What Is a WordPress Care Plan?

A WordPress care plan bundles everything your site needs into one monthly subscription: hosting, maintenance, security monitoring, speed optimization, backups, and direct support from the person who manages your server. Instead of juggling separate vendors for each piece, you get one bill, one point of contact, and one person accountable for your site staying online, fast, and secure.

Most business owners discover the hard way that WordPress does not maintain itself. Core updates, plugin patches, PHP version upgrades, SSL renewals, database optimization, and security hardening all need attention every month. Skip any of them and your site becomes slower, less secure, and more expensive to fix later.

Paying for each service separately adds up fast. Managed hosting runs $20 per month or more. Standalone maintenance plans start at $175 per month. Emergency support from a freelancer costs $150 per hour, and that is if you can find someone available the day your site goes down. A care plan bundles all of this at a lower total cost and removes the complexity of coordinating multiple providers. I run a small WordPress operation in Sacramento and every client site runs on a care plan because the math works.

Three Plans, Transparent Pricing

All plans are month-to-month. No long-term contracts, no setup fees, no hidden costs. Upgrade, downgrade, or cancel with 30 days notice. Annual billing available at a 10% discount.

What Every Plan Covers

Who Needs a Care Plan?

If your WordPress site generates leads, processes orders, or serves as the first impression for your business, you need a care plan. I manage sites across dozens of industries and the pattern is always the same: the business owner does not have time to keep WordPress updated, and the site eventually breaks, gets hacked, or slows to a crawl.

Law Firms and Professional Services

Your website is your most visible marketing asset. Potential clients search your name before calling. A site that loads slowly, shows security warnings, or displays outdated content loses cases before the phone rings. I manage WordPress sites for law firms that need to stay current, secure, and fast without pulling attorneys away from billable work.

Restaurants and Hospitality

Menu changes, seasonal hours, event announcements, reservation system updates. Restaurant sites need frequent content edits and fast mobile performance. 76% of restaurant searches happen on a phone. A care plan keeps your site updated and loading in under 2 seconds on cellular connections. A strong content strategy paired with regular maintenance drives more reservations than a static site that never changes.

Medical and Dental Practices

Healthcare sites handle patient inquiries and appointment requests. HIPAA-adjacent security, SSL certificates, contact form encryption, and regular software updates are not optional. I keep medical practice sites secure, compliant, and ranking for local searches.

WooCommerce and Online Stores

E-commerce sites process transactions and store customer data. A WooCommerce store needs daily backups, tight security, and fast response times when something breaks during a sale. The Professional and Enterprise plans are built for sites that generate revenue every hour they are online.

Nonprofits and Community Organizations

Nonprofit sites run donation campaigns, event registrations, and member portals. A site that goes down during a fundraiser costs real money. I manage nonprofit WordPress sites that need reliable hosting, regular updates, and fast content changes without a full-time webmaster on staff.

Care Plan vs. DIY vs. Freelancer

You have three options for keeping your WordPress site maintained: do it yourself, hire a freelancer on an hourly basis, or subscribe to a care plan. Here is how they compare.

DIY Maintenance

If you know WordPress well, DIY maintenance takes 2 to 4 hours per month. That covers updates, backups, security checks, and performance monitoring. If you are not experienced with WordPress administration, expect 10 or more hours per month and a steep learning curve for server management, security hardening, and performance optimization. At a business owner’s hourly value, DIY rarely makes financial sense.

Hiring a Freelancer

Freelance WordPress developers charge $75 to $150 per hour. Monthly maintenance at 3 hours per month costs $225 to $450 before any emergency work. When your site goes down at 9 PM on a Friday, your freelancer may not be available until Monday. There is no monitoring, no backups running automatically, and no accountability for uptime.

Emergency Costs Without a Plan

A hacked WordPress site costs $500 to $2,000 or more to clean up. Sucuri’s 2024 website threat research report found that 39.1% of hacked WordPress sites were running outdated software at the time of compromise. A $99 to $299 per month care plan that keeps your software current and your security tight costs less than a single emergency cleanup.

The care plan model works because it shifts maintenance from reactive to proactive. Instead of paying to fix problems after they happen, you pay a predictable monthly fee to prevent them. Read more about why ongoing maintenance matters for WordPress sites.

How It Works

Frequently Asked Questions

Can I switch plans or cancel anytime?

Yes. Plans are month-to-month with no long-term contracts. Upgrade, downgrade, or cancel with 30 days notice. Your site, your data, and your backups are always yours.

What if I already have hosting somewhere else?

The Starter plan works with any host. The Professional and Enterprise plans include managed hosting on my server, which gives me full control over performance and security. If you want to keep your current host, the Starter plan is the right fit.

How fast do you respond to emergencies?

Starter plan: within 48 hours by email. Professional plan: within 24 hours by email or phone. Enterprise plan: within 4 hours, with same-day emergency response for site-down situations. I prioritize emergencies based on business impact.

What counts as a content edit?

Text changes, image swaps, adding or removing pages, updating menus, changing business hours, swapping a phone number. Anything you can describe in an email. Design changes, new features, and plugin installations are quoted separately.

Do you manage WooCommerce stores?

Yes. WooCommerce sites benefit most from the Professional or Enterprise plans because they handle transactions and need daily backups, tighter security, and faster response times. I manage WooCommerce stores for retailers and service businesses across multiple industries.

Can you maintain a site you did not build?

Yes. I maintain WordPress sites built by other developers, agencies, and DIY site builders. During onboarding, I audit the site for security issues, outdated plugins, and performance problems. If anything needs fixing, I include that in the initial setup at no extra charge.

What is the difference between a Care Plan and just hosting?

Hosting gives your site a server to live on. A care plan includes hosting plus ongoing maintenance, security monitoring, speed optimization, backups, content edits, and direct support. Hosting keeps your site online. A care plan keeps it online, fast, secure, and up to date.

Do you offer annual billing discounts?

Yes. Pay annually and save 10% on any plan. Annual billing for the Professional plan, for example, comes to $1,890 per year instead of $2,100. Email me to set up annual billing.