Looking after your website
Someone whose job it is to notice.
Most website disasters are slow. Something goes out of date, then something else, and eighteen months later it breaks on a Friday afternoon. A care plan is paying someone to notice before that happens.
What actually goes wrong
Nearly all of it is silent. A plugin update quietly breaks the contact form, and nothing tells you: the form still looks fine, it just stops sending. Paid traffic keeps arriving and enquiries stop, and you find out a week later when someone mentions they emailed and heard nothing.
The rest is slower still. Software goes out of date, then out of support, then becomes the way somebody gets in. By the time a site is visibly broken it has usually been quietly broken for months.
What I do each month
Updates get applied and then checked, which is the part most people skip. On the Standard plan and above they go onto a copy of your site first, so if an update breaks something it breaks somewhere nobody can see.
Backups run daily and are kept off your server – a backup sitting on the same machine as the site is not a backup. Uptime and security monitoring run constantly, and if something goes down I generally know before you do.
You also get a set amount of my time every month for changes: new prices, a new member of staff, a photo swap, seasonal opening hours. Most people use it for exactly that.
Where care stops
Care is care. Marketing, design work, SEO campaigns, blog writing and new sections are separate jobs with separate prices. Rolling them into the plan is how a monthly fee quietly turns into something neither of us can pin down.
Any of it can be priced on its own, and you decide each time. Everything that goes into the plan goes in because you agreed to it.
When it happens
Anything broken jumps the queue, whichever plan you are on. Routine changes follow behind it.
You will hear back from me within one working day whatever happens, even if it is only to say I have seen it and when I will get to it. Standard is same working day, Priority is same day including out of hours.
What it costs
Three plans. Hosting is in all of them.
Most website disasters are slow. Something goes out of date, then something else, and eighteen months later it breaks on a Friday. A monthly plan is paying someone to notice before that happens.
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Essentials
£45 a month
Everything a working site needs to stay working. Changes are priced separately.
- UK hosting, SSL and domain handled
- Daily backups, kept off-site
- Updates applied monthly
- Uptime and security monitoring
- A monthly report in plain English
- Reply within 2 working days
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Most people choose this
Standard
£95 a month
Sites that bring in work, take bookings, or sell.
- Everything in Essentials
- An hour of changes every month
- Updates tested on a copy first, then applied to yours
- Reply within 1 working day
- Speed fixed, not just measured
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Priority
£195 a month
Busy shops and booking systems – anywhere an hour offline costs you real orders.
- Everything in Standard
- Three hours of changes every month
- Backups every three hours
- Same-day response, and out of hours for real emergencies
- A proper staging site
- A 30-minute review call every quarter
All of this is optional. Plenty of people host it themselves and ring me when something breaks. That works too – you keep everything, and I am here when you need me. I’m not VAT registered, so the price you see is the price you pay. No setup fee, no contract, no auto-renewal surprise. Cancel any month you like, and if you go, I hand over the site, the domain and the files, and help you move them. Anything broken jumps the queue. Routine changes follow behind it.
The questions people actually ask
Before you ring.
I’ve gone years without this. Why start now?
You might not need to. A simple, static site that only shows information carries genuinely low risk, and I will tell you so. The plans are worth it when the site brings in work – because then the cost of it quietly failing is a real number, and it is usually bigger than a year of looking after it.
Can I just call you when something breaks instead?
Yes, and some people do – that is what the free tier is for. It costs more per incident and you carry the risk of nobody noticing for a fortnight, but it is a perfectly reasonable choice for a low-stakes site.
Do I have to move my hosting to you?
For the paid plans, yes, and it is included in the price. It is the only way I can promise a response time: accountability needs access. Moving is free, I do it out of hours, and there is no downtime.
What if I use up my hour and need more?
I tell you before I start, not after I have finished. Extra work is charged at the normal rate and you agree to it first. Every invoice is for something you already agreed to.
Does unused time roll over?
No. The plan is priced as cover rather than as a block of hours: most months nobody calls, and that is what pays for the month when something goes badly wrong.
Getting started
Wondering which one fits?
Send me your website address and I’ll look at it properly, tell you what state it’s in, and say which plan makes sense – including when the answer is none of them.
Or just ring me. That works too. 07891 492388