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A Tale As Old As The Web (Part 1): Website Hosting & Update Plans

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Once upon a time, a website was born.

And everyone lived happily ever after.

The end.

Gif from the movie The Princess Bride. The grandfather has stopped reading his book to his grandson and is asking him, "Where is that written?"

(No, wait. That’s not how it goes. Let’s try this again.)

Once upon a time, you decided you wanted an awesome website.

You spent hours and days and weeks and months, and lo and behold, you had THE website of your dreams.

And the website lived happily ever after because:

  • It lived in a safe place.
  • It was looked after regularly.

We’re not talking about a fairy tale. We’re talking about website hosting and update plans—long considered to be your site’s Fairy Godmother.

(Okay, we just made that up, but if the pumpkin carriage fits, who are we to argue?)

While this might not be the sexiest part of web development, it is necessary so that what’s been lovingly built is around for the long haul.

Colorful graphic of CodeGeek's web development process, from Discovery to Content Gathering & Development to Programming to Training & Support. The graphic looks like a curvy path that ends with an arrow pointing up, which is after the website has launched. At that arrow are the words "We are here."

👀 We get a lot of questions about these plans because, frankly, a lot goes on that goes unseen. Read on for the answers. ⬇️

We’ve Got A Plan (A Few, In Fact).

Gif of The A-Team standing together, with one of the characters saying happily, "I love it when a plan comes together!"

What’s in the Condor Hosting Plan?

This plan is by far our most popular, and it includes:

  • hosting services (where your site lives)
  • automatic site backups (you gotta have a backup)
  • general site functionality testing (to keep things running smoothly)
  • monthly updates — more below ⬇️

What’s in the Macaw WordPress Monthly Update Plan?

  • We run a one-time backup of your site before we run the updates.
  • Then we apply the available WordPress Core and Plugin updates.
  • We top it off by testing basic site functionality to make sure something major didn’t break.
  • If there’s a problem, we immediately roll back the site. (Yay for backups!)
  • We chat with you about what kind of time and budget is needed to troubleshoot and fix.

Wait, Why Would Something Break?

Gif of a boy playing with a toy at a glass table. He gets distracted and knocks over a glass vase. He looks nervously at his dad, who slowly pulls down the newspaper he's reading to glare accusingly at his son.

The main culprit? Plugins. And every WordPress website uses them.

Plugins provide amazing functionality at a fraction of the development cost.

But sometimes plugin conflicts can create an unexpected plot twist.

  • Plugins are created by third-party developers, and not everyone (or everything) talks to each other.
  • So when there’s an update to either the WordPress core software or a plugin, there can be conflicts with another plugin.
  • And then something breaks. Dun dun dunnnnn …

How often do problems occur?

Problems like this are generally not frequent—they may happen once or twice a year (or less).

Fact: The more complex the website, the more often these types of problems can arise.

Are fixes included in my plan?

Yes. And no. We’ll explain.

YES: Being a part of one of our plans means you’re on “the list.”

  • That means that if something does break, you rise to the top of our list over someone who isn’t on a CodeGeek plan.

NO: There’s still labor involved in trying to suss out what broke during a website update.

  • So, while monthly updates are a part of your plan (and these keep your site in tip-top shape),
  • … the billable time to troubleshoot and fix problems caused by updated third-party plugins (or something else) are not.

Do I really need to fix things, or can I just leave them be?

You’re in the driver’s seat when it comes to your site. So saying “yay” or “nay” to any fix we recommend is always up to you.

Investing in these fixes, however, will extend the life of your website. 👍

And we will always be upfront about what it will take to do them—both cost and time.

  • Fixes typically require between 1-3 hours, but they can take more time in some situations. ⏰
  • If such a situation arises, we will communicate with you first and explain the options available. 📞

Do You Offer Discounted Support Plans?

An adorable corgi puppy is sitting on a brown leather chair. From the right, we can see the puppy's owner's hands flipping through paper money. Every now and then, the owner lets the corgi lick his thumb to make counting the paper money easier.

YES! We have two! 🙌

We offer our Silver and Gold support plans, and they come with a variety of benefits:

  1. get upgraded to “the priority list”
  2. no minimum required per support request
  3. lower rate for additional support hours
  4. fewer invoices per year

✨ Bonus: The cost for the support plan is spread out evenly over 12 months (or paid up front), making this part of your expenses more predictable.

CodeGeek has been hosting my e-commerce website for the past 4+ years with exceptional customer service.

Frank Petrouskie, SilverTQ

Image credits: The Princess Bride, The A Team, Breaking things, Puppy lick

—> Head on over to “A Tale As Old As The Web (Part 2): Critical Plugin Updates,” where we continue our website fairy tale narrative. 📖

If you’ve got questions about our support plans, we’d be happy to share all the details with you!

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