WordPress is not just a platform for casual bloggers anymore; it has stopped being so since years ago. It now powers e-commerce shops, memberships sites, forums, directories, portfolios and showcases, and so many more types of websites. Due to its huge popularity, it has given rise to a whole new business model: developers focusing mainly on WordPress powered websites, building sites that get all the more complex and professional.
This fact has also given rise to a whole lot of WordPress – specific issues: Multitude of themes and plugins, free or commercial, that might, or might not play well together, hackers and attackers scanning WordPress specific tags in order to target WordPress sites with vulnerabilities, updates that might break a website, strip off customization, render plugins incompatible, and more.
The maintenance and security of a WordPress site is not an easy task, it is not anymore something that the non-technical client can safely do. This is why more and more WordPress professionals offer maintenance services to their clients. They sign follow-up contracts that render them responsible to update, maintain, backup and constantly harden their client’s website. It is a very essential task, since their client’s site is their business and they cannot afford to have their business non-functional.
However, what do you do, as a WordPress professional, when you have 5 or 10 sites to maintain? How about 50 or 200? The maintenance tasks are simple for the person who knows what they are doing, but they are still time-wasting and cumbersome.
Many WordPress professionals resort to automation scripts, and specific workflows. However, many more use agencies that offer WordPress maintenance and support services, for a fee. In this article, we will examine the services offered by some well-known WordPress maintenance agencies and discuss the reasons why one might consider signing up for their services.
Why use a third-party service to maintain my or my clients’ sites?
There are many reasons that would apply, but this is maybe the most important: Outsourcing repetitive tasks to a third part will free you up time and resources to really focus on your own business. Let the specialists do their thing, so that you can use your time in doing yours. A typical WordPress maintenance service offers several services, including:
- Daily backups on an external server.
– Day in, day out, your website is backed up and if anything happens, you can always roll back without having lost too much of your work.
- Updates to WordPress core files and ensuring compatibility with themes and plugins.
– Dreading to hit that “Update now” button? Wondering whether updating your theme, or plugin, or even the core files, might break something else? A WordPress system can be quite fragile, especially when it includes many plugins from third-party vendors, that might or might not have adhered to WP development best practices. Having a maintenance service taking care of this and updating components on a timely and smooth way is always a plus.
- Security.
– While many of the services mentioned below promising a “24/7 security monitoring” usually mean that they use an external service that monitors access, uptime and potential attacks, the service is usually included in the packages offered and it is worth it.
- Small development work.
– Many services offer 1-2h per month of small fixes and development work.
List of popular WordPress maintenance and support services
1. WP SITE CARE
WP Site care is a company founded in 2012 in the US and offers WordPress support and maintenance services starting from $79/month. They offer a 30-days trial with money back guarantee, so that you can test their services.
They offer three plans, at $79/month, $299/month and $999/month. The basic plan offers daily backups in AWS, 24/7 security monitoring, managed WordPress updates and their “Walkie Talkie” service, that, apparently, is a live support chat. The more expensive packages include development hours monthly, version control, support for e-commerce, and even a single person who works exclusively with your site, for their most expensive plan.
2. GoWP
GoWP offers distinct plans for web professionals and single business owners/non-profits. The pricing for both plans are similar, but the plan for agencies also offers a white board service for their plugin: you can remove the GoWP brand and add your agency name instead.
They also offer separate plans for maintenance and support, as well as a comprehensive plan that includes both maintenance and support tasks. Prices start from $29/site monthly for maintenance and $59/site monthly for support, while the inclusive plan starts from $79/site monthly.
3. Maintainn
Maintainn offers offsite backups, core, theme and plugin updates, 24/7 security monitoring for $49/site monthly for their starter plan, while their more advanced plans include priority response time, 1 hour of support monthly, help in case of emergencies/outrage, for their $99/monthly plan, as well as staging server for updates for client review before deploying anything for their $149/monthly plan.
it was founded in 2012 and boasts many satisfied clients, as well as partnerships with hosting companies, and plugin/theme developers / third-party companies, such as the well known Sucuri security service.
4. The WP Butler
The WP Butler offers all the usual services for individuals and companies. At $41/monthly, you get your site backed up weekly, daily database backup, weekly security scans, as well as weekly updates on core, plugins and themes if needed.
For $92/monthly you get updates done twice a week, site reviews as well as uptime monitoring. Their enterprise plan at $205/monthly offers daily backups, three times per week updates, as well as small fixes.
5. Valet
After the Butler, we also have a Valet willing to offer maintenance services to your website. However, Valet differentiates themselves for other similar services on the market, by offering very high prices, and explaining that the prices are justified, for the top-notch service they offer.
Their starter plan starts at $250/monthly, however they offer full site management for that price. Backups, updates, troubleshooting, site audits as well as development services are offered. No time-limits are mentioned and the write-up on their website makes us assume there is none: for $250/monthly apparently you have web developers, maintainers and security specialists at your disposal whenever you need them.
Their plans for e-commerce, membership and generally high traffic websites are not announced in their website.
6. WP Maintainer
WP Maintainer is a professional maintenance and support service founded in 2012. It differentiates itself from the competition, by offering a single, all-inclusive package at $99/monthly. The package includes manual WordPress core, theme and plugin updates by a developer, scheduled full backups, as well as security services from Sucuri. The package also gives you access to a developer team for customizations and tweaks, however you will have to pay the extra hourly rate of $99/hour.
7. Total WP Support
Total WP Support aims to offer a comprehensive plan at $49/monthly that includes security, firewall, maintenance that includes database optimization, core, theme and plugins updates, as well as browser optimization, weekly backups on a secure Cloud Based Amazon S3 Server and 24/7 uptime monitoring.
Their professional plan at $99/monthly also includes daily backups, performance, analytics and broken links monitoring, as well as one small job and one content publishing job monthly. For even more services, the $249/monthly plan offers free SSL certificate and CDN and unlimited small jobs monthly.
8. WP Radius
WP Radius’ starter plan at $87/monthly offers access to a team of WordPress experts that are at your disposal for unlimited on-site jobs, error fixing, troubleshooting, development and support.
If you choose their professional plan at $122/monthly, you also have the typical maintenance services, such as updates, cloud backups, uptime and security monitoring and malware removal. They also offer an enterprise plan at $347/monthly that gives you access to a WordPress expert dedicated to your site, phone support, as well as a staging environment for changes and updates.
9. WP TWEAKS
WP TWEAKS is a UK-based service that offers plans for maintenance and site tweaking jobs, starting at £30/monthly. Their basic plans offers weekly cloud backup, core, theme and plugin updates, uptime and security monitoring, a weekly security scan, as well as 30 minutes of small jobs per month.
Their more advanced plans at £65/monthly and £130/monthly, also offer performance optimization, premium plugins for SEO, performance and security, as well as migration, updates for premium themes and plugins and SEO consultancy for their business plan.
Conclusion
All the above agencies promise to offer comprehensive service and take off the pressure for WordPress maintenance and troubleshooting from you. Most of them are addressed to individual site owners, possibly small business owners that do not have an in-house developer. However a professional developer or small team can take advantage from their services as well, by outsourcing the maintenance of their client’s website.
Do you have a favorite service that we did not mention, or experience/criticism for any of the above services? We would love to hear from you in the comments.
