Care Plan Schedule

This schedule forms part of my Terms of Business and applies to every care plan. Where this schedule and the Terms of Business differ, this schedule applies to care plan services.

1. The Plans

I offer three plans: Essentials, Professional and Premier. What each plan includes, and its price, is as published on the Care Plans page on the date your plan starts.

A plan covers one WordPress website on one domain. Staging copies I create for testing are included.

2. Starting Your Plan

Your plan starts with an onboarding audit. I review what is installed, what is out of date, what previous developers have left behind, and whether the site shows any sign of compromise.

To carry out the audit and maintain your site, I need administrator access to WordPress, and access to your hosting account or the parts of it I specify. You keep ownership and control of your hosting account at all times.

If the audit finds serious existing problems, including an existing malware infection or compromise, I will scope and quote that as a separate remediation project. Care plan cover begins once the site is in a maintainable state. I will not take on maintenance of a site that cannot be maintained, because that serves neither of us.

3. Updates

WordPress core, theme and plugin updates are applied to a staging copy of your site first and checked against core functionality, including forms, checkout where applicable, and key pages. Only then are they applied to the live site.

If an update breaks staging, it does not go live. If a plugin update is fundamentally broken, I hold it back until the plugin’s developer fixes it, and I will tell you if that leaves a known security risk open.

I can only update premium themes and plugins while you hold a valid licence for them.

4. Backups

Backups are stored off your server, in a separate location. Essentials runs weekly, Professional runs daily and Premier runs hourly.

Backups are kept for 50 days, on servers in Europe. Restoring your site from a backup is included in every plan.

5. Security Monitoring and Malware Recovery

Every plan includes 24/7 monitoring for malware, intrusion attempts and file changes.

If your site is compromised while it is covered by the plan, cleanup and recovery are included at no extra charge. That means removing the infection, closing the entry point that allowed it, and restoring from a verified backup where that is the right answer.

No one can guarantee that a website will never be compromised. What the plan guarantees is that a compromise within its scope is dealt with at no extra charge.

Malware recovery is not included, and is quoted separately, where the compromise:

• ◆ existed before your plan started, or before onboarding was completed
• ◆ came from your hosting server or account outside your WordPress installation, including other websites on the same hosting account, or a breach at your host
• ◆ resulted from changes made by you or a third party without telling me first, such as installing plugins or themes, adding user accounts, or using unlicensed or “nulled” software
• ◆ resulted from login details held by you or your staff being lost, shared or stolen

In those cases I will still help, and I will quote the work before I start it.

6. Response Times

Support is by email. I work Monday to Thursday, 08:00 to 15:00, excluding Scottish public holidays. Response times are measured within those hours.

• ◆ Essentials, email support: within 1 working day
• ◆ Professional, same-day email support: the same working day for requests received by 13:00, otherwise the next working day
• ◆ Premier, priority email support: within 4 working hours

A response means I have read your request and told you what happens next. It does not mean the issue is resolved within that time.

7. Developer Time

Professional includes one hour of developer time a month and Premier includes two. Essentials does not include developer time.

Developer time covers minor technical tasks: small fixes, adjustments and improvements. New pages, redesigns, new features and content writing are separate projects and are quoted before they start.

Unused hours do not roll over. Work beyond your monthly hours is charged at my hourly rate, with your agreement first.

8. Ecommerce Support

Premier includes WooCommerce support: checkout health monitoring, oversight of order processing, and priority response for any issue that affects your ability to trade. Standard WooCommerce updates are included in every plan.

9. What a Plan Does Not Cover

• ◆ New features, redesigns, page builds and content writing
• ◆ Hosting, domain registration and email hosting. I will tell you plainly if your host is the cause of a problem, but I do not resell or manage hosting
• ◆ Fixing a site that was already broken or compromised before the plan started (see section 2)
• ◆ Anything else not described in this schedule or on the Care Plans page

Anything outside the plan is quoted before it happens.

10. Your Responsibilities

You agree to:

• ◆ Keep your hosting account, domain and any premium licences active and paid for
• ◆ Keep the access I need in place, and tell me if you change hosting details or passwords I rely on
• ◆ Tell me before you, your staff or anyone else install plugins or themes, add user accounts, or make technical changes to the site
• ◆ Not install unlicensed or “nulled” plugins or themes
• ◆ Keep your own login details secure, and use two-factor authentication where I have set it up

11. Payment, Changes and Cancellation

Monthly plans are billed in advance by recurring invoice. Annual plans are payable in advance.

Monthly plans can be cancelled with 30 days’ written notice. Annual plans run to their renewal date. No refunds are given for partial months or years.

I will give you 30 days’ written notice of any change to your plan’s price. Annual plan prices are fixed until renewal.

When a plan ends, monitoring, updates and backups stop at the end of the notice period. On request, I will provide your most recent backup.