The time has come for drastic decisions. You started using the youtube vanced apk? You’ve decided to hire a WordPress maintenance service and stop wasting time fixing your site every time a new version of WordPress comes out? Smart decision! After some googling, it seems like there are dozens of nearly the same companies, offering the same “best” service for the same low price.
Wrong! We thought so too, but after comparing nearly 50 WordPress maintenance services (twice, once in 2017 and now again in 2019), it’s obvious there are vast differences between the companies. Some data we got is astonishing and sheds new light on the entire WordPress maintenance business. Get the best service for your buck by accurately comparing maintenance services based on your precise needs. Utilizing a terrific WordPress maintenance service along with one of the best web hosting services is a surefire way to success.
I just click “update everything” and… it’s all good!
That’s an understandable approach. In most cases, it works out fine. It’s also a calculated risk you’re obviously willing to take. That’s the bottom line here – risk and consequences of things going sideways. If you’ve been around computers long enough (more than 5 minutes), you know things eventually do go wrong.
If you’re updating your cat’s blog and the process fails – who cares (ok, except Snuggles)? It’s a cat blog, not your livelihood. But if you’re updating a business site that supports your business as a marketing asset or actually is your whole business – can you afford to be down for an hour, three or maybe even a few days? What if you’re updating a site for a client?
Is “let’s hope for the best” gonna cut it? Probably not!
It seems unreasonable to risk prolonged periods of downtime if you can almost eliminate the risk for $57 /month.
Paying $57 per month (that’s the average price across all services we analyzed in 2017) is like insurance. Even with almost 25% of the increase in 2019, (the average price now being $71), you can’t really put a price tag on your peace of mind. If everything goes well, and we sure hope it will, it’s sort of “wasted money”, so it might seem a bit too expensive for you.
But, if anything goes south, even a little, it’s a minuscule price to pay to get it fixed. The monthly fee is still, in most cases, lower than a one-off fix fee! Bottom line – if a site means anything to you, leave the maintenance to professionals and spend your time doing business, not wrangling code and obscure bugs.
I do my own maintenance as good as they do!
While doing WordPress maintenance is not brain surgery, it’s still a job that can be done in an amateurish way (politely said) or in a professional one. If you see yourself in the latter group, that means you:
a) are a seasoned WP professional with years of experience in various scheduled and unscheduled (urgent) tasks ranging from DNS issues to plugin compatibility problems
b) have plenty of free time, more-less always, and value your work at around $20-$35 per hour
How did we get to that per hour range? The average cost of monthly maintenance was $57, now $71. If the company spends a bare minimum of 2 hours per month on your site (and with “small fixes” often offered for free they can spend a lot more), it means they charge 20-ish, up to 30-ish dollars per hour.
And if you are in fact someone who does or wants to do website maintenance on your own then you should know that the maintenance process shouldn’t be visible to the public. Instead, it should be hidden with something called an under maintenance page.
The easiest way to create these sort of pages is using the Coming Soon & Maintenance Mode plugin which provides you with a drag-and-drop builder, 170+ themes, pictures and videos directly from Depositphotos or Unsplash, best-in-class SEO setup, autoresponder and emailing services, plus many more features that will enable you to build the perfect under maintenance page in minutes.
Aren’t the prices higher in 2019?
Indeed, they are. Not to leave you with 2017ish information, we did a double-check. The prices were not as high as we expected them to be. Still, the 25% rise in average monthly maintenance price is not to be dismissed as “nothing important”.
We went back to our table and made sure to note any changes. While the increase is higher, only 16 of 47 companies increased their prices. That means that over half of the people using these services are not paying anything more than they used to. Here is the list of companies that started valuing the maintenance they do higher.
Increased their prices:
- MaintainPress +71%
- Newts Labs +32%
- Novage 1,120%
- WP Dude 16%
- WP Minder 100%
- WP VIP Services +17%
Lowered their prices:
- Steady WP -36%
- The WP Butler -5%
- WP Curve -6%
- WP Fix It -31%
- WP Maintenance With Love -5%
- WP Relieve -50%
- WP Tonic -20%
When it comes to one-time fixes, the results were quite interesting. Overall, there has been a 22% increase in average price (currently $83, $68 back in 2017). However, this increase in average price is not what it seems.
It is a simple shift of whether a company is doing one-time fixes, or not. Three of the companies that used to solve these “tiny issues” no longer spend their time on it, and three of the companies started providing these services, for quite the price (ranging from $100 to $299 per fix)! Only one of the companies provides lower prices for one time fixes, but they have increased their monthly maintenance fee.
Even with new prices in 2019, keep in mind that we have discovered that less than half of the companies (35% of them, to be precise), increased their monthly price, and about 20% of companies changed their one-time fix offers.
Overall, with over 65% of companies still doing maintenance for $57, you still value your work at around $20 per hour.
Is $20 your hourly rate? It shouldn’t be.
Hence, that work can be outsourced and done for the said amount, despite you thinking that your time is much more valuable. It may be, but in this case, people are willing to do it for less, so that’s still the market value.
If you’re taking care of your site, and especially if it’s more than one site do yourself a favor – realistically calculate how much is that costing you.
You could be charging $100 per hour for doing some other work, but you’re not. You are doing maintenance instead and losing money. To make matters worse, if this kind of work is not your specialty, it means it takes you a lot longer for the same task than somebody who is highly specialized in maintenance-related work. At some point, you’ll have to invest in some tools and plugins, so you’ll waste even more money.
When dissected, “saving money” all of a sudden turns into “losing money”. So, if you’re taking care of your site, and especially if it’s more than one site, do yourself a favor – calculate how much it costs you. Be fair to yourself while crunching those numbers.
WordPress technical support & more than just maintenance
Although the focus of this roundup is on maintenance, if you look at any of the listed services’ websites, you quickly realize they offer more than just maintenance. In fact, for the (often low) monthly price, many offer so much more that we don’t quite understand how’s financially feasible for them.
“Unlimited small fixes” is something you’ll often find and as ambiguous as “small fix” is, we’ll assume that these support providers will assist you with practically any WordPress issue, besides building a new site. Some even offer free migrations. So if you’re looking for technical support for WordPress and thinking of hiring a freelancer to help you, think twice before doing that. Getting a monthly support/maintenance service for a few months might be a lot cheaper and more pleasant experience. A blogger’s journey to make money with WordPress begins after putting their website in maintenance mode.
How to find the best WordPress maintenance service?
Finding the best service that will take care of your WordPress site isn’t that easy. Although most of them offer the same basic package, details like the price and specific services vary. We think you should take wordpress maintenance and support service from the best professionals you can get. If you take the time to look deeper, you’ll realize a lot of these “companies” are a one-man-band operation. We value their efforts! But there’s only so much one person can do and sooner or later he needs to sleep, so having at least a few people available is a huge plus. We didn’t include any company size data because there’s no way to verify it.
Another “thing” we stumbled upon is a lot of name changing. One could call it rebranding, but honestly, it’s just changing the service name and domain. There’s nothing wrong with that, but if you visit bestdogfood.com and send them an email, and they reply from bestcatfood.com, it doesn’t instill confidence in their services.
How did we test the companies?
After gathering the data available from their sites, we tested their response times and general demeanor when addressing potential customers. So, we came up with a simple email that we sent to each company on the list. Here’s the original email:
Hi,
My name is Ivan, and I run a personal travel blog for about a year now.
So far, I haven’t had many problems, but for the last month or so, my site has been loading quite slowly. I noticed the changes myself, and people have started complaining about it and yet some popular plugins I’ve tried haven’t helped me much.
I was interested if I subscribe to your monthly plan, would you be able to speed up my blog and solve several other issues that I’ve been experiencing?
Can you also tell me where are you from? I want to make sure that you can help me with the blog at any time during my working hours.
Thank you for your time,
Ivan
Some services have automated email responses which we didn’t consider. We were interested in emails sent by actual support agents.
