Ongoing care
WordPress Maintenance & Care
Updates tested on a staging copy before they reach your live site, backups held off your server and proved by restoring them, uptime checked every minute, and a monthly report written in language you can actually read.
Most maintenance plans are an invoice and a plugin that auto-updates everything at 2am. This one has a person deciding what to apply, what to hold back, and what to tell you about.
A real month, in the format you get it. The line that matters is the update we decided not to apply.
$299
Per month, one fixed number, no setup fee
Staging first
Every update tested on a copy before your live site
30 days
Backup retention, held off your own server
No contract
Month to month, cancel with thirty days’ notice
Sound familiar?
When nobody is actually looking after the site
Maintenance is invisible when it works, which is exactly why it stops happening. Nothing breaks for a year, so it feels like a bill for nothing — and then one Saturday it is a bill for everything.
- Nobody has run an update in eight months and now they all look risky to touch
- You have backups, but nobody has ever restored one to check they work
- The site went down over a weekend and you found out from a customer
- Your host includes backups, and they sit on the same server as the site
- An update broke the layout once, so now updates are simply not applied
- Plugins auto-update themselves and you find out when something stops working
- You already pay for maintenance and have never seen a report
- The developer who built the site has stopped answering email
The work itself
What we do every month
The same work whether it was a quiet month or a bad one. Most of it you will never notice, which is the point — but you get told about all of it.
Updates, staged first
Core, plugins and themes applied to a staging copy, then checked before anything reaches your live site. When an update breaks something we hold it back, tell you why, and either patch around it or wait for the fix. Auto-updating everything at 2am is not maintenance, it is a gamble on your behalf.
Backups that have been restored
Daily backups of files and database, kept thirty days, stored away from your host — a backup on the same server as the site is not a backup, it is a copy waiting for the same accident. Once a month we restore one to a scratch site, because a backup nobody has restored is a guess.
Uptime and error monitoring
Checked every sixty seconds from outside your network, with the alert coming to us rather than only to your inbox. We also watch the PHP error log and the SSL certificate expiry date, because both fail quietly and both take the site down when they do.
Security, kept current
Daily malware and file-integrity scans, login attempts rate-limited, unused admin accounts closed, file permissions checked, and known-vulnerable plugins tracked against the disclosure feeds so you hear about a problem before it is exploited rather than after.
A report you can read
One page a month, in English: what was updated, what was held back and why, uptime, what the scans found, what we noticed that you may want to deal with. Not a plugin-generated PDF of green ticks that nobody opens. If a month was quiet, the report says so.
Small jobs, and someone to ask
Thirty minutes of small changes each month — a text edit, a new page, a plugin setting, a form field. Rolled into the price, not billed in fifteen-minute increments. Beyond that we quote first. You email a person who knows your site, not a ticket queue.
The actual schedule
What happens, and how often
Published so you can hold us to it, and so you can compare it against what you are paying for now. Ask your current provider for the same table.
| What | How often | Why it is on the list |
|---|---|---|
| Uptime check from outside your network | Every 60 seconds | So the alert reaches us at 3am, rather than reaching you from an annoyed customer at 9am. |
| Malware and file-integrity scan | Daily | Injected code is usually found by its file changes long before a visitor sees a redirect. |
| Off-server backup of files and database | Daily, kept 30 days | Thirty days because infections are often noticed weeks late, and yesterday’s backup is infected too. |
| Plugin and theme updates on staging | Weekly | Weekly is fast enough to stay ahead of disclosed vulnerabilities without churning your live site daily. |
| WordPress core updates | Within 72 hours | Long enough for the first round of conflict reports to appear, short enough that a security release is not left sitting. |
| Restore a backup to a scratch site | Monthly | The only way to know a backup works. This is the step almost every plan skips. |
| Database cleanup and optimisation | Monthly | Expired transients, orphaned metadata and old revisions quietly turn into a slow admin. |
| Core Web Vitals and broken link check | Monthly | Catches the slow drift that follows a year of new images and plugins, before it costs rankings. |
| PHP version and end-of-life check | Quarterly | An unsupported PHP version stops getting security fixes, and the upgrade is easier planned than forced. |
| Written report | Monthly | Including the months when nothing happened. That is what you are paying to be able to assume. |
Included as standard
What comes with every plan
There is one plan. A busier site costs more per month, but it is never a cut-down version of the work.
- A staging copy of your site, maintained for you. Not spun up in a panic when something needs testing — kept in step, so it is there when it is needed.
- Backups off your host, restore-tested monthly. Downloadable by you at any time, in a format that is not locked to our tools.
- Thirty minutes of small changes a month. Not billed separately, not carried over, not turned into a support ticket.
- A named person who knows your site. Same person each month, so nobody has to be told the history again.
- Emergency response if the site goes down. Included, not an extra call-out fee at the worst possible moment.
- A monthly report, every month. Including the quiet ones, and including anything we chose not to do.
