People usually think of their website as fairly maintenance free after the initial design and build, but that perception is far from the reality. Just like cars engines that need timely oil changes and tune-ups, software and web services also need regular maintenance for optimal performance. Although site owners can perform most of the maintenance tasks themselves if they have the knowledge or they can outsource the maintenance, which allows them to focus more on providing better content and user experience.

But with so many WordPress maintenance and support services available and each claiming to be the best, it often becomes difficult to choose the right one. Similarly, some tasks are more important than others and it makes sense to choose the service that focuses on tasks most important to you. This post aims to make the selection process easier and discusses top 5 maintenance services that help ensure that your WordPress site is always running optimally.

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What is a WordPress Maintenance Service?

Successful WordPress websites are much more than just developing and updating a site. They also need regular maintenance that includes performance optimization, backups, updates and security audits. It takes quite some time and work hours to keep a website running in good shape. But not everyone has that much time to keep sitting behind a computer screen maintaining a site and fixing issues. That’s when WordPress maintenance services prove their usefulness as they take the WordPress workload off the users and allow them to focus more on the important stuff.

Who Should Buy a WordPress Maintenance Service?

Site owners already have a lot of hard work to do, including idea generation, content creation, marketing, SEO and more. Doing site maintenance can eat into that time that otherwise could have been dedicated to more important stuff. If you know the ins and outs of web development and maintenance, have 2-3 hours to spare on a monthly basis and just have to maintain one or two websites, you can probably manage the maintenance part yourself.

Most WP maintenance services offer under $100 plans that include WordPress and plugin updates, quick fixes, backups and some other tasks. Choosing to pay for a maintenance service depends on how you value your time. For example, if you charge $100/hr and have to spend around 3 hours per month per site for maintenance, it makes more financial sense to outsource the maintenance services.

There is no denying that WordPress maintenance services take a lot of tasks off the to-do list, but such services actually don’t directly improve the ROI. Although these services don’t offer anything groundbreaking, they do save a lot of time and provide peace of mind. This is particularly true for businesses as WP maintenance services ease the workload of the IT staff and help them focus more on tasks that directly drive better ROI.

Let’s have a look at some of the most popular and reputed WordPress maintenance service providers and how they stack up against each other. Most providers offer similar kind of services, but choosing the one that works best for you depends on your own requirements and budget.

WP Site Care

Launched in 2012, WP Site Care managed to earn customer trust in a relatively short time span through its reliable maintenance services. It takes care of most of the tedious maintenance stuff, including security monitoring, automated backups and performance optimization. The provider also offers excellent-rated customer support that claims to go out of the way to help customers. The usual turnaround time for a support ticket is rated at one hour, which means issues get solved fairly quickly.

WP Site Care offers 24/7 security monitoring, protects WP websites from hackers and shore up security holes using the most reputable online malware monitoring tools. The provider promises to clean up the mess caused by a hacking attempt free of charge if that ever happens.

Automated backups of data (database, images and other files) happen at least on a daily basis, while the backup frequency can be increased to an hourly-basis (e.g. eCommerce stores, high-volume publishers). All changes are backed up to the Amazon Cloud, which is considered to be one of the most reliable data storage platforms. The on-demand restore services allow restoring 30-day backups in no time.

Performance optimization services help ensure that sites are running efficiently and quickly, which ultimately results in a better visitor experience and search engine ranking. The provider accesses poorly written themes, faulty plugins, images and more and implements the best industry practices to fine tune site performance. The services also include SEO and make it easier for search engines to read and index the content.

Pricing starts from $79/month (Protect Plan) that includes core services i.e. daily cloud backups, WP updates, security monitoring and support. The Professional Plan costs $299/month and includes hourly cloud backups, eCommerce support, two dev hours/month, CloudProxy Firewall, version control (Github), uptime monitoring and propriety support. Partner Plan starts from $999, offers custom solutions and includes everything the Professional plan offers plus an account manager, strategy planning and help, performance optimization, service level agreement and dedicated development hours.

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WP Curve

With over 44,000 jobs completed since 2013 and more than 1,000 active customers, WP Curve is another well-known WP maintenance service provider with a unique approach to fixing WP issues. Known for its quality services and the competent support staff, WP Curve has an international support team present in almost all contents. The provider aims to deliver unlimited small WP fixes within 24 hours (small fixes are defined as jobs that can be completed in around 30 minutes). Fixes include backups, CSS tweaks, plugin configuration and more.