All emails were sent around 2 pm GMT+1 time. Yes, that might seem unfair because it’s normal business time for some and the middle of the night for others. However, problems with sites happen all the time so, 2 am or 2 pm – it’s not really an excuse. Also, since we didn’t know where most of the companies were located, we couldn’t customize the sending time to be more friendly. We also hope that emails are prioritized so things like “my site is down” are taken care of before everything else.
As emails started coming back, we noted down the exact time it took them to respond. Those response times, as well as complete emails, are available in the table. As you can see, most services really did their best to describe what they offer and were more than polite. Some, on the other hand, replied with a very short email.
Please note that many companies are available for live chat and phone calls. They do so by using a call center software. Contacting them through those channels will surely give us a faster response, but we wanted a uniformed approach for all test subjects.
There are NO affiliate, referral or sponsored links of any kind in this article. So, click away 😉
Find the best WordPress maintenance service for your needs
We are providing you with their responses and what their services entail. However, with almost 50 companies on our list, it probably doesn’t help much. You still need to go through them and find the one for you. If this was the case, then this article would have been a complete waste of your time.
Luckily, we thought of that, so you can filter through our table of companies to find the right one. Filter it according to what you need, their price or location, or your preferred method of contact to get more specific results!
Unfortunately our tools for filtering maintenance companies are not optimized for small screens such as the one you’re using right now. Please open the article on a bigger screen to fully utilize our tools.
| 24x7 WP Support |
$19 |
$6.66/h |
|
|
Not tested |
San Jose, California, USA |
Site: www.24x7wpsupport.com/
Contact: www.24x7wpsupport.com/instantchat.php
Phone: 888-818-9916
Discounts: First 15 minute service free
Note: Since we have done 3 rounds of testing, we are not testing new companies for reponse time.
Interview: Haven't done yet. |
Advertised Services:
speed and performance, malware scan, migration, hosting, etc. |
Response Email:Not tested. |
|
| AndiSites |
$79 |
$100 |
|
|
12h 39min |
North Carolina, USA |
Site: andisites.com/
Contact: andisites.com/contact/
Phone: (919) 704-4683
Discounts:
Note: 3rd round of emails sent as Marko.
Interview: Declined |
Advertised Services:
Updates, backups, security, performance, etc. |
Response Email:Hi Marko,
Thanks so much for contacting us about your website project. We'd love to help!
We can absolutely help you diagnose and speed up your website, either on a one-time hourly basis ($100/hour) or as part of an ongoing support and maintenance plan ($79/month). If you could share the URL of your website, then we should be able to give you some quick thoughts on what we see and how we can help.
Thanks again for getting in touch, and I look forward to hearing back from you!
Andi ?? |
|
| Barrel Roll |
$49 |
|
removed in 2019 |
|
3h 52min |
Virginia, USA |
Site: gobarrelroll.com/
Contact: gobarrelroll.com/contact-us/
Phone: 757-828-6137
Discounts: Discount for multiple sites
Note: 3rd round of emails sent as Marko.
Interview: Declined |
Advertised Services:
Backups, updates, security monitoring & cleanup, etc. |
Response Email:Thanks for reaching out, Mark! Yes, we can help speed up your site. How much depends on what's going on, but there is always something we can do. If you don't mind sharing your URL, I can run some quick tests to give you an idea of what we can do for you. In the mean time, here's an article talking about our optimization process and some recent successes we've had.
Regards,
Scott - Barrel Roll |
|
| BitofWP |
$19 |
$49 |
added in 2019 |
|
Not tested |
Canada |
Site: bitofwp.com/
Contact: bitofwp.com/contact-us/
Phone:
Discounts: Discount for multiple sites
Note: Since we've done 3 rounds of testing, we are not testing new companies for response time.
Interview: Haven't done yet |
Advertised Services:
Maintenance and support, malware removal, migration, content updates, etc. |
Response Email:Not tested. |
|
| ClickWP |
$35 |
$50 |
|
|
1h 10min |
Malaysia |
Site: clickwp.com/
Contact: clickwp.com/contact/
Phone:
Discounts:
Note: 3rd round of emails sent as Marko.
Interview: Declined |
Advertised Services:
Website setup, customization, speed up, tweaks and improvements, etc. |
Response Email:Hello Marko
Thank you for getting in touch. We help many of our customers with their load time and site speed, so I am sure we can improve your website. Are you referring to webtvornica.com?
With our website care plan, we will help diagnose and fix issues that affect your site speed. However, there may be some issues caused by your website hosting. For an additional $5/mo we will also provide high quality hosting to ensure the best performance of your website.
ClickWP is headquartered in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia with team members in Scotland and USA.
Please let me know if you have further questions. Thanks
--
David Wang
Head Caretaker
hello@clickwp.com |
|
| Coversine |
$49 |
|
|
|
Not tested |
USA |
Site: www.coversine.net/
Contact: info@coversine.net
Phone: 941-845-6441
Discounts:
Note: Since we have done 3 rounds of testing, we are not testing new companies for reponse time.
Interview: haven't done |
Advertised Services:
Backups, security,web development, etc. |
Response Email:Not tested. |
|
| FixMyWP |
$50 |
|
|
|
2h 14min |
Greece |
Site: fixmywp.com/
Contact: fixmywp.com/wordpress-support-request
Phone:
Discounts:
Note: we have a relationship with them, so they might have ""figured out"" our test email
Interview: Read the interview |
Advertised Services:
Updates, spam cleaning, database optimization, fixing hacked sites, etc. |
Response Email:Hello Ivan. We run a PageSpeed test through webpagetest.org, you can see the results below: First Try: http://www.webpagetest.org/result/170825_BZ_a9a95e3b8cc47a1a4c5c73c99a197a1d/ Second Try: http://www.webpagetest.org/result/170825_3P_7315181de953ce100fe832fd17eaf13c/ Those PageSpeed tests show that your site is faster than most of the sites out there but you can still optimize its total loading time, specifically for the ranks marked as ""F"". Both of our Maintenance Plans offer PageSpeed Optimization, Support and Updates while the Ninja one has some extra services related to security like Malware Scanning and Cleaning. Feel free to take a look at our Maintenance Plan page, if you haven't done this already, and send me any additional questions or comments you may have: https://fixmywp.com/wordpress-maintenance-services ps: I come from Greece but we have people working from us from Serbia and the US as well so you can get a reply from our support department all day(and night) long. -- Makis. |
|
| FixRunner |
$59 |
$49 |
|
|
Not tested. |
Delaware, USA |
Site: www.fixrunner.com/
Contact: www.fixrunner.com/contact/
Phone: 1 (888) 446 5559
Discounts:
Note: Since we've done 3 rounds of testing, we are not testing new companies for response time.
Interview: Read the interview |
Advertised Services:
Personal Support, Secure Updates, Speed Optimization, Cloud Backups, Uptime Monitoring, etc. |
Response Email:Not tested. |
|
| IvyCat |
$35 |
|
|
|
4h 40min |
Washington, USA |
Site: ivycat.com
Contact: ivycat.com/contact/
Phone: 800-861-4004
Discounts:
Note: 3rd round of emails sent as Marko.
