A website needs care after it launches. Software needs updates, backups need to run and someone has to make the changes you ask for. We offer website maintenance in Ottawa for businesses and non-profits that already have a site, whether we built it or someone else did. The plan starts at $100 a month.
What the monthly plan includes
- Software updates. We update WordPress, your theme and your plugins, or whatever software your site runs on. We back up the site before each round of updates and check the main pages and forms afterwards.
- Daily backups. A copy of your site is saved every day and stored away from your web host. If the host has a problem, the backups are still safe.
- Uptime and security monitoring. We get an alert when your site stops loading or a scan finds a security problem.
- One hour of edits. New text and photos, a new team member, updated hours or a new section on a page. Extra time is $60 an hour, billed in 15-minute steps.
The plan has a 3-month minimum. After that, it continues month to month.
Webmaster services for a site someone else built
A webmaster is the person who looks after a website once it is live. If the freelancer or agency that built your site has moved on, we can take over that job. Taking over a site works like this:
- Access. You give us an admin login of our own, plus access to your hosting and domain. Because the login is ours, you can remove it at any time without changing your own password.
- Review. We check the software versions, plugins, backups, speed and security. If something is urgent, such as a plugin with a known security hole, we quote the fix before the plan starts.
- A full backup. We save a complete copy of the site before we change anything.
- Monthly care. Updates, backups, monitoring and your hour of edits, every month.
Monthly plan, hourly work or a one-time fix
Not every site needs a monthly plan. This is how the options compare.
- Monthly maintenance plan. From $100 a month, for at least 3 months. Best for a site that needs updates and a few changes every month.
- Hourly work. $60 an hour, billed in 15-minute steps. Best for a site that rarely changes and only needs the odd edit.
- One-time fix. $60 an hour, quoted after a review. Best for a broken form, a hacked site, a slow site or an update that went wrong.
If we build your site and you choose to pay monthly, hosting, updates and edits are already part of that plan. Our pricing page explains how monthly website plans work.
WordPress maintenance
WordPress sites need the most care. A WordPress site runs the WordPress software, a theme and a set of plugins, and each of them gets updates from a different developer.
WordPress installs its own minor security releases automatically by default. Plugins and themes update on their own only if someone turns that on, apart from rare urgent security fixes that WordPress.org pushes out. An update can also clash with another plugin or with the theme. That is why we back up first, update in a set order and check the site afterwards. If an update breaks something, we roll it back and find another fix.
We also watch the parts of a WordPress site that fail quietly:
- Contact forms that stop sending email.
- Plugins that the developer no longer updates.
- An old version of PHP, the language WordPress runs on, that your host plans to retire.
- Spam comments and user accounts nobody uses.
Our WordPress development page covers bigger jobs, such as replacing a page builder or recovering a hacked site.
Sites that need less upkeep
A site built with Astro has no plugins and no database, so there is much less to update and much less that can break. If your site is small and rarely changes, rebuilding it may cost less over a few years than maintaining it.
A website redesign moves your content to a new site and sets up redirects, so the pages Google already knows keep working.
How edit requests work
Send your changes by email or call us at the number on this page. We reply within one business day and let you know when each change is live.
Unused edit time does not carry over to the next month. If a request will take more than the hour left in your month, we tell you before we start, and the extra time is $60 an hour.
What the plan does not include
- Hosting and domain fees. You keep paying your host and domain registrar directly.
- Paid plugins and themes. If your site uses a paid licence, you keep paying for it.
- A redesign, new features or new pages that take more than the monthly hour. We quote those separately.
- Search engine work. Our local SEO service covers that.
Your site stays yours
You keep the domain, the hosting account and every login in your name. We work through our own admin account, so removing it ends our access. After the first 3 months, you can cancel at any time, and we send you the latest backup of your site.
