Website support starts with the current site
Before routine maintenance begins, we need a working understanding of the website we are taking responsibility for. That means obtaining the access needed for the site and its technical environment, reviewing the current installation and establishing a recoverable starting point.
- Access: the relevant website, hosting or server access is established for the work covered by the plan.
- Current-site review: we check the existing website and its technical condition before treating it as a known baseline.
- First backup: an initial backup gives us a recovery point before routine changes begin.
- Monitoring set-up: the monitoring included with the selected plan is put in place so availability and other covered checks can be tracked.
This initial review matters because an apparently healthy website can already contain outdated components, existing errors or compatibility problems. Those need to be distinguished from anything that occurs during later maintenance.
All care plans cover WordPress, PHP and general HTML or CMS websites. Magento and all ecommerce websites, including WooCommerce stores, require Premium Care.
Weekly website maintenance and daily backups
On WordPress sites, routine maintenance is carried out as a controlled cycle rather than simply pressing Update All. WordPress itself recommends keeping the platform current and maintaining a backup before updates.
- A current backup is available before maintenance work begins.
- WordPress core, plugins and themes are updated as required by the plan.
- The website is checked after maintenance so obvious failures introduced by an update can be identified.
- Where an update exposes a compatibility problem, the issue can be investigated rather than leaving a broken change unnoticed.
Essential Care includes Weekly core, plugin and theme updates and Daily off-server backups. The backups are held away from the live website environment, providing a separate recovery copy rather than relying only on files stored alongside the site itself.
Professional Care includes Everything in Essential, and Premium Care includes Everything in Professional, so these maintenance and backup foundations continue through the higher care levels.
You can read more about the maintenance cycle on our website maintenance page and about recovery copies on website backups.
Uptime monitoring, security checks and health reporting
A website can develop a fault between scheduled maintenance visits, so monitoring runs separately from the weekly update cycle.
- 24/7 uptime monitoring watches whether the website remains available.
- Security scanning and hardening form part of the ongoing Essential Care baseline.
- Monthly health report provides a regular summary of the site's covered maintenance and monitoring status.
Monitoring is useful because many website failures originate outside a content edit. Hosting faults, certificate problems, malware, server changes and software conflicts can all affect availability or behaviour.
Security hardening is preventative rather than an absolute guarantee that a site cannot be compromised. Sensible website security combines current software, appropriate configuration, monitoring and recoverable backups. Where a site is already compromised, the separate Hacked Site Rescue service covers malware removal and recovery work.
For websites that only need dedicated availability and security monitoring, Uptime & Security Monitoring is also available as a standalone service.
What changes on Professional and Premium Care
The higher plans add hands-on development time and more active monitoring rather than merely increasing the number of routine updates.
- Professional Care, £119 a month or £1,190 a year: Everything in Essential; 60 minutes of development time every month; fixes within 24 to 48 hours; speed and Core Web Vitals monitoring; monthly accessibility scan; phone and email support, 7 days.
- Premium Care, £249 a month or £2,490 a year: Everything in Professional; 3 hours of development time every month; 4-hour response and 6-hour resolution; WooCommerce and payment testing; quarterly SEO and conversion review; direct line to your engineer.
Development time is for hands-on changes and technical work within the monthly allocation. Professional Care provides 60 minutes each month, while Premium Care provides three hours. This separates planned development work from the routine maintenance already included in the plan.
Professional Care also monitors speed and Core Web Vitals and runs a monthly accessibility scan. Google's current Core Web Vitals are Largest Contentful Paint, Interaction to Next Paint and Cumulative Layout Shift. Accessibility monitoring can identify issues introduced as pages and content change, although an automated scan is not equivalent to a full manual accessibility audit.
Support channels and emergency response times
The support route and response level depend on the care plan. These are the plan features as provided:
- Essential Care: Email support, next business day.
- Professional Care: Fixes within 24 to 48 hours; phone and email support, 7 days.
- Premium Care: 4-hour response and 6-hour resolution; direct line to your engineer.
The response time describes the applicable support response, not a promise that every technical problem can be completely repaired inside that period. Diagnosis can uncover hosting faults, third-party service failures, damaged databases or compatibility problems that require additional work.
Premium Care also includes WooCommerce and payment testing, which is why Magento and all ecommerce websites, including WooCommerce stores, require Premium Care rather than Essential or Professional Care.
If you do not need an ongoing plan and have a single broken website incident, the separate Emergency Fix service covers diagnosis and repair of one incident with a response within two working hours.
Choosing the right level of website support
Essential Care costs £59 a month or £590 a year. It is for brochure sites that need to stay updated, backed up and online. Its features are weekly core, plugin and theme updates; daily off-server backups; 24/7 uptime monitoring; security scanning and hardening; monthly health report; email support, next business day.
Professional Care costs £119 a month or £1,190 a year. It is for business sites where downtime costs money and is our most popular plan. It includes everything in Essential; 60 minutes of development time every month; fixes within 24 to 48 hours; speed and Core Web Vitals monitoring; monthly accessibility scan; phone and email support, 7 days.
Premium Care costs £249 a month or £2,490 a year. It is for ecommerce and high-traffic sites that need a proactive team on call. It includes everything in Professional; 3 hours of development time every month; 4-hour response and 6-hour resolution; WooCommerce and payment testing; quarterly SEO and conversion review; direct line to your engineer.
For a side-by-side view of the plans and other technical services, see website support pricing.