It updated
itself on a Friday
night.
Automatic updates solve one problem and create another. They land with nobody watching, and if one breaks the layout you hear about it on Monday from a customer.
WordPress website maintenance services.
Service
A WordPress site does not break on its own. It gets broken by a plugin that updated itself at three in the morning, another one whose author walked away two years ago, or a PHP version change nobody warned you about. Here every update is tested on a copy before it touches your site, backups get restored for real to prove they are worth something, and when something happens you message me on WhatsApp instead of filling in a form.
Staging + plugins + backups + security + support | Live in 48 h, no downtime | from €190/year
The problem
WordPress is easy to set up. And easy to leave for dead.
What makes WordPress convenient is also what breaks it, because any feature you want gets solved by installing somebody else's code. Every plugin is a dependency that needs looking after, and when nobody looks after it the site keeps running for months until the day it stops.
It updated
20to 40
Plugins installed on an ordinary business WordPress site. Each one is somebody else's code, on its own release schedule, with its own odds of ending up abandoned.
1a day
The backups your provider says it takes.
The real question is whether anyone has tested one.
- Created every night
- Yes
- Somebody has restored it
- Never
You ring the host and they tell you their server is fine and the fault sits inside your site. And they are right. The problem is that whoever built the site stopped replying, so you have a correct diagnosis and nobody to act on it.
Nobody takes ownership
What it is
What does maintaining a WordPress website actually involve?
It is the work of keeping your site's dependencies current without the updates breaking it, and of having a way back the day something goes wrong.
What it covers
Core, plugins and theme kept up to date, with every update tested on a copy of your site first rather than on the one your customers are looking at.
How it differs from hosting
Hosting keeps the server running. This keeps what runs on top of it healthy, which is where WordPress breaks and where a hosting company neither goes nor has any reason to.
What happens when it fails
There is a daily backup and it gets restored for real to prove it works, because an untested backup is not a backup but a folder nobody has dared open.
Who you talk to
Me, on WhatsApp, on my own mobile number. No ticket, no first line and nobody passing your problem along to another department.
How I solve it
Nothing gets updated on your site without being tested somewhere else first.
The difference between maintenance that works and maintenance that only invoices is the order of the steps. Copy first, then test, then apply, then check. When somebody skips the two in the middle, the site goes down and the bill still arrives at the end of the month.
Service architecture in 5 layers
-
01
A free audit of your installation before anything else.
First I look at what you have running and put it in writing. Core and PHP versions, the plugin list with the ones that are abandoned or duplicating each other, the theme and whether it has been edited without a child theme, the state of your backups, and whether anything you have installed carries a known security hole. No cost and no obligation.
- No cost
- In writing
- Plugin inventory
- No obligation
-
02
Updates tested in staging, never on the live site.
Your site gets cloned to a private copy, the core, plugin and theme updates go on there, and the key pages get checked to see they still look right and still work. Only once that is confirmed does any of it reach your site. If something breaks on the copy, it gets sorted on the copy and your visitors never know it happened.
- Private copy
- Visual check
- No downtime
- Rollback ready
-
03
Fewer plugins, which is the best way to have fewer failures.
Every plugin you can take out is one less dependency and one less door. I go through which ones their authors have abandoned, which do the same job as something else you already have, and which spend 300 kilobytes on what ten lines of code would settle. The install slims down, it loads faster and there is less surface left to attack.
- Plugin audit
- No duplicates
- Less surface
- Faster
-
04
Daily backups that get restored to prove they work.
A daily copy of files and database, stored off the server itself. And every so often one of them gets restored in a separate environment, which is the only way to know whether the copy is any good. Plenty of people find out theirs were empty on the day they needed them, and by that morning there is nothing left to do.
- Files and database
- Off the server
- Restore tested
- Daily
-
05
Monitoring and a phone that somebody picks up.
Checks that the site is answering, an alert the moment it stops and a look through the login attempts. If something happens on a Friday at seven you message me on WhatsApp and I reply, because I am the one who knows your install. No ticket, no first line and nobody asking you to write the problem out again.
- Downtime alert
- Direct WhatsApp
- One contact
- No tickets
What you gain
What changes in your week once somebody takes it on.
Maintenance is nearly always sold as a list of technical tasks. What you are actually buying is taking the website off the list of things that could go wrong this week.
01
Before you sign
You know what you have
before you pay anything.
The initial audit comes first and it is free, with the plugin inventory, the PHP version and the real state of your backups in writing. If the two of us end up not working together, the report is still yours and you can hand it to whoever you like.
- Free audit
- Report in writing
02
Every month
Updates stop
being frightening.
They get tested on a copy before they touch your site, so they go on when they should instead of being put off just in case. A WordPress site turns insecure precisely because nobody dares update it, and having somewhere to test breaks that loop.
- Tested in staging
- Nothing postponed
03
If it goes down
There is a way back
that actually works.
A daily copy stored off the server and restored now and again to prove it is worth something. The difference between a twenty minute scare and losing two years of work sits entirely in whether anyone ever tested the backup.
- Verified backup
- Off the server
04
Direct line
You message on WhatsApp
and the person who fixes it replies.
You have my mobile number and you talk to me, the one who knows your install and the one going in to touch it. No form, no reference number and nobody asking you to reproduce the problem while your site is still down.