Interview: Declined |
Advertised Services:
Upgrades, security, backups & troubleshooting, etc. |
Response Email:Hi Marko, Thanks so much for contacting us. We're a small company based in Gig Harbor, WA. We do offer speed optimization services which are separate from our maintenance plan. However, if you are on our maintenance plan, you do receive 5% off any work, including optimization. Could you send us a link to your website so we can take a look and get back to you with some suggestions on how we can speed it up? Thanks,
Jenny |
|
| Maintainn |
$49 |
|
|
|
6h 49min |
USA |
Site: maintainn.com/
Contact: info@maintainn.com
Phone:
Discounts: yearly - 16%
Note:
Interview: Read the interview |
Advertised Services:
Nightly backups, weekly updates, 24/7 security monitoring, development services, etc. |
Response Email:Hello Ivan,My name is Jim Byrom and I am the Director of Client Services here at Maintainn. In addition to providing 24/7 security monitoring, nightly backups and weekly updates (core/theme/plugins) for your WordPress site through one of our service plans, we also offer development services through our Bulk Hours program. Bulk Hours are development hours that can be used for site enhancements and/or bug-fix requests. Bulk Hours never expire, so any remaining hours from a previous purchase will be stored in your account for future use. We currently have a promotion right now for when you purchase a block of 10 Bulk Hours ($1,500) you will receive 2 bonus hours at no additional cost (a savings of $300), but you can purchase Bulk Hours in smaller blocks as well. Once you have signed up with one of our service plans, we can take a look at your site/code and provide some recommendations on the development hours required to increase your site performance/speed.Also, we are a fully-distributed company with personnel located throughout the continental U.S. and our standard support hours are 9am - 8pm ET.Please let me know if you have any other questions.Thank you,------- Jim Byrom Director of Client Services Maintainn Support |
|
| MaintainPress |
$60+71%
since 2017 |
|
|
|
53d 4h 44min |
California, USA |
Site: maintain.press/
Contact: maintain.press/contact/
Phone:
Discounts: Free for 14 days
Note: 2nd round of emails sent as Marko. Email sent on national holiday in the USA which may have affected the response time.
Interview: Declined |
Advertised Services:
Initial Analysis & Tune-Up, Daily Malware & Vulnerability Scans, 24/7 Uptime Monitoring, etc. |
Response Email:Hello Marko, Thanks for reaching out about your firm's site. By any chance, did you sign up recently? We had a law firm site signup recently but we have been unable to get in contact with anyone. I won't share any more details in case they are unrelated, but please let me know if that is your site. To answer your question about load-times and overall speed, we definitely can help. Of course we'd need to evaluate the site before knowing exactly what kind of improvements to make, but if you can let me know the domain I can do a quick scan and start to see what issues we can work on for you. Our team is split between California & Florida. Where are you located? Thanks for reaching out. Please don't hesitate to let me know if you have any questions or I can help in any way. Best, Jeffery Patch |
|
| Newt Labs |
$87+32%
since 2017 |
$96-52%
since 2017 |
|
removed in 2019 |
16min |
UK |
Site: newtlabs.co.uk/
Contact: hello@newtlabs.co.uk
Phone: 01954 789349
Discounts: yearly - 17%
Note: we have a relationship with them, so they might have ""figured out"" our test email
Interview: Read the interview |
Advertised Services:
Updates, backup, monitoring, firewall, etc. |
Response Email:Hi Ivan, good to speak with you again. yes I would be happy to help speed up your site, take a look at your initial issues and then support and maintain the site going forward. In addition to a speed up I would recommend checking out our managed hosting available to our site care customers. This will have the most impact on your website speed - https://newtlabs.co.uk/wp-hosting/ We are from Cambridge in the UK and we mainly work with people in the UK however we are happy to make an exception for people in other European countries where the time difference is not that much. Where is it you're from/based? Kind Regards Steven Watts |
|
| Novage |
$500+1120%
since 2017 |
|
|
added in 2019 |
Not tested |
Singapore |
Site: novage.com.sg
Contact: novage.com.sg/contact/
Phone: 67 444 064
Discounts:
Note: Since we have done 3 rounds of testing, we are not testing new companies for reponse time.
Interview: haven't done |
Advertised Services:
Updates, security monitoring, article creation, etc. |
Response Email:Not tested. |
|
| OptimWise |
n/a |
n/a |
|
|
1d 0h 49min |
South Carolina, USA |
Site: optimwise.com/
Contact: optimwise.com/contact/
Phone:
Discounts: Yearly - 10%
Note: 2nd round of emails sent as Marko. Email sent on national holiday in the USA which may have affected the response time.
Interview: Read the interview |
Advertised Services:
Updates, backups, security & uptime monitoring, etc. |
Response Email:Marko, thank you for contacting OptimWise! Our Gold Plan includes Speed Optimization, to make your site faster. After you sign up for your plan, we'll see what's slowing the site down. We can then plan the steps to improve its speed. We're based in the state of South Carolina in the United States (US). Our team is located in several states in the US. You can learn more about our team on our About page. We look forward to taking care of your website! Chad Warner | Founder | OptimWise | Take care of your business. We'll take care of your website. |
|
| PurplePlanet |
$49 |
|
|
|
36min |
Germany |
Site: purpleplanet.com
Contact: info@purpleplanet.com
Phone: 0049 (0)625 446 333 99
Discounts: yearly - 20%
Note:
Interview: Declined |
Advertised Services:
24/7 Uptime Monitoring, Daily Cloud Backups, WordPress Updates, etc. |
Response Email:Hi Ivan, I'm sure we can help with your site issues. Which plan would be best suited to your requirements? I'm English, but based in Germany, so working on Central European Time, although I tend to be available long hours. Let me know how you wish to proceed. Many thanks, Matt Atherton | Principal Consultant |
|
| SkyrocketWP |
$79 |
|
|
removed in 2019 |
Not tested |
Tyler, USA |
Site: skyrocketwp.com/
Contact: info@skyrocketwp.com
Phone: Y
Discounts:
Note: Since we've done 3 rounds of testing, we are not testing new companies for response time.
Interview: haven't done yet |
Advertised Services:
Daily Database & Core Backups, Page Speed Optimization, Performance Monitoring, 24/7 Uptime Monitoring, Ongoing Hack Prevention, etc. |
Response Email:Not tested. |
|
| SteadyWP |
$35-36%
since 2017 |
|
|
|
Not tested |
Sweeden |
Site: steadywp.com/
Contact: info@steadywp.com
Phone:
Discounts: yearly - 17%
Note: Since we have done 3 rounds of testing, we are not testing new companies for reponse time.
Interview: Read the interview |
Advertised Services:
Backups, updates, visual regression testing, automated functionality tests, etc. |
Response Email:Not tested. |
|
| The WP Butler |
$39-5%
since 2017 |
$100 |
|
|
didn't respond |
Oregon, USA |
Site: www.thewpbutler.com/
Contact: www.thewpbutler.com/contact/
Phone:
Discounts:
Note: 2 emails sent, no response
Interview: Declined |
Advertised Services:
Backups, malware scans, updates, site review, uptime monitoring, small fixes, etc. |
Response Email:Didn't respond to our email. |
|
| The WP Help |
$45 |
|
|
|
Not tested |
Colorado, USA |
Site: www.thewphelp.com/
Contact: support@thewphelp.com
Phone: 720-770-3344
Discounts: Pay yearly to get one month free
Note: Since we have done 3 rounds of testing, we are not testing new companies for reponse time.
Interview: haven't done yet |
Advertised Services:
Hosting + Maintenance, Real-time Uptime Monitoring, Malware Scans, Hack Promise, Guarantee 90+ speed scores, 24/7 assistance with unlimited edits, etc.
|
Response Email:Not tested. |
|
| Theme Location |
$29 |
|
added in 2019 |
|
10min |
Pakistan |
Site: www.themelocation.com/
Contact: waqas@themelocation.com
Phone:
Discounts:
Note: Response email ended up in spam (we use Gmail)
Interview: Declined |
Advertised Services:
Security monitoring, backups, updates, etc. |
Response Email:Hi Ivan! Thank you for contacting me. Yes, I can surely speedup your website. We did speed optimization for many websites. No Problem doing that. I am from Pakistan and almost available from 13 to 15 hours a day. Hopefully You wont have issues working with me. Yes, If you subscribe our monthly package, We will make sure everything remains Well with your Website. Just don't Worry at all. thanks |
|
| ThriveWP |
$35 |
$62 |
|
|
Not tested |
UK |
Site: thrivewp.com
Contact: sales@thrivewp.com
Phone: 07949281978
Discounts: Get a discount code
Note: Since we have done 3 rounds of testing, we are not testing new companies for reponse time.
