Care plans
A website does not fail on launch day.
It fails in month seven.
Certificates lapse, plugins go stale, and the contact form stops sending without telling anybody. Six weeks later you hear about it from a customer who had already given up. That is why twelve months of care comes with every build rather than being something I invite you to buy afterwards.
Two plans
One keeps the site working. The other puts it in writing.
Care+
Fixed monthly fee
I manage the hosting, the domain and the SSL certificate, keep the backups running and watch the site for downtime. Platform and dependency updates are applied and tested rather than left to pile up. Every month I also check the site is still indexed and that Search Console is not reporting errors, because a site can drop out of Google as quietly as a certificate expires. You get a performance check every month, a summary every quarter in plain English with your traffic and enquiry numbers in it, and three hours of my time in that quarter for changes.
- Hosting, DNS and SSL managed
- Backups and uptime monitoring
- Updates applied and tested
- Monthly performance and indexing check
- Quarterly summary with traffic and enquiries
Included time3 hours a quarter
Assured
Fixed monthly fee
Everything in Care+, with double the included time and priority response when something is actually wrong. Once a year I write up where the site stands on accessibility, privacy, backups, renewals and whether anyone can still find it, and who is responsible for each of them — a document you can hand straight to your board, your insurer or your funder without translating it first.
- Everything in Care+
- Priority response
- Double the included time
- A written annual review
- Written for your board, insurer or funder
Included time6 hours a quarter
The hour bank
Included time expires at the end of the quarter.
Three hours a quarter means three hours in that quarter. It does not roll forward and it does not accumulate into thirty-six hours for a redesign in year three. I would rather be plain about that now than argue about it with you in month nine.
The condition
The first year of care is part of the build, not an upsell
Twelve months of Care+ is written into every build quote and billed monthly, for two reasons. I do not want my name on a site that has been left to rot. And when you ring me because something has broken — you will — it is better for both of us that an arrangement is already in place rather than a negotiation. After the first year you can stop, stay, or move up to Assured.
First year, in total
Your quote shows the build fee, twelve months of Care+ and the first-year total on one page, so there is nothing to add up and nothing to discover later. You get it in writing within three working days of the call.
What I commit to
I publish the response times I always meet, not the fastest ones I could print.
The times below are the worst case, not the average — most things are dealt with well inside them. They are published as the outer limit because that is the number you can hold me to, and I report against them in the quarterly summary.
| Situation | You hear from me | It is dealt with |
|---|---|---|
| Site down, or the enquiry form is broken | Within one working day | Same or next working day |
| A change, a fix or a small job | Within one working day | Five working days |
| An improvement or something new | Within one working day | Scheduled with you |
These are not the fastest numbers you will see quoted anywhere. They are the ones I can meet in a bad week as well as a good one, and a number that only holds in a good week is not a commitment.
A twelve-month guarantee
Anything that does not work as specified gets fixed at no charge for a year after launch. That covers defects. It does not cover changes of mind, which is a different and entirely reasonable request that I will quote for.
The annual review
The document you can hand to whoever asks.
Sooner or later somebody asks whether the website is accessible, whether personal data is handled properly, and who is answerable if it is not. It might be your insurer, a larger client running a supplier check, a trustee or a funder. The annual review answers all three in one document, with dates and names against each.
- Accessibility — what standard, what was tested, what falls short
- Privacy — what personal data the site handles, and where it goes
- Backups — that they exist, and that they have been restored from
- Domain and certificate renewals — dates, and who holds them
- Who is responsible for each of the above, by name
It is written for the person asking, not for me. It comes with the Assured plan.
Contact
Something will break eventually.
Here is who picks up.
Every site needs somebody watching it, including the one you already have. If yours is running without a plan behind it, that starts with the same thirty-minute call.