does your web host maintain your WordPress site? What hosting covers and what is left to youA host is responsible for the server. What happens inside WordPress is mostly yours unless your plan says otherwise. Managed WordPress hosting covers more than shared hosting, but rarely everything. Your host's own support scope page settles it in about ten minutes.
- How often should you update WordPress, plugins and themes?Keep two clocks. A security release goes on as soon as you reasonably can, and WordPress installs its own in the background. Everything else waits for a regular round, weekly or monthly, set by how much on the site can break and what a break costs. Never leave it for months.
- How to add custom CSS to WordPressFor a few rules, use the "Additional CSS" box that WordPress provides, in the Customizer on a classic theme or in the Site Editor's Styles panel on a block theme. For a long stylesheet, use a child theme. Never edit the theme's own files, because its next update overwrites them.
- How to choose a WordPress maintenance service: what to compare and what to askPut the same written questions to each service, then check the answers against what you can see yourself. What separates one from another is what happens after an update, whether a restore is included, the hours a person replies in, and what you keep when you leave.
- How to choose a WordPress plugin, and try it without risking your siteRead the plugin's WordPress.org listing for signs that someone still looks after it, and for the WordPress and PHP versions it supports. Then install it on a staging copy, one plugin at a time, and check the site before it goes anywhere near the live one.
- How to create a WordPress child themeA child theme takes its design and features from another theme, its parent, and holds your changes to it, so the parent can be updated without losing them. It needs a folder and one file, style.css, whose Template line names the parent theme's folder.
- How to maintain a WooCommerce store: before every update, every week, every month and before a saleA store needs the upkeep of any WordPress site, plus what only a store has. Orders arrive all day, the checkout can fail while every page looks right, and WooCommerce has its own database update, templates and background jobs. This page gives a routine for each.
- How to safely update WordPress, plugins and themesBack up the database and the files, check that the backup is usable, then apply one update at a time and look at the site after each. When something breaks you know which update did it, and you have a copy to go back to.
- How to schedule automatic WordPress backupsA backup schedule can live at your host, in a backup plugin or in a cron job on the server. Whichever you use, it has to copy the database and the files, send them off the server, and be restored once to a staging copy as proof.
- How to set up a WordPress staging siteA staging site is a private copy of your site at its own address, for trying changes before visitors see them. Use your host's staging tool if there is one, a plugin if not, or copy the site to a subdomain by hand. Then stop the copy from emailing customers or taking payments.
- How to take over a WordPress site when your web developer has disappearedA website is three things with three owners of record. They are the domain name, the hosting account and the WordPress administrator account. Recover them in that order, through the registrar, the host and WordPress's documented reset methods, because each one unlocks the next.
- How to update WooCommerce safely: before, on staging, on the live store, and if it breaksRead the release notes, check your extensions and template copies, and back up. Update a staging copy and place a test order there. On the live store, close the checkout, back up again, update, test, then reopen. With the checkout closed, going back costs no orders.
- How to use WP-CLI to manage a WordPress siteWP-CLI runs WordPress jobs from the server's command line. Connect over SSH, run wp --info to see whether it is installed, and add it if it is not. Then update, back up, repair and inspect the site with short commands, even when the dashboard will not load.
- Is WordPress maintenance worth it? When a plan earns its fee and when it does notIt depends on what the site earns or would cost you while down or defaced, how much on it can break, and whether someone already does the upkeep. A small brochure site with a careful owner does not need a paid plan. A store, or a site nobody looks after, usually does.
- What WordPress maintenance includes, and how to check that it was doneWordPress maintenance is five jobs. Updates with a look at the site afterward, backups kept off the server and proven by a restore, uptime monitoring, security scanning, and a report. Each leaves a trace you can check yourself. Hosting, redesigns, new features, writing and SEO are separate work.
- WordPress backup plugins compared: what each one does and how to chooseA backup is worth having when it is kept off the server, holds the database and the files, runs on a schedule and has been restored once as a test. Five plugins compared on those points, with what each gives free and what it charges for.
- WordPress maintenance checklist: what to do every week, month, quarter and yearLooking after a WordPress site is a short weekly round of updates, a look at the site and a check that backups ran, plus slower checks every month, quarter and year. For each task, this page says where it is in WordPress and what fine looks like.
What it costs
- WooCommerce maintenance cost: why a store costs more, and what the extra should buyA WooCommerce store costs more to maintain than a brochure site because more can break, a break costs money by the hour, and a careful update takes longer. The extra should buy a staging copy, a test order through each payment method, and backups that keep up with orders.
- WordPress maintenance cost: what you pay for, and why prices differYou pay for WordPress maintenance in your own hours, by the hour when something breaks, or as a fixed monthly fee. The price moves with how much there is to update, whether the site sells, and what is promised when an update goes wrong.
Runbooks and checklists
- A WordPress update went wrong: a runbookWhat to do, in order, when an update to WordPress, a plugin or a theme leaves the site broken or stuck. Stop updating, copy down what the screen says, get back into the dashboard, then choose between going back one version and restoring a backup.
- Monthly WordPress maintenance report templateA report to copy and send a client each month. It covers what was updated, the backups, uptime, security, the changes they asked for, what needs their decision and what comes next. Every figure in it comes from a record you can point to.
- Taking over a client's WordPress site: a checklist to run before you change anythingBefore you change anything on a WordPress site someone else built, take a backup of your own, record the state the site is in, and send the client what you found in writing. This checklist gives the command or screen for each check and what to write down.
- WordPress launch checklist: what to check before a site goes liveA checklist for the days before a new or rebuilt WordPress site opens to the public. It covers content, settings, accounts, security, speed, search, forms and email, a store, and legal pages, in the order that catches the most with the least work.
Tools
- WordPress site health checkGive your site's address and see what one page shows a visitor: whether it answers, how it is secured, what search engines are told, and which WordPress, theme and plugins it shows.
- WP-CLI command builderChoose a job, fill in what it needs, and copy the WP-CLI command with its flags in place: updates, backups, getting back into a broken site, replacing an address. Built in your browser.
- WordPress and PHP end-of-life checkerSee whether your PHP and WordPress versions still get security fixes, and until when, from php.net's and WordPress.org's own records.
- Website downtime cost calculatorWhat an outage costs in sales not made, worked out from your own revenue and the hours the site was down.
- WordPress maintenance cost calculatorWhat looking after your site yourself costs each month in time and tools, beside the price of a care plan.