Interview: haven't done yet |
Advertised Services:
Support dashboard, WordPress core, plugin & theme updates, daily off-site backups, security monitoring and malware scanning, etc. |
Response Email:Not tested |
|
| Total WP Support |
$49 |
$299 |
removed in 2019 |
|
5h 11min |
Canada |
Site: totalwpsupport.com/
Contact: info@totalwpsupport.com
Phone: 1800 985 9860
Discounts:
Note: 3rd round of emails sent as Marko
Interview: Read the interview |
Advertised Services:
Backups, updates, 24/7 monitoring, security, maintenance, etc. |
Response Email:Hi Marko, nice to meet you and thanks for your interest in total wp support. Can you send me your site so i can have a look and do a quick assessment of your sites current speed issues? We can certainly help you out with your speed problems. The extent to which we can assist from within the costings of the maintenance plan does have its limitations, depending on the plan you choose. Generally, maintenance plans are all about maintaining the site you have. Extensive work to fix speed issues are generally outside the scope of a plan. That said, MOST websites speed issues are fairly easily fixed and come down to one or a combo of a few different factors. - poor quality hosting
- no caching on server side or site side
- no cdn used
- too many plugins
- poorly built website The first four items are most likely the root cause of your issues and assessing and fixing those will most likely provide the boost your site needs to meet your speed requirements. All of those are things we can do for you. We provide extremely high quality hosting that includes very aggressive caching on all levels. Most sites see a dramatic immediate boost after switching to our hosting. Our hosting also makes it very easy and affordable to set up and run a CDN for your images and other assets. We can help assess what plugins are causing the greatest slow downs and help to deactivate and delete plugins that aren't needed. The only part that isn't included in sites that are hosted with us and on a maintenance plan would be actually getting in and fixing the more advanced issues like the technical aspects of the sites development. In these cases we simply work to a set quote that is acceptable with the client. If you have further questions, let me know, happy to set up a phone call if needed to discuss further. All the best Bodhi |
|
| TriSummitSolutions |
$97 |
|
|
|
2h 51min |
Texas, USA |
Site: trisummitsolutions.com
Contact: trisummitsolutions.com/contact/
Phone:
Discounts:
Note:
Interview: Declined |
Advertised Services:
Backups, security, speed improvements, SEO optimization, training, tweaks, etc. |
Response Email:Hi Ivan, Thank you for contacting us! I was hoping I could get a little more information from you. What is your personal travel blog URL so that I can check it out? Besides sites speed, what other issues are you experiencing with your site? Who do you host your site with? Our monthly support plan does help keep your blog running smoothly, but for sites we did not build, we generally require a one time site cleanup and optimization fee, which would include fixing other issues, depending on the severity. We are located in central Texas, USA. Thank you, Morgan |
|
| Valius WP |
$59 |
$65 |
added in 2019 |
|
37min |
California, USA |
Site: valiuswp.com/
Contact: info@valiuswp.com
Phone:
Discounts: start for free; yearly - 20%
Note:
Interview: Declined |
Advertised Services:
Speed optimization, seo optimization, Unlimited Small Jobs, etc. |
Response Email:Hi there, Yes, a big part of what we do for new customers is site speed optimization. If you sign up for the Unlimited Plan this is an included service. We're a global team. I'm based in Italy, my business partner is in the States and we have developers all over. Let me know if you have any other questions we can answer. Thanks! -- Steven Steven from Valius WP |
|
| WOptimize |
$29 |
|
|
|
Not tested |
Italy |
Site: www.woptimize.io/
Contact: www.woptimize.io/get-in-touch/
Phone:
Discounts: yearly - 20%
Note: Since we have done 3 rounds of testing, we are not testing new companies for reponse time.
Interview: Read the interview |
Advertised Services:
Daily updates and backups, uptime monitoring, daily security and performance checks, etc. |
Response Email:Not tested |
|
| WordXpress |
$77 |
|
|
|
Not tested |
Salt Lake City, USA |
Site: wordx.press/
Contact: wordx.press/contact/
Phone:
Discounts: Up to 5% Yearly Loyalty Discount
Note: Since we have done 3 rounds of testing, we are not testing new companies for reponse time.
Interview: Read the interview |
Advertised Services:
Content Edits & Updates, 24/7 Monitoring, Cloud Backups, etc. |
Response Email:Not tested. |
|
| WP Agents |
$69 |
|
|
|
Not tested |
UK |
Site: wp-agents.com/
Contact: support@wp-agents.com
Phone: +44 7540 215955
Discounts: First 2 month free
Note: Since we have done 3 rounds of testing, we are not testing new companies for reponse time.
Interview: haven't done yet |
Advertised Services:
Daily backups, 24x7 Security Monitoring (Vulnerability testing), 24x7 Performance Checkout |
Response Email:Not tested. |
|
| WP Always |
$49 |
|
|
|
1h 54min |
Michigan, USA |
Site: wpalways.com/
Contact: support@wpalways.com
Phone: (877) 869-4003
Discounts:
Note: Response email ended up in spam (we use Gmail)
Interview: Declined |
Advertised Services:
Backups, malware detection, uptime monitoring, blacklist removal, etc. |
Response Email:Hi Ivan, thanks for reaching out. Yes, we certainly can resolve your load speed issues. At the $59 and $89 levels, we include 1 and 2 hours of maintenance work per month respectively. I have a friend who has been very successful at monetizing the travel vertical, so I'm curious to learn more about your travel blog. Do you have a few minutes today to discuss further? Here's a link to our pricing table for more insight: https://wpalways.com/wordpress-managed-security-maintenance/ |
|
| WP AOS |
$29 |
$99/h |
|
|
Not tested |
Canada |
Site: www.wpaos.com/
Contact: info@wpaos.com
Phone: 1 (800) 987-8176
Discounts: Pay yearly to get 2 months free
Note: Since we have done 3 rounds of testing, we are not testing new companies for reponse time.
Interview: haven't done yet |
Advertised Services:
Backups, updates, performance monitoring, etc. |
Response Email:Not tested. |
|
| WP Cope |
$65 |
|
|
|
didn't respond |
India |
Site: wpcope.com/
Contact: support@wpcope.com
Phone: (00)919812561898
Discounts:
Note: email address listed on the site doesn't exist
Interview: Declined |
Advertised Services:
WordPress upgrades, migration, fixing themes/plugins, etc. |
Response Email:Email address doesn't exist; we never received an answer. |
|
| WP Curve |
$46-6%
since 2017 |
|
|
|
didn't respond |
n/a |
Site: wpcurve.com/
Contact: uk.godaddy.com/wordpress/premium-support
Phone: 020 7084 1810
Discounts:
Note: they got acquired by GoDaddy in December 2016 and had plenty of time to redirect/reorganize their website - they didn't. Us sending them messages via site may seems douchey but a lot of people will google them, come to the site and try to contact them without knowing the ""business details"". They didn't respond to the message sent via site form, nor when we sent it to the email listed on the site.
Edit, Aug 26th - contact form was removed from the site, all CTAs now go to GoDaddy. Very confusing is you ask us.
Interview: Declined |
Advertised Services:
Small jobs, bug fixes, boost conversion, speed optimization, etc. |
Response Email:Never received any response |
|
| WP Dude |
$29+16%
since 2017 |
|
added in 2019 |
|
14min |
UK |
Site: wpdude.com/
Contact: wpdude.com/wordpress-technical-support
Phone:
Discounts:
Note:
Interview: Declined |
Advertised Services:
Backups, updates, monitoring, security, reporting, etc. |
Response Email:Hi Ivan I'm based in the uk What are your issues over and above the performance problems Thanks Thanks -- Neil Matthews support@wpdude.com WP Dude |
|
| WP Fix It |
$34-31%
since 2017 |
$39 |
|
|
didn't respond |
California, USA |
Site: wpfixit.com/
Contact: wpfixit.com/contact-us/
Phone: 443-WPFIXIT
Discounts:
Note: 2nd round of emails sent as Marko. Email sent on national holiday in the USA which may have affected the response time.