- One contact
- No tickets
Comparison
Three ways to maintain a WordPress website. Only one tests before it touches yours.
Updates
Automatic, unwatched
Straight to live, fingers crossed
Tested on a copy first
Backups
On the same server
Daily, never restored
Off the server and tested
Plugins
They pile up
Left alone out of fear
Audited and reduced
Who answers
Nobody
Ticket and first line
WhatsApp, and I reply
Hosting
Separate, you run it
Separate, its own invoice
Included in the plan
When something breaks
You hunt for somebody in a rush
Support queue
Rollback and an alert
Real case
WordPress in production, maintained.
Multi-section corporate site
and catalogue kept current.
Set-up:
48 h
with no downtime
What goes into every plan:
- Free initial audit with a plugin inventory
- Updates tested on a copy before they go on
- Daily backups off the server and restored
- Hosting, domain and SSL included
What gets maintained in this case
A multi-section WordPress website with a product catalogue for the HORECA channel, with backups, security updates and the occasional change without their team having to chase any of it.
Updates tested beforehand
No update goes straight onto the site your customers are looking at. If it breaks something, it breaks on the copy.
16
€/mo
Monthly equivalent of the entry package, with hosting, domain and SSL inside. Billed once a year.
Investment
How much do WordPress website maintenance services cost? Three packages, published prices.
It is the same service as general website maintenance.
This page exists because WordPress has failures of its own.
The maintenance plans are the same packages as website maintenance and there is no surcharge for your site being WordPress. What changes is the work inside, with staging to test updates, a plugin audit and an eye on the known vulnerabilities in whatever you have installed. It is billed once a year and invoiced in euros, and the monthly equivalent of the entry package works out at €16 with hosting, domain and SSL inside.
Annual maintenance packages
Essential
Hosting + domain + SSL + monitoring + daily backups off the server + core and plugin updates tested in staging
€190/year
≈ €16/mo
PRO
All of Essential + 2 h of changes a month + WhatsApp support within 24 working hours + plugin audit + monthly report
€390/year
≈ €33/mo
Elite
All of PRO + dedicated server + 4 h response + 4 h of changes a month + security audit every six months
€990/year
≈ €83/mo
- An initial audit of your installation, always free and always in writing
- No update goes on without being tested on a copy first
- Extra hours outside the plan at €35/h, agreed before any work starts
- No lock-in. If you leave, you take the site, the backups and the logins with you
Free audit
2-3 days
Book a 20-min call
Frequently asked questions about WordPress website maintenance services
What people ask most before handing a WordPress site to somebody.
Three annual packages. €190/year, which works out at around €16 a month with hosting, domain and SSL included, €390/year with 2 h of changes a month and WhatsApp support, and €990/year with a dedicated server and a four hour response. There is no surcharge for being WordPress. Extra hours outside the plan are €35/h and get agreed before anyone works them.
Because they solve half the problem and create the other half. It is true that without them you sit on old versions with holes anyone can look up. But they get applied overnight with nobody checking the result, and if one clashes with your theme or with another plugin the site breaks and you have no idea until somebody tells you. What separates serious maintenance is that the same update gets tested on a copy of your site first.
Staging is a private copy of your site where changes get tried before they reach the real one. In WordPress it matters more than on other platforms because your site is the sum of code written by a lot of different people, the core, the theme and twenty or forty plugins that each update on their own schedule. Nobody can promise the next update will not clash with something else, so it gets checked on the copy rather than on the site your customers are looking at.
Yes, and it is the most common case of all. The agency shut down, the freelancer stopped replying or simply nobody has been in there for years. We start with the free audit, which tells you what you have running and what state it is in, and there I also tell you if something is not worth dragging along. If the install is far gone I warn you before charging you for maintenance, because maintaining something that needs rebuilding does nobody any good.
Included in all three packages, along with the domain and the SSL certificate. That is a difference with most of the market, where maintenance is charged on its own and the hosting turns up on a separate invoice from a separate company, which is exactly what lets each of them point at the other when something fails. If you would rather stay on your current hosting that also works, and the plan comes out a little cheaper.
The licences stay yours and you renew them yourself, because they are in your name and not in mine. What I do is tell you when one is about to expire, which ones can go without you losing anything and which ones you are paying for twice. It is common to find two plugins charging for the same job, and the yearly saving there usually covers a good part of the maintenance.
Then what fits you is general website maintenance, which covers custom code and other CMSs with the same packages at the same price. What I do not maintain is Shopify, Wix or Squarespace, because they are closed platforms and there is nothing to maintain from outside. This page exists because WordPress has failures of its own that are worth explaining separately, not because it is a different service or a dearer one.
No. It runs by the year and if you do not want to carry on at the end of it, you do not carry on. You take the site, the backups and every login with you, without having to ask twice or wait for somebody to release them. Maintenance that needs to tie you down to keep you already knows it cannot hold you on its own.
When was your site last updated?
If the answer is that you do not know, that is exactly the reason to look. Give me twenty minutes, I go through your install and put in writing what you have and what is urgent.
Book a 20-min callFree 20-min call.
You tell me who built the site, when it was last touched and whether anyone still has the logins. That is enough for me to know where to start.
What happens next.
An audit in writing within two or three days with the plugin inventory, the PHP version and the real state of your backups. No cost.