WordPress runs roughly 43% of the web, according to W3Techs, which is exactly why it’s targeted so relentlessly. Core, theme and plugin updates land almost weekly, and the gap between an update shipping and it being applied is the gap attackers work in. A care plan closes that gap for you.
I look after WordPress sites for businesses across Cheltenham, Gloucestershire and the wider UK. Every plan is run by me directly. The same person who builds the sites. So when something breaks you aren’t filing a ticket into a queue and waiting for it to be triaged by someone who has never seen your site before.
What is a WordPress care plan?
A WordPress care plan is a monthly service that keeps a website updated, backed up, monitored and secure, so that problems are found and fixed before they cost you anything. Mine cover WordPress core, theme and plugin updates, daily backups, uptime monitoring and security patching, with a named developer answering urgent problems the same working day, or within the hour on the top plan.
What proactive monitoring means
Your site connects into a central monitoring console that links directly into its back end. That console scans every 24 hours and reports anything that needs attention:
- WordPress core updates: including the security releases that ship outside the normal cycle
- Theme updates: tested before they go anywhere near your live site
- Plugin updates: the most common route into a WordPress site
- Security patches: applied on priority, not batched up for a monthly window
- Uptime monitoring: checked continuously, not once a day
If your site goes down, I know within five minutes. Usually before you do, and almost always before a customer does. From there I aim to restore service within a few hours wherever the cause is within my control.
Response times you can hold me to
Urgent means your site is down, visibly broken, or compromised. How fast I get to it depends on the plan, because a brochure site being down for an afternoon and a shop being down for an afternoon are not the same problem:
- Essential: the same working day for anything urgent, two working days for everything else
- Professional: 4 hours for anything urgent, 24 hours for everything else
- Commerce: 1 hour for anything urgent, 24 hours for everything else
All during UK business hours. These are the targets I work to, and they are the reason most clients stay on a plan rather than calling around when something goes wrong.
Compare the three plans
Every plan includes the monitoring and update work above. What changes is how fast you can reach me, how many restore points you have, and how much hands-on time is built in.
| Feature | Essential£49 a month | Professional£149 a month | Commerce£379 a month |
|---|---|---|---|
| Best suited to | Brochure and local business sites | Sites that bring in enquiries or revenue | WooCommerce stores and business-critical sites |
| Core, theme and plugin updates | ✓ Included | ✓ Included | ✓ Included |
| Uptime monitoring, five-minute alerting | ✓ Included | ✓ Included | ✓ Included |
| Urgent response target | Same working day | 4 hours | 1 hour |
| Backups | Daily, 30-day archive | Daily plus six-hourly: 4 restore points a day | Daily plus two-hourly: 12 restore points a day |
| Support time included | 30 minutes a month | 1.5 hours a month | 4 hours a month |
| Support tickets | 2 a week | 10 a week | Unlimited |
| Security monitoring | Advice when a decision is needed | Action taken, not just advice | Action taken, not just advice |
| Staging site | —Not included | ✓ Included | ✓ Included |
| Monthly report | —Not included | ✓ Included | ✓ Included |
| Speed and database optimisation | —Not included | ✓ Included | ✓ Included |
| Google Analytics integration | —Not included | ✓ Included | ✓ Included |
| Priority phone support | —Not included | —Not included | ✓ Included |
| WooCommerce health checks | —Not included | —Not included | ✓ Included |
| Premium plugin licences | —Not included | —Not included | ✓ Included |
| Free malware removal | —Not included | —Not included | ✓ Included |
| Basic WordPress SEO optimisation | —Not included | —Not included | ✓ Included |
| Content delivery network | —Not included | —Not included | 250GB a month |
| Price | £49 a month | £149 a month | £379 a month |
Essential, £49 per month
For a brochure or local business site, where downtime is embarrassing instead of expensive.
- Full centralised monitoring, with core, theme, plugin and security updates applied
- Uptime monitoring with five-minute alerting
- Daily backups of files and database, 30-day archive
- Fast restoration from backup
- Security monitoring, with advice when something needs your decision
- 30 minutes of technical and design support each month
- 2 support tickets per week
- Urgent issues answered the same working day
Professional, £149 per month
For sites that bring in enquiries or revenue, where an outage costs real money. Everything in Essential, plus:
- 1.5 hours of technical and design support each month
- 10 support tickets per week, by email or chat
- Urgent issues answered within 4 hours
- Six-hourly backups on top of the daily: four restore points every day
- Security monitoring with action taken, not just advice
- Google Analytics integration, so you can see what the site is doing
- A monthly report covering updates applied, uptime and anything worth knowing
- Speed and database optimisation
- A staging site, so changes are tested somewhere safe before going live
Commerce, £379 per month
For WooCommerce stores and business-critical sites, where an hour offline is an hour of lost orders. Everything in Professional, plus:
- 4 hours of technical and design support each month
- Unlimited support tickets
- Priority support by email, chat and phone, with urgent issues answered within 1 hour
- Two-hourly backups on top of the daily: twelve restore points every day
- WooCommerce health checks: renewals, payment gateways and failed transactions watched, not assumed
- Free malware removal if the worst happens, with no separate rescue fee
- Premium plugin licences included, so you are not buying them separately
- Basic WordPress SEO optimisation
- Content delivery network, 250GB per month
Included support time doesn’t roll over. Work beyond that is charged at my standard hourly rate of £45. Towards the lower end of the £40–£80 most UK WordPress freelancers charge, and agreed with you before I start. There’s no minimum term: cancel from your account area at any time and it stops at the end of the period you’ve paid for.