Interview: Declined |
Advertised Services:
Infection cleanup, speed up, agency support, manage services, etc. |
Response Email:didn't respond |
|
| WP Fixy |
$29 |
|
|
|
10min |
India |
Site: www.wpfixy.com/
Contact: support@wpfixy.com
Phone:
Discounts:
Note:
Interview: Declined |
Advertised Services:
Error fixes, malware removal, migration, optimization, etc. |
Response Email:Hi Ivan, Thanks for reaching out to me. I can certainly looked into your blog and speedup the site to an optimum levels possible. Usually,Speed up project is a separate task than our ""Peace of mind maintenance plan"" where we make site secure, update, fix any update related issues, take offsite server backups, monitoring on a regular basis. Please note that, With all maintenance plans, World class WordPress optimized web-hosting for that WordPress installation comes free of cost. We can add the speed project for free, only if you're ready for a commitment of 6 month plan of maintenance plan. Standalone speed up project charge is $75. I am from India and have all clients from western countries only and hence have aligned my timings as per that timezone. If there are any questions left, please do not hesitate to contact me again. Thanks & Regards, Vikash Kumar |
|
| WP Hero |
$179 |
|
|
|
1h 3min |
Ireland |
Site: wphero.io/
Contact: support@wphero.io
Phone:
Discounts: yearly - 20%
Note:
Interview: Read the interview |
Advertised Services:
Small fixes, updates, backups, social media integration, etc. |
Response Email:Hi Ivan, Thanks for contacting us at WP Hero with your question. We would be more than happy to take a look at your website and see if we can find the issues that may be affecting the speed. We do offer a Free First Fix for all our customers, however, it is limited to 30 minutes and generally, most site surveys and optimization requests take longer than this. Therefore I would suggest signing up to one of our plans http://wphero.io/plans/. We offer a no quibble refund guarantee, so if you're not happy then we'll happily issue you with a refund. Site speed optimization is one of the many services we offer, we also specialize in fixing and improving other areas of your website. We simply tell our customers to think of us as their remote tech support team! As for our location, although we are headquartered in Ireland, we also run a development office in India. So we aim to cover most time zones. We can offer the option of completing work on your site during your specified ""down times"" i.e. when your site is least busy. We find this is useful for our customers, especially e-commerce operations. I hope this information is useful. If you have any other questions please don't hesitate to ask. Many Thanks Nigel |
|
| WP Maintainer |
$99 |
|
|
|
4h 38min |
n/a |
Site: wpmaintainer.com/
Contact: wpmaintainer.com/contact/
Phone:
Discounts:
Note:
Interview: Declined |
Advertised Services:
Updates, monitoring, malware cleanup, migration, etc. |
Response Email:Ivan,Possibly, but sometimes this requires more than maintenance-level work, so it is a hard question to answer. What is the URL to your site and where are you hosted?--Andy StrattonWP Maintainer Support |
|
| WP Maintenance with Love |
$35-5%
since 2017 |
|
added in 2019 |
|
28d 0h 6min |
UK |
Site: wpmaintenance.love/
Contact: wpmaintenance.love/#contact
Phone: 0044 (0)7973 575502
Discounts: yearly - 8%
Note:
Interview: Read the interview |
Advertised Services:
Updates, database optimization, backups, spam$revision cleanup, etc. |
Response Email:Hi Ivan, I'm very sorry for the delay in getting back to you. Please let me know if you still need my help. You would need to let me know the website address so I can take a look at what the performance is like currently. But yes, I can help you speed up your website if you sign up for a monthly plan. With regards to any other issues it would really depend on what they are. These may have to be paid for separately depending on what plan you chose. My business is registered in London, but I am based in Barcelona, Spain. Let me know if you still need my help. Kind regards,
Rob |
|
| WP Minder |
$60+100%
since 2017 |
|
removed in 2019 |
|
3h 1min |
Colorado, USA |
Site: www.wpminder.com/
Contact: hello@wpminder.com
Phone:
Discounts:
Note: 2nd round of emails sent as Marko. Email sent on national holiday in the USA which may have affected the response time.
Interview: Declined |
Advertised Services:
Backups, updates, hack cleanup, etc. |
Response Email:Hi Marko, The Business Plan does include a performance audit focused on speeding up site loading times (although your host plays a big role in that too). I also offer a standalone performance tuneup: https://www.redkitecreative.com/web-design-and-development-services/wordpress-performance-optimization-speed-up-wordpress-site/ I'm located in Fort Collins, CO. --
Debbie Campbell
http://www.wpminder.com
Minding your site so you can mind your business! |
|
| WP Relieve |
$99-50%
since 2017 |
|
|
|
8h 14min |
New York, USA |
Site: wprelieve.com/
Contact: support@wprelieve.com
Phone: 1(646) 583-2402
Discounts: Free trial available
Note: 2nd round of emails sent as Marko. Email sent on national holiday in the USA which may have affected the response time.
Interview: Declined |
Advertised Services:
Theme and plugin fix and customization, speed up, SEO optimization, prevent site hacking, etc. |
Response Email:Hey Marko ,
Thank you for your inquiry on WP Relieve about speeding up your Law Firm's website.
If you Subscribe to our STARTER package , we will not only speed up your website but also do security scan from time to time to keep it safe from viruses and hacking. We will even add or remove content and install or remove themes and plugins on your request.If you Subscribe to our BASIC package , we will do every thing from STARTER package and will also do customization in current website such as customizing plugin or theme and adding new pages or functionality . Also , our team consist of developers from different countries all around the world but we are officially based in Brooklyn,New York,United States. Thank You Mark Bell
Customer Relationship Manager
+1 (646) 583-2402
WP Relieve - We relieve you from Wordpress headaches by fixing any small issue you request and improving your site in a number of ways 24/7 for just $69/Month |
|
| WP Site Care |
$79 |
|
added in 2019 |
|
5h 5min |
Utah, USA |
Site: www.wpsitecare.com/
Contact: www.wpsitecare.com/contact/
Phone: (866) 302-1221
Discounts: yearly - 20%
Note:
Interview: Declined |
Advertised Services:
24/7 Security Monitoring, automated backups, performance optimization, etc. |
Response Email:Hi Ivan, Thank you for reaching out to us. Our corporate office is in Springville Utah but we are a remote company and have employees located within North America. A great way to find out what exactly is slowing your site down would be to purchase one of our SiteChecks. We will evaluate your hosting, theme, plugins, media, site speed and security to determine what is slowing everything down and provide you with a report and steps on what we can do to speed it up for you. You can also purchase one of our plans so that we are proactively taking care of your site. We offer the following support and maintenance plans: Our Protect Plan is a preventative maintenance package that covers all of the most important parts of your website, like realtime backups, update management (to make sure you're always running the latest versions of everything), and realtime malware scanning and removal. It's $99 per month, or $79 per month if you choose annual billing. Our Professional Plan offers all of the services that the Protect Plan does, but also includes uptime monitoring (if your site ever goes offline we'll know immediately and will start working to bring it back online), a staging area where all updates are tested, version control with Github, and two hours of development time each month. That plan is $399 per month, or $299 if you choose annual billing. (minimum plan required for eCommerce) You are able to buy development time from us on both plans (for anything that falls outside of what's included in each plan), for an additional $125 per hour. Would you like to get started with a SiteCheck? Which of these plans seems like the best fit for your needs? Please let me know if you have any other questions. I look forward to hearing back from you. Amy Farrell Account Manager |
|
| WP SitePlan |
$29 |
|
removed in 2019 |
|
Not tested |
Ohio, USA |
Site: wpsiteplan.com/
Contact: support@wpsiteplan.com
Phone: (855) 977-0391
Discounts: yearly - 16%
Note: Since we have done 3 rounds of testing, we are not testing new companies for reponse time.
Interview: Read the interview |
Advertised Services:
Security, backup, installing updates, database optimization,tracking analytics, uptime monitoring, etc. |
Response Email:Not tested |
|
| WP Support Services |
$35+17%
since 2017 |
$59+16%
since 2017 |
|
|
29min |
UK |
Site: wpsupportservices.co.uk/
Contact: wpsupportservices.co.uk/contact-us/
Phone: 0330 22 33 428
Discounts:
Note: 2nd round of emails sent as Marko; mail ended up in spam.