Here is how it works: the customer sends a job via email and a WP Curve team member solves the issue (normally within 8 hours). The team members are spread across different geographical regions, ensuring that someone is there to help customers 24/7. Although the Standard Plan ($79/month) allows submitting small jobs via email, users can also buy proactive maintenance service by upgrading to the Professional plan ($99/month), which includes unlimited jobs and a security guarantee.

Proactive maintenance includes WP, themes and plugin updating, regular backups and monthly security scan. Site owners and business that want even more functionality can opt for the VIP subscription ($199/month) that offers priority support, allows submitting up to 3 jobs at once (standard plans only allow submitting one job at a time) and ensures that the QA team double checks every completed job.

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WP Maintainer

If you are looking for a one-size-fits-all kind of a maintenance service, WP Maintainer is certainly worth considering. A flat per month fee of $99 gives you access to free site migration and includes extensive security audit, updates management, regular backups and 1-hr compatibility support every month. The malware monitoring and cleaning solution Sucuri is also part of the package. A flat fee means all users get everything the provider has to offer and there is no confusion about which package to use. The solution suits users who are not into custom packages and want a complete, affordable solution.

WP Maintainer takes full responsibility for updating WordPress, themes and plugins while ensuring compatibility. Both on-site and off-site backups provide peace of mind and can save site owners from potential disasters. Site migration during the setup process is free and the provider helps users move to a more reliable WP hosting provider.

Up to one hour of compatibility support helps ensure that nothing is broken when updates arrive. If the provider is unable to fix a compatibility issue, it rollbacks the problem-causing update to an earlier and stable version. The flat-rate monthly subscription gives users access to dev team’s support for issues such as CSS related problems or plugin styling.

The flat-rate $99/month pricing gives users access to all the features, but multi-site WP installs are not supported. WP Maintainer prefers a Linux installation, but also facilitates clients using Windows server on a case-to-case basis. Although the service provider offers nothing fancy or extraordinary, it keeps things simple and provides a full range of services at a fixed monthly cost. However, clients can also request custom services when required according to the scale of their operations. Emphasis on using quality hosting providers is another area where WP Maintainer ensures that the clients are getting the best bang for the buck.

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The WP Butler

The WP Butler is a better option for people who only want to spend money on the features they really need instead of paying a fixed price for things they don’t need. This provides users with more flexibility as customers only pay for the custom packages they need. The only common thing in all packages is site restoration and a security audit for first-time clients.

Users can decide rest of the package contents themselves and pay for the options that they actually need. Different options include WordPress core and other updates, malware scans and regular backups. Almost all kinds of users, whether advanced or beginners, can find a package that serves them well at a competitive cost. Custom pricing plans help keep maintenance costs down and are particularly effective for bloggers and new site owners.

Customers can also request Dave Clements (the person behind The WP Butler) to periodically check their sites for peace of mind or add development time to the plan. If you are not sure how to customize a plan and choose the things that you really need, the provider also offers pre-configured recommended plans.

For $41/month, bloggers and individuals get weekly whole-site backups, daily database backups, weekly malware scans and weekly updates (core, themes and plugins). The Small Business plan costs $92/month and adds twice-weekly updates, weekly site reviews and uptime monitoring to the menu. Enterprise plan ($205/month) caters requirements of bigger businesses and includes daily whole-site and database backups, twice-a-week malware scans, thrice-a-week updates, twice-a-week site reviews, uptime monitoring and other small fixes.

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Maintainn

Maintainn is a reliable service provider trusted by customers both big and small, including Microsoft. In addition to being a solid maintenance services provider, Maintainn is also affordable and offers services at a competitive price. The services include WordPress Updates, offsite backups and expert support, while security is monitored in partnership with Sucuri. The hourly development service called Bulk Hours allows customers to get something fixed without signing up for monthly/yearly subscriptions. The provider also helps customers migrate their site to a more reliable hosting company.

The easy-to-use dashboard plugin provides users with more control and a central location from where they can manage important tasks. The dashboard allows users to scan core WP files, view details about the site, turn on different tools and find other helpful WP resources. Although Maintainn supports WP Multisite, it requires customers to provide more information than standard sites.

The Premium Support plans start at $49/month or $499/year (per site), which includes round the clock security monitoring, WP core, theme and plugin updates, offsite backups and compatibility with Bulk hours. The Premium+ support plan costs $99/month/site and includes a 30-minute response time, 1 hour of support/month and outage and code help in addition to the premium features. Enterprise support is available for $149/month or $1499/year and includes all Premium+ features, staging-based updates, email notifications for updates and client review prior to deployment.

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