WordPress maintenance.
Overview
A website is not finished at launch. WordPress core, themes and plugins ship updates every month, and some of them close holes that bots start probing within days of the fix being published. Skipped updates are how most sites get into trouble.
The reason they get skipped is rarely laziness. It is that an update broke something once, and now nobody wants to be the person who presses the button on a Friday. So the site sits three months behind, everyone knows it, and nobody has the afternoon spare to do it safely.
A care plan takes that decision away from you. We update, back up, monitor and fix, and you get a short report each month showing exactly what was done.
See a sample monthly report Not on WordPress, or want the whole website looked after? Website maintenance and managementWhat a month actually looks like
This is the part people ask about, so here it is. Press the button.
- SnapshotFull backup of files and database, stored off-site
- Clone to stagingAn exact copy of production, on its own address
- Apply updates9 plugins, 1 theme, WordPress core
- Visual checkKey pages compared against yesterday, pixel by pixel
- Roll back the oneGallery Lightbox 4.2.0 held at 4.1.6, upstream notified
- Smoke testsCheckout, contact form, login and search
- Promote to liveThe tested set only, during the quiet hour
- ReportWhat changed, what was held, what to watch
The interesting step is the fourth one. A plugin update changes the product gallery, the visual check catches it, that one update is held back at the old version and everything else goes live. You hear about it in the report rather than from a customer, and nothing was down while it was sorted out.
That is the whole value of a care plan in one sentence: the updates still happen, but they happen somewhere that does not matter first.
What is included
Every month, without being asked
- Core, theme and plugin updates, applied on staging and checked before going live
- Off-site backups, versioned, with a restore you can request at any time
- Uptime monitoring, and a human response when something goes down
- Security scanning and file-integrity monitoring
- SSL certificate and domain expiry watched, so neither surprises you
- A plain-English report: what changed, what was held back, what to watch
And when you need it
- An allowance of time each month for content edits and small fixes
- Someone to ask before you install a plugin, rather than after
- Staging available whenever you want to try something safely
- Performance checked as the site grows, not just at launch
- A first response when something breaks, included rather than billed
- An honest opinion on whether the next thing you are being sold is worth it
How it starts
- 01
Take stock
Week 1Before we take responsibility for a site we find out what we are taking responsibility for: versions, plugins, users, hosting, where the backups are and whether anyone has ever restored one. Sites usually arrive with a few surprises.
A written picture of the site as it stands - 02
Catch up
Weeks 1–2Whatever has been deferred gets cleared first, carefully, because two years of skipped updates cannot be applied in one click. Backups are set up properly and a restore is tested so we know it works before we need it.
Current, backed up, and restorable - 03
Harden and monitor
Week 2The basics go on: two-factor for admins, unused accounts and plugins removed, monitoring for uptime, file changes and certificate expiry.
Monitoring live, basics closed off - 04
Settle into the rhythm
MonthlyFrom then on it is the run you saw above, at the same time each month, plus whatever you send us in between. The report arrives whether or not anything interesting happened, because a quiet month is information too.
A monthly run and a monthly report
Catch-up work on a neglected site is quoted separately, once, before the plan starts.
Who it is for
Businesses whose website matters but who do not have a developer on staff. If you have ever put off an update because you were not sure what it would break, this is for you.
It is also for the person who technically could do it themselves. Not because they cannot, but because the thirty minutes a month is never the real cost. The real cost is being the one who has to drop everything when it goes wrong at the worst time.
Who it is not for
If your site is a brochure that has not changed in three years, sits on well-managed hosting and has two plugins, you may genuinely not need this. We will tell you so. A one-off hardening job and a calendar reminder might be the honest answer, and we would rather give you that than a subscription you quietly resent.
A month in the life of a managed website How many plugins is too many?Questions we get asked
What happens if an update breaks something?
It gets caught on staging, which is the entire reason staging exists. The offending update is held at the previous version, everything else goes ahead, and we look into the conflict. You find out in the report. If something does slip through to the live site, rolling back is minutes, because a backup was taken immediately before.
Is this just a plugin you install and walk away from?
No. A lot of what gets sold as a care plan is an automated update service with a dashboard. Automatic updates are fine for security releases and dangerous for everything else, because software does not know that your gallery looks wrong now. A person looks at the result each month.
Can we cancel?
Monthly, with no notice period and nothing to unpick. We do not hold the site, the hosting, the domain or the code. If you leave, you leave with everything, and we will hand over the documentation rather than making the next person work it out.
Does the monthly allowance roll over?
No, and we would rather be upfront about that than pretend. It is there so small jobs do not need a conversation about money every time. If you routinely need more than the allowance, that is a sign you need a bigger plan or a project, and we will say so instead of quietly billing extra.
What if we already have hosting we like?
Then keep it. A care plan and hosting are separate things, and we manage sites on hosting we did not set up all the time. If the hosting is genuinely holding the site back we will tell you, with the specific reason, and it will still be your decision.
Do you work on sites you did not build?
Most of them are. We take stock first, quote for any catch-up work separately, and start the plan once the site is in a state we can responsibly look after. Occasionally the honest answer is that the site needs rebuilding rather than maintaining, and we will say that before taking a monthly fee.