Interview: Declined |
Advertised Services:
Security monitoring, backups, updates, etc |
Response Email:Hello Marko The straight answer is yes we can speed up your site. However we like to do a review of your site for free first and then give you a full report on the condition of your website, our advice on fixing those issues and your options in regards to either a monthly plan or a single fix price. If you would like to proceed with the site review please create an admin user as wpsupport_si46 and the email clientacct@wpsupportservices.co.uk And then email us the site link and password to clientacct@wpsupportservices.co.uk and we will have a full report sent back to you by tomorrow. The company is based in the UK but we have both staff and clients on 4 continents. Regards David Finch WP Engineer |
|
| WP Sync |
$99 |
$39 |
added in 2019 |
|
2h 30min |
Florida, USA |
Site: www.wpsync.com/
Contact: www.wpsync.com/contact-us/
Phone:
Discounts:
Note:
Interview: Declined |
Advertised Services:
Updates, backups, performance and security scans, etc. |
Response Email:Ivan, I've reviewed your website/issue/project and in order to complete this, it would be an hourly job. I recommend our monthly WordPress Management packages as they include a preset amount of support hours and additional hourly rates are preferential. They also include a suite of crucial services for the overall health of your website such as daily backups, software/plugin updates, malware scans, performance reports, keyword tracking, uptime monitor and more. If you would prefer a one-time quote, I've added information about hourly retainer billing at the bottom of the message. We have four levels of monthly management available: ESSENTIALS ? 30 Mins Support Time From $79/month https://www.wpsync.com/account/cart.php?a=add&pid=273 PREMIUM ? 2 Hours Support Time From $179/month https://www.wpsync.com/account/cart.php?a=add&pid=260 ULTIMATE ? 4 Hours Support Time From $279/month https://www.wpsync.com/account/cart.php?a=add&pid=261 PARTNER - 10 Hours Support Time From $799/month https://www.wpsync.com/account/cart.php?a=add&pid=262 In all the plans additional time is billed at $75/hour, which is invoiced on Mondays for the previous weeks overage. For example, if you had the 2-hour ""Premium"" plan and used 2 hours 15 minutes, you would receive an invoice for the extra 15 minutes ($18.75). It's also worth noting that these monthly packages are not locked into a contract, you can downgrade or cancel at the end of the current billing cycle. If you are not interested in a monthly commitment, we also offer hourly retainer billing. These are single hours purchased at full-rate, so do not offer quite as much value as the monthly packages. To purchase a retainer hour for your project please click here: https://www.wpsync.com/account/cart.php?a=add&pid=331 Once your payment is approved, you will be redirected to our support system. There you can securely provide credentials so that we can begin our work. I'll be happy to answer any questions. - Thomas Customer Support |
|
| WP Tonic |
$39-20%
since 2017 |
$50 |
added in 2019 |
|
3h 12min |
Nevada, USA |
Site: www.wp-tonic.com/
Contact: support@wp-tonic.com
Phone: (775) 234-8893
Discounts: yearly - 17%
Note:
Interview: Declined |
Advertised Services:
Backups, migration, monitoring, etc. |
Response Email:Hi Ivan. I love to help you out why don't you book a day and time that works for you using my online calendar scheduler? And to answer you question YES this is what we do every day of the working week, We are based in Carson City, NV, USA. Take care Jonathan Denwood |
|
| WP Tweaks |
$39 |
$39 |
|
|
4h 26min |
UK |
Site: www.wptweaks.co.uk/
Contact: www.wptweaks.co.uk/contact-us/
Phone:
Discounts:
Note: 3rd round of emails sent as Marko.
Interview: Declined |
Advertised Services:
Updates, health check, video tutorials, 24/7 Security Monitoring, etc. |
Response Email:Hi Marko, Thanks for getting in touch with us. Yes absolutely if you were to take out the Pro or Business package then you could utilise your ""tweaks"" that are part of those packages to get us to perform speed improvements. Who is your host currently? We are based in the UK but we have people that can work at all hours. Kind regards Neil |
|
| WP VIP Services |
$99+102%
since 2017 |
|
removed in 2019 |
|
3h 47min |
Florida, USA |
Site: wpvipservices.com/
Contact: support@wp-monitor.com
Phone: (954) 933-8457
Discounts:
Note: Formerly WP Monitor hence the old email
Interview: Declined |
Advertised Services:
Updates, backup, security, etc. |
Response Email:Hello Ivan, At this time, we do NOT offer speed improvements as part of our services. On this page ( https://wpvipservices.com/plans-pricing/) you will find the services that we do provide. We are located in Miami, FL, USA. Thanks for contacting us. Hector Torres Founder of WP VIP Services(formerly WP-MONITOR) |
|
| WPKnights |
$49 |
|
|
|
Not tested |
India |
Site: wpknights.co/
Contact: wpknights.co/
Phone: +91-9897667746
Discounts: 2 months off on annual payments
Note: Since we have done 3 rounds of testing, we are not testing new companies for reponse time.
Interview: haven't done yet |
Advertised Services:
Backups, hacked website fix, speed optimisation, WooCommerce support, unlimited content updates, etc. |
Response Email:Not tested. |
|
| WPsitehelpers |
$39 |
$99 |
removed in 2019 |
|
9h 38min |
Arizona, USA |
Site: wpsitehelpers.com/
Contact: team@wpsitehelpers.com
Phone: 520-477-2160
Discounts:
Note: 2nd round of emails sent as Marko. Email sent on national holiday in the USA which may have affected the response time.
Interview: Read the interview |
Advertised Services:
Updates, maintenance, improvements, emergencies, etc. |
Response Email:Hi Marko,
Yes our team can assist with speeding up your site. We do that and much more. Our main office is in Arizona. Our techs are all over the world.
- Chris |
|
| Zen WP |
$79 |
|
|
|
1h 44min |
California, USA |
Site: zenwp.co/
Contact: support@zenwp.co
Phone:
Discounts: yearly - 20%
Note:
Interview: Read the interview |
Advertised Services:
Unlimited HTML, CSS, & JavaScript Jobs, uptime monitoring, backups, etc. |
Response Email:Hi Ivan, Thanks for reaching out to us and glad to hear that you're considering us. There can be many reasons why your website may be slow and we would be glad to advise you on what may be the problem. If it is WordPress related, we would be more than happy to help you correct each individual one. As for our location, our main office, which staffs the majority of our developers is in California. We also maintain small offices in the UK and Ukraine. In addition, two of our work-from-home developers are in New York City. Hope this helps. Please let us know if you have any additional questions. Thanks. Sincerely, Lauren Upchurch |
|
Recommend me someone!
Sorry, don’t have a crystal ball to do that (as we don’t know any details about your needs) but we’ll give you an easy recipe. Filter companies by location. That will provide you with some choices in your timezone, which, we believe, is crucial. Write an email with what you need and expect; be as specific as possible. Send the very same email to all companies. Be sure to ask if they provide a 24/7 service or what their hours are. Based on their responses, you’ll end up with two, maybe three companies. Chose the one that you like the most or let the price be the deciding factor.
If you decide to do maintenance on your own that’s fine; many people do. Just remember that it’s a chore like any other. If neglected or not done at all, it’ll come back to bite you big time at the worst possible time. Be smart, make backups, keep things updated, and install a maintenance mode plugin while you’re doing work so that visitors don’t see your site broken.
FAQ
Need a short version of everything? No time to read the whole article? Not a problem. Here’s a short FAQ;
What are WordPress maintenance services?
They are services which get maintaining your WP site off your back. Companies providing these services usually have different packages. Most common services they provide are regular updates of your website, plugins and themes,
constant uptime checks, and just-in-case backups.
Why should I hire maintenance services?
Keeping your website maintained and updated at all times is a time-consuming process, especially if you are not a seasoned veteran when it comes to
WordPress. Hiring a maintenance company also serves as a back-up, as many of them offer fixes within their plans.