Trying it without risk
Fourteen-day money back. Try any plan for a fortnight. If it isn’t right, I refund your first payment in full and we part on good terms.
No lock-in, cancel any time. Every plan is rolling monthly. No minimum term and no cancellation fee. Stay because it is working, not because you are trapped.
A full export whenever you want one. If you decide to leave, you get a complete, clean copy of your site and its data, and help pointing the domain wherever you are going. It is your site. It always was.
How we get started
Before anything is connected, we have a conversation about the state of your site. I check that it’s in a condition where a care plan makes sense. There’s no point monitoring a site that needs fixing first. If it turns out we should sort something else out before starting, we will do that. And if a plan isn’t right for you at all, I’ll refund and cancel not take the money.
Once payment clears, I’ll be in touch to arrange access and get monitoring set up. It usually takes under an hour of your time.
Support requests are tracked in our client portal rather than an email thread, so nothing gets lost and you can see the history of everything done on your site. You’ll be sent access when your plan starts.
Common questions
Do you have to host my site to look after it?
No. Care plans work on whatever hosting you already use. If your hosting is the actual problem — and sometimes it is — I’ll tell you, and our sister company No Problem Hosting can take it over if you want. There’s a discount when hosting and care are bought together.
What if I don’t use my support hours?
They don’t roll over. The hours are there so that small changes never turn into an awkward conversation about an invoice. Most months clients use some of them, and the monitoring runs regardless.
Can I change plans later?
Yes, in either direction, and it takes effect from your next billing date. Plenty of clients start on Essential and move up when the site starts earning.
My site has already been hacked. Can I just take a plan?
Clean it up first. A care plan protects a healthy site, it doesn’t disinfect a compromised one. See hacked site rescue, which is a fixed £200, then start a plan afterwards to stop it happening again.
Isn’t my host already doing this?
Some of it, possibly. Managed hosts patch the server, take their own backups, and a few will apply WordPress core updates. Almost none of them touch your themes and plugins, which is where most sites are actually broken into. And a host’s backup exists to protect the host. Worth asking yours what happens when a plugin update takes your checkout down at eight on a Friday evening.
How much should WordPress maintenance cost in the UK?
Most UK WordPress freelancers charge between £40 and £80 an hour, which is the benchmark my £45 sits against. For monthly plans, price tracks two things: how much hands-on time is included, and how quickly somebody answers when it matters. A very cheap plan is usually an automated update script with nobody reading the result.
What happens if my site is hacked while I’m on a plan?
On Commerce, malware removal is included and there is no separate rescue fee. On Essential and Professional I will tell you immediately, contain it, and quote the cleanup at the fixed £200 rather than by the hour. Either way you are not the one working out who to ring.
Do you work with sites you did not build?
Most of the sites I look after were built by somebody else. I’ll review yours before we start and be straight with you about what shape it’s in.
What clients say
Both of these are Google reviews, left by clients whose sites I look after, reproduced here in full. They sit on the Google profile of WP Site Warden, the maintenance brand of Chris D Projects Ltd: care plans bought here are delivered under that name, so it is the name you will see on the service side once you are on a plan. If I look after your site, a review there is the most useful thing you can give me.
Chris provides excellent client service backed by a wide breadth of experience and skill. He always goes the extra mile to solve problems, consistently delivering insightful, highly useful and implementable advice. I can’t thank him enough for helping us achieve our business objectives, all while being an absolute pleasure to work with. I highly recommend him.
Dan Harris, OverHereOverThere.org
Chris has been supporting our site for the past few years and I cannot recommend him highly enough. He’s remarkably professional, very knowledgeable and extremely proactive. Any time we have had an issue or glitch with the site, Chris has sorted it straight away, explained what has happened and then helped us look forward to make improvements.
Simon Gossling, uniformerly.co.uk
Choose a plan
Pick the plan that fits, or get in touch first if you would rather talk it through. I am based in Cheltenham and always happy to meet locally over a coffee.
Essential
£49 a month
Brochure and local business sites. Daily backups, 30 minutes of support a month, and urgent issues answered the same working day.
Most sites
Professional
£149 a month
Sites that bring in enquiries. Six-hourly backups, a staging site, a monthly report, 1.5 hours of support, and a four-hour urgent response.
Commerce
£379 a month
WooCommerce and business-critical sites. Two-hourly backups, free malware removal, 4 hours of support, and a one-hour urgent response.
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