WordPress care for small UK businesses
Someone who actually looks after your WordPress site. £50 a month.
Most small business WordPress sites are looked after by nobody. Plugins go out of date, the backup was last checked the day it was set up, and the first sign of trouble is a customer saying your site is down. This is the boring, unglamorous work that stops that happening, done every month by one person, for a figure that does not move.
Send me your website address. You get a written check of what is out of date, what is exposed and when your last usable backup was taken. Free, before you decide anything.
- Care
- from£50 Per month. The same figure every month, agreed in writing before it starts.
- Covered
- Six things. Updates, backups, security, uptime, speed checks, and a one page report you can actually read.
- Separate
- New pages, new features and redesigns are quoted on their own. The £50 is care, not a free development queue.
- Boundary
- If the site is already broken, that is a separate job. I fix it first, then the plan starts.
- Done by
- One person. The person who answers your email is the person doing the work.
Before you look at anything else
Work out what a week with your site down costs you.
Not what I say it costs. What it costs in your own numbers, which you already know and I do not.
Write down what a normal week of enquiries from your website is worth. Then add what it would cost to have someone clean up an infected site at short notice, at whatever rate they quote you on the day, because you have no leverage in that conversation. Put both next to £50 a month. You already know whether that maths works.
If your website produces nothing and you would not notice it being gone, this is the wrong purchase and I will tell you so.
The third line is the one almost nobody can answer. Most people have a backup running somewhere and have never tried to restore it. An untested backup is not a backup, and that is the part this page is really about.
What the £50 a month covers
One fixed scope. Six things, every month.
Every site on the plan gets the same six things. Nothing on this list is an extra, and nothing on it turns up later as a separate invoice.
Updates, applied and checked
WordPress core, your theme and every plugin, kept current. Applied on a staging copy first, then checked on the live site afterwards so a bad update does not sit there broken for a fortnight before anyone notices.
Backups that are actually tested
Taken daily and stored away from your hosting, because a backup that lives on the same server as the problem is not much use. Once a quarter I restore one on purpose, so we both know it works before the day you need it.
Security
Malware scanning, login hardening, and a look at what is trying to get in. If something has already got in, I tell you plainly and we deal with it as its own job.
Uptime monitoring
Checked around the clock. If the site goes down I find out before you do, and you hear it from me rather than from a customer.
Speed, checked every month
A real measurement every month, on a phone connection, not a flattering desktop score. If the site has slowed down I find what did it, tell you what it would take to fix, and give you the figure before doing anything. Sometimes the honest answer is that it is fine and needs nothing, and you will hear that too.
Loading time on mobile went from 2.1s to 4.6s this month.
Cause: a slider plugin added on the 3rd is loading on every page, including pages with no slider. Removing it from those pages takes about an hour and puts it back to roughly 2.2s. That is a fixed £60 if you want it done, or leave it and I will keep watching.
Example of how a finding gets reported. Figures are illustrative.
What lands in your inbox
- Updates
- 11 applied, 1 held back
- Backups
- 30 of 30 taken
- Restore test
- Passed, 4 August
- Uptime
- 99.98 percent
- Needs a decision
- 1 item, priced
Example report card. One page, once a month, in plain English. If nothing needs your attention, the report says so in one line and you can ignore it.
A report you can actually read
One page, once a month. What I did, what I found, and what I would do next. No dashboard login, no forty page PDF of graphs nobody opens.
That is the whole list. If you want something that is not on it, I price it and put it in writing before it is done. You never find out afterwards.
What I will not do
What £50 a month does not buy.
A low monthly figure only reads as a catch if you are expecting to be nickel and dimed later. So here is everything the plan does not include, and everything I will not sell you. Read this part first if you read nothing else.
One boundary, so there is no confusion later. The plan is care, not development. It keeps a working site working. It does not include building new things, and it does not quietly absorb a redesign. Anything beyond care gets its own figure in writing before it starts, and you can always say no.
- Not unlimited development time.
- New pages, new features and redesigns are quoted on their own.
- Your hosting stays yours. I do not resell it or hold it hostage.