What is the average monthly price for hiring a WP maintenance services?
Based on 50 top companies, the average monthly price sums up to be $71. With one-time fixes being $83 on average.
Can Maintenance Services help with hacked sites?
Yes they can! In two ways: Either they will try to fix the problem immediately, or restore your WordPress site from a backed-up version. They will also improve your website’s security so that you don’t get hacked again. Usually, with maintenance services, your website is as good as new in no time.
Do I get services outside the scope of maintenance?
Most of the maintenance companies offer additional services, which can cover everything from free migration to another hosting, to fixing theme issues. For details, please contact individual companies.
What should I consider when hiring one of the Maintenance Services?
First and most importantly, check their working hours, and if 24/7 support is really 24/7 support. Searching for a company by your location is also a recommended thing to do, as you will probably get a quicker response if you are in the same timezone. More people in the company is also a better choice than a one-man-band company. Lastly, consider the price. Does it fit your budget?
Do these companies offer multisite support?
Most of them offer multisite (WP-MU) support but we advise that you check with individual companies.
Can I ask maintenance companies for custom development?
Many of the analyzed companies do offer custom development to their clients. It is usually not included in the monthly price. In the end, prices may vary, but it is an option.
I have an e-commerce site. Can they help with that, too?
E-commerce is not on the “basic plan” list most of the time. Still, most of these companies do offer taking care of your e-commerce website within one or two of their plans.
With maintenance services price increases in 2019, isn’t it cheaper to do the maintenance yourself?
For most people – no. If you have been doing your own maintenance and haven’t experienced any trouble so far, then you can save $71 per month. However, bugs may appear on your site at any time, and you can never know when a hacker will strike, either. Fixing broken websites and repairing the damage yourself will cost you more in the long run.
Hi Gordan, Steven here from ValiusWP. Great, detailed list. Thanks for including us! There are a lot of WP support companies these days and having a filterable list will help people find the company that suits them best. Nice work!
Thanks for including us on this list. We’re pleased to be part of this amazing and comprehensive WordPress ecosystem. WPAlways has been working with WP since 2006. It’s amazing how much the platform and talent pool has evolved. Thanks again, keep up the good work!
Thanks for including WP Buffs in this list!
This article does a great job of outlining all of the advantages of using a WP maintenance company with professionals available 24/7 so YOU don’t need to be available 24/7! Most of our customers, including web designers and developers, would rather spend their time on things other than the often mundane tasks involved in keeping a website running smoothly.
The chart’s a great resource to start to narrow down the perfect match for a customer’s needs. Thanks again!
Hey Ivan,
This is a decent writeup but I’d be lying if I thought this was a good representation of the quality of the WordPress maintenance services landscape.
The only real metric being used here is measuring how quickly someone on the sales team responds to a standard inquiry. It doesn’t give any insight into how quickly a company’s support team would respond to any given request, including prioritization of more urgent requests.
In other words, the data here is pretty seriously flawed and misrepresents the quality of each vendor.
If you really want to uncover who is doing the best work in this space, you’d need to have an active subscription with each of them, and not only measure things like response times, but more importantly, resolution times.
It doesn’t matter how fast someone answers an email if they don’t have the technical expertise to resolve it in short order.
Based on my own experience in this industry Maintainn, WP Maintainer, WP Buffs, GoWP, and my company are doing the best work and should be the recommended providers here.
I also think it’s important you disclose the real angle here and that this is all a #growthhacking play to build links and get social shares, not to provide truly meaningful or valuable information for your readers.
You have content all over the web linking page to this under construction plugin:
– https://wpwarfare.com/top-7-maintenance-mode-page-plugins-wordpress/
– https://www.wpmayor.com/set-construction-page-wordpress/
– https://fixmywp.com/blog/top-4-reasons-show-construction-page-visitors.php
Not that there’s anything horribly wrong with that, but disclosure is important, especially when the you’ve written content for one of the companies that you rated here (Fix My WP).
Anyway, if you ever are interested in really getting a good look at what this space has to offer, I’d be happy to offer a trial of our services so you can see what it’s like to work with a team of professionals.
Hi Ryan,
Is the metric we used here ideal? Far from it! We wanted to get an account with every company, test response times, see how they fix bugs, handle problems but the logistics of such an undertaking are not trivial. So, we decided to start with something – how long it takes to respond to an email. In due time, I’m sure we’ll do another test. A more real-world approach. Till then this is what we got.
As for our relationship with some of the companies – we did disclose it! It’s in the notes for two companies. Maybe we weren’t clear enough about it, but we’re not hiding it.
I’m sorry you feel this article “does not to provide truly meaningful or valuable information for readers“. We plan on writing more like it, with more tests of maintenance companies. Hopefully, you’ll change your mind then.
I guess my point is… what’s really being communicated here? It’s not clear to readers that the only thing you’re really representing is how long it takes to get a response for a SALES inquiry. Which is especially problematic when it’s sent at 2am for some of these vendors.
You’re not even kind of showing people who the “best wordpress maintenance company” is. Your words, not mine. Not even close.
As I mentioned before, if you want to really find out the answer to the questions you’re trying to answer here, I’m happy to remove some of the trivia and offer a free trial account of our services. I’m sure many other companies would do the same.
I’ve explained the 2 am issue in the article. Really don’t know how we could have done it “fairer”.
No, we are not showing “who the best company is” nor will we ever. We provided some data to readers to help them pick the best company for them. In my opinion much more important criteria than “best company over all”.
If we take a trial account from you (or anybody else) and do a write up on how is it to actually be your client (which I’d love to do) how do we retain a sense of neutrality? You know that it’s a “test” account. Some may argue we won’t be getting the same treatment as other clients.
I guess we’re officially at an impasse since there isn’t a way to convince you that what’s you’re doing is more of a game than wanting to paint an accurate picture for readers. A quick piece of advice on my way out the door: Neil Patel may know how to growth hack, but I’ll bet he sips expensive tea on a yacht made for one while he listens to Yanni and cries himself to sleep. The world will get lonely if all you’re focused on is building links and social share counts. Being a trusted source is a long play, but it’s more fun and you end up with a lot more friends.
I really don’t know how Neil lives … 🙂
I’ll repeat myself – this is a start! Far from perfect, but a start. Various tests of hosting companies improved over the years too, as more people started doing them. Hopefully, others will start testing maintenance companies too. And no you can’t convince me that this is “just a links game” for us. If it were so your comments would have never been approved.
Hi Ryan. I had to reply to your comment since you mentioned our company name(twice).
Fyi we never knew that we were tested, in fact our response time was below our average but that’s fine for us.
Since you have a strong opinion on which are the best WP Maintenance Providers I suggest to create your own review and publish it under your blog. It will be a fun thing to learn the criteria you used to rank WP Maintenance Companies you never had worked as client nor as a provider.
Thanks for the shout out for WP Buffs here, Ryan! I have to agree with some of your points here in that the time a company takes to respond to an initial email is no correlated with the quality of work they provide.
This is a pretty badass chart though!
The article should probably be geared more towards comparing offerings and initial response times. This isn’t really a comparison between these companies though.
I do my own maintenance but LOVE what you did with the smart comparison table. Haven’t seen that in an article yet.
Gordan, I definitely agree with the bottom line you stated: “if a site means anything to you, leave the maintenance to professionals and spend your time doing business, not wrangling code and obscure bugs.” Almost any business owner would be making a wiser business decision in outsourcing WordPress maintenance than taking it on themselves! It’s to help such business owners that we’ve been providing WordPress maintenance since 2010. It’s interesting to see how many companies are now offering maintenance services! Thanks for the work you did in researching and writing this post.
Makis and staff at Fix My WP have been my go-to service for years. World class hack repair and more. Several clients have moved to his maintenance package and even hosting too. I’ve sent the webmasters I teach and their clients to him for nasty site issues and everyone is over the moon with his service. Response time is about half what’s shown in the table on average.
