WordPress care plan template
A three-tier structure with the parts that actually determine profitability: included hours, response targets, backup frequency, and an explicit list of what is not covered.
Free and ungated. Adapt the tiers, prices and terms to your own business.
Undefined plans are where margin disappears
Most care plans are described in a paragraph on a proposal and never referred to again. The client remembers roughly what they were promised, the agency remembers something slightly different, and neither version is written down precisely enough to settle a disagreement.
The consequence is scope creep that nobody notices. Small requests get handled because each one individually feels too minor to refuse. Over eighteen months the account consumes two or three times the labour its fee assumed, and because nothing was defined, there is no moment where anyone can point at a breach.
A defined plan is not about being difficult with clients. It is about making