- No SEO retainer bundled in.
- No lock in. One month's notice, either way.
- If the site is already broken or infected, that is a separate job first.
- I will not take on a site I have not been allowed to look at first. The free check exists so that neither of us agrees to something blind.
- I will not tell you an update is risk free. Sometimes an update breaks something. What I can promise is a tested backup, a staging copy, and that I find out before your customers do.
- I will not bill you for hours you have no way of checking. It is a fixed monthly figure, and extra work is a fixed figure agreed up front.
Site built in 2022. Nobody has touched it since.
Core two major versions behind. Nine plugins out of date, two of them no longer maintained by anyone. Backup plugin installed and running, storing to the same server as the site. Last restore test: never. PHP version reached end of life eight months ago, so it stopped getting security fixes.
Composite example of a typical first check. Not one specific site.
You get this written out for your own site, free, before any money or commitment is discussed. If it comes back clean, I will tell you that and you do not need me.
If it is already broken
Start here instead. One fixed figure, before I touch anything.
The care plan keeps a working site working. If yours is hacked, crawling, or stuck on a host you want to leave, that is a job of its own. Every one of these starts the same way: I look, I write down what is actually wrong, and I give you one fixed figure. You decide after that, not before.
Hacked, infected or defaced
- Site taken to a safe copy so I am not working on a live compromised install.
- Malicious files and injected code removed, then the way in closed.
- Google blacklist and host suspension dealt with where they apply.
- A written note of how it got in, so it is not the same door next time.
Slow
- Measured on a phone connection first, because that is what your customers use.
- The actual cause found, named and shown to you.
- Images, caching, database and the worst offending plugins dealt with.
- Measured again afterwards, and you see both numbers.
Moving host
- Full copy moved, tested on the new host before anything is switched.
- Email, DNS and certificates handled so nothing goes dark mid move.
- Old host kept live until the new one is confirmed working.
- Done out of hours if downtime would cost you enquiries.
All three start with the same free written diagnosis. You get told what is wrong whether or not you hire me for the fix, and if the honest answer is that you should stay where you are, that is what the note will say.
How it works
Four steps, and the first one is free.
Buildsmith is one person. I do the checking, the updating and the fixing myself, so there is no ticket queue and nobody to chase.
The free check
You send me your website address. I look at core, plugins, PHP, backups, security and speed, and write down what I find. No call needed first, and no commitment attached to it.
You get it in writing
What is out of date, what is exposed, whether your backups would actually restore, and what I would fix first. If anything needs doing before the plan can start, that gets its own fixed figure here.
I take it on
Staging copy set up, backups moved off your host, monitoring switched on, and the first round of updates applied properly. This is the month where most of the work happens.
Then it goes quiet
That is the point. Updates applied, backups tested, uptime watched, one page of plain English at the end of each month. You hear from me when something needs a decision, and not otherwise.
If your site turns out to need more looking after than a standard plan covers, you hear that at step two with a figure attached, not three months later.
What it costs
£50 a month, agreed in writing before it starts.
Same six things, same one person, same fixed scope. The figure is low because the scope is fixed and the work is done by one person, not by an agency with a floor of costs to cover. Nothing was taken off the list to get there.
Updates applied and checked. Daily off site backups with a quarterly restore test. Security scanning and login hardening. Uptime monitoring. A monthly speed check. One page of plain English at the end of each month.
New pages, new features, redesigns, and any repair work needed before the plan can start. Each one gets its own fixed figure in writing, and you can always say no and stay on care alone.
One month's notice, from either side, at any time. Your hosting, domain and site stay yours throughout, and if you leave I hand over everything without a fuss.
Start with the free check. By the end of it you will know what state your site is actually in, what it would cost to put right, and what it costs to keep it that way. If it turns out you do not need me, the check still tells you that.
- Updates, applied and checked included
- Daily off site backups included
- Quarterly restore test included
- Security scanning and hardening included
- Uptime monitoring included
- Monthly speed check and report included
New pages, new features, redesigns, and any repair work needed before the plan starts. Each quoted separately in writing.
Fixed monthly. One month's notice, either way.