Thank you for including WP Minder. I do agree with other commenters that response time to a sales inquiry does not necessarily reflect quality of support or response time for *active* clients. However, I appreciate being included. WP Minder has been providing WordPress maintenance, support and hosting to small business clients since 2014.
Ivan and Gordan, thank you for including OptimWise in your second round of testing! There’s a note in our line in the table, but I also want to point out here that our sales inquiry email came at 8:18 AM our time on a national holiday in the US (Labor Day). That’s why it looks like it took us over a day to reply to the sales inquiry.
We’ve been providing WordPress maintenance since 2010. We appreciate appearing alongside other companies who are working hard to keep WordPress sites secure and stable!
Holy Moly what a list!
It shows the explosion of WP Support companies over the last number of years. There is such a variety here, of location, price and I’m sure, service. Thanks Gordon for doing the work (and taking the risk) of trying to find some metric to judge performance – not perfect of course. You are right in saying that more testing needs to be done in the future. It is hard to find the right method and trial accounts is unfortunately not it, as they would of course be prioritised.
This is a start and much better than those lists that recommend companies without any metric to judge performance. Great Work on the chart, maybe in version 2 you could add in more details of the offerings and specialism of each company, as I’m sure they can’t all be the same. At WP Hero for instance we deal mainly with sites running WooCommerce.
Anyhow from myself and the team @ WP Hero have a great day and to all of those companies listed above – keep on rocking the world of WordPress Support :).
Great list. I hope WPLot.us (WP Lotus) makes the list one day.
Thank you!
If you would like WP Lotus on the list, please contact us via email with all the details about the company. After reviewing the company and your site, we’d be happy to include it on the list!
Contact: https://underconstructionpage.com//contact/
We launched a brand new service with competitive prices and great support service for WordPress websites. Get your website WOptimized at https://www.woptimize.io and we will keep it updated, backed up and constantly monitored. With a WOptimized Plus plan we even help you with other small tasks, from editorial changes to HTML, PHP, JS and CSS changes and fixes.
Hey Stefano,
Awesome news! It’s always nice to see new WP services out there; good luck with WOptimize!
If you’d like us to include your company on the list, please send us the details via email https://underconstructionpage.com//contact
It is good to see those many services, and even more at the comments! The point is, how you differentiate?
here is my try, the first service with a WordPress Project Managment Tool in Place and Live Communication with Slack! 🙂
Yes – we have nailed it with the API integrations!
https://creativeg.gr/services/wordpress-site-maintenance
Hey Basilis,
Thanks for sharing! It’s awesome to see another maintenance service that does something different.
If you’d like us to include your company on the list, please send us the details via email https://underconstructionpage.com//contact
Awesome comparison table you got there! I’m with WP EZI – https://wpezi.com and am happy with their services. You should check them out too!
Thank you,
We’ll check them out!
Awesome comparison and detailed data you’ve provided.
You included quite an extensive list of companies but left out a REALLY good one. Check out WP EZI – it should definitely make it to your list. I’m a customer and couldn’t be happier.
Hey,
Thank you for your suggestion! We will check out the company and consider adding them to the list.
Hi Gordan, that is a great list you have put together. Two weeks ago I moved to KreativoPro for WordPress support and I’m extremely happy with them. They treat me like a queen and all my problems are fixed in 1-3 hours. All I do is live chat with them for my issues and they always respond in 60 seconds. KreativoPro.com should be included in your list.
Hey Gordan,
This is an amazing list you have put together. This is Pratik here from PressMate. We have just ditched the traditional reporting and send all the updates to our client through Mobile APPS making support more personal and quick. Check out more about our service at https://www.pressmate.io
Hey Gordan,
This is an amazing list you have put together. This is Pratik here from PressMate. We have just ditched the traditional reporting and send all the updates to our client through Mobile APPS making support more personal and quick. Check out more about our service at https://www.pressmate.io
Great content, this is a great list we will be happy if our site will list into that.
we have launched a website for WP Support, Hacked site support and much more, do visit us at http://wewpyou.com/
Hey,
Thanks for the kind words!
We no longer test the companies, but if you would like your service to be listed here, please contact us with all the details. I can’t promise anything, but we will check your site and consider adding it to the table.
Wow what a great list. Hopefully you will do a new list for 2018 or even 2019. I would love the opportunity for Edison Avenue Consulting’s offering to make the list.
Heya – we’d love you include us next time you review! We’re UK based but serve worldwide and you can usually find us #P1 Google for related search terms 🙂
https://wpfiddlybits.com
All the best
Alison
Hey Alison,
Thank you for the comment! Please contact us so we can talk about the details.
Hey
Thank you for the EmbraceWP nod!
Great article. Would like to mention one piece of the puzzle that is not often mentioned. Marketability of the brand on the web. We provide SEO consulting services with some of our EmbraceWP packages as well.
That way, one month you can have us develop something in your website, and the next, we can test your SEO!
This is a great resource, thanks for publishing. If you ever revise or re-issue it, we’d love to be included. We’re based in Malta but look after clients both sides of the Atlantic. https://www.zigpress.com/zigcare
Hey Andy,
Thanks for the comment!
If you are interested in being featured on the table, please contact us and we’ll see what we can do.
Incredible resource Ivan!
Love the table filter, what is powering that?
Thank you, Brian!
I’d better ask who is powering that since the table filter (and actually the entire table) was coded by our developer Gordan for the purposes of this article.
Hi Brian,
The filter was custom built just for this article. But, in hindsight, we should have used DataTables with just a bit of custom code 🙂
I’ve been using MainWP (https://www.mainwp.com) for managing 20+ sites for years now and I´ve been quite happy. Reason for choosing them was being able to choose a lifetime license. 🙂
I am glad to hear you’re happy with MainWP! We asked the company owners about the use of tools like MainWP in the interviews, but it turns out most of them actually use ManageWP to handle multiple sites.
Here is another website that offers WordPress Maintenance Services called WP Management. You can visit the site here at this url: https://wpmanagement.cloud
Great post.
If you’re up for a test drive of SkyrocketWP WordPress maintenance, hosting, and support. (https://skyrocketwp.com), we’d love to set you up. We’re a Kinsta partner for WP maintenance and SEO. Just let us know! Thanks!
Hi Chad,
Thanks for stopping by and letting us know about SkyRocketWP! Unfortunately, since it’s been a long time after we did the tests, we are no longer testing new companies, but we might be able to include SkyRocketWP on the list after we check it out more closely.
The blog was absolutely fantastic! Lot of great information which can be helpful in some or the other way. Keep updating the blog, looking forward for more contents. WordPress maintenance is essential if you want to have a secure, fast website. If anyone wants to take the free services of WordPress maintenance then you have to browse Navthemes.
Thanks for sharing it
Hi everyone, This list is pretty good one containing almost all the good ones.
We are also a WordPress website maintenance and support service and providing 50% OFF for the first month on all our plans. Apart from this we are also providing 2 months free for the customers who buy yearly subscription.
We have generous website edits support and a great team which can provide support through out the day.
Have a nice day!
Asad Abbas
Hi Gordan,
Here is Nayan Jain from ExpressTech Software Solutions, I would like to say thank you for putting your time and effort in explaining. We are also, one of the best service providers of WordPress customization.
Cheers.
Hi Gordan, we run a service base in London which doesn’t have monthly plans as many companies its all automated and we believe has no value to website owners.
We run a WordPress job service where we do not charge by the hour, we price the job up making it transparent to the client.
Fixes start from as little as £9.99
Great Post! It is good to see those many services, and even more in comments! The point is how do you differentiate?
Here’s my try, with the first service and sluggish live communication with a WordPress project management tool in place!
https://www.wpglobalsupport.com/
Such a nice post thank you for sharing this post with us…
Much obliged for making a trip and telling us about SkyRocketWP! Sadly, since it’s been quite a while after we did the tests, we are never again testing new organizations, however, we may almost certainly incorporate SkyRocketWP on the rundown after we look at it all the more intently.