- No lock-in. Month to month with thirty days’ notice. Everything stays on your hosting and in your accounts throughout.
- A free health check before you commit. If the site needs fixing before a plan makes sense, we tell you that instead of signing you up.
How it works
Health check first, price second, care third
01 — Free health check
We look at the site as it stands: how far behind the updates are, whether the backups exist and work, what the scans find, what PHP version it runs, and whether anything is already broken. You get that in writing within two business days, and it is yours to keep whether or not you sign up.
02 — Fixed monthly price
One number in USD, from $299 a month. What moves it is how much the site does, not how many pages it has — a busy store with payment integrations takes more watching than a fifteen-page brochure site. Anything the health check says needs fixing first is quoted separately, so you can see what is one-off and what is ongoing.
03 — Onboarding, then routine
The first month is the heavy one: staging built, backups moved off the host and restore-tested, monitoring connected, the update backlog cleared in controlled batches. After that it settles into the schedule above, and the first report arrives at the end of month one.
Scope, honestly
What a care plan does not cover
A monthly plan keeps a working site working. It is not a way to buy a fix for something already broken at a discount, and pretending otherwise is how maintenance relationships turn sour in month three.
- Making a slow site fast — that is speed optimization, from $349, and we will say so rather than charge you monthly for it
- Cleaning a site that is already infected — that is malware removal, from $199, and the plan starts after it is clean
- Unlimited development. Thirty minutes of small changes is thirty minutes; anything real is quoted first
- Rebuilding an outdated design, or writing your content
- Rescuing a site from hosting that is the actual problem, unless you are willing to move
- Sites running nulled plugins or themes, or sites we are not given staging access to
Common questions
WordPress maintenance, answered
How much does WordPress maintenance cost?
From $299 a month. That covers a standard business or brochure site. What moves the price is how much the site does rather than how large it is — a WooCommerce store with payment and shipping integrations needs more watching than a fifteen-page site that changes twice a year. The free health check turns the floor into one fixed monthly number before you commit.
What is actually included each month?
Uptime monitoring every sixty seconds, daily malware and integrity scans, daily off-server backups kept thirty days, weekly plugin and theme updates tested on staging, core updates within seventy-two hours, a monthly restore test, monthly database cleanup, a monthly Core Web Vitals and broken link check, a quarterly PHP version review, thirty minutes of small changes, and a written report. The full schedule is in the table above.
Do you test updates before applying them?
Yes, every one, on a staging copy that we maintain for you. Then we check the pages that matter — the home page, a product or service page, checkout if you have one, and any form. If something breaks we hold the update back and tell you, rather than applying it and letting you discover the problem. Held-back updates appear in the report with the reason.
Where are the backups kept, and have they ever been restored?
Off your host entirely, so a server failure or a compromised account does not take the backups with it. Thirty days of daily copies, because an infection is often noticed weeks after it happened and the recent backups are infected too. Once a month we restore one to a scratch site and confirm it works. You can download any backup at any time in a standard format.
What happens if my site goes down at 3am?
The monitoring alerts us, not just you. Most outages are the host or an expired certificate, and both are usually resolved before your working day starts. We are in India, so a middle-of-the-night failure in the US or UK lands inside our working hours — which is one of the genuine advantages of the arrangement. Emergency response is included, not billed as a call-out.
Is there a contract or a minimum term?
No minimum term. Month to month, cancel with thirty days’ notice. Everything stays on your hosting, in your accounts, under your ownership throughout — if you leave, nothing has to be untangled and nothing stops working. A plan that needs a twelve-month lock-in is telling you something about its confidence.
My host says maintenance is included. Is this different?
Usually yes. Managed hosting keeps the server patched and often auto-updates WordPress, which is genuinely useful. What it does not do is test an update against your particular plugin combination, hold one back when it breaks your checkout, keep backups off its own infrastructure, or write to you about it. If your host already does all of that, keep them — we will tell you so during the health check.
Do you cover WooCommerce stores?
Yes, and they need it more than most sites — a broken checkout is lost money for every hour it lasts, and stores carry more plugins to conflict with each other. Store plans start higher because checkout, payment and shipping are tested after every update rather than a quick page check. If a store needs building or fixing rather than maintaining, that is WooCommerce development.
What if my site is already hacked, or already slow?
Then a monthly plan is the wrong thing to buy first, and we will say so. Cleaning an infection is malware removal, from $199. Making a slow site fast is speed optimization, from $349. Both are one-off fixed prices. The care plan starts afterwards and keeps the site in the state you paid to get it into.
Do you work with clients outside India?
Almost all of our work is for clients in the United States, United Kingdom, Australia and the EU. We are based in Rajpura, Punjab and keep hours that overlap US Eastern, UK and Australian business days — which for maintenance means much of the routine work happens while your site is quiet. Prices are quoted and invoiced in USD.
Find out what state your site is actually in.
A free written health check: how far behind the updates are, whether the backups work, what the scans find, and one fixed monthly price. If you do not need us, the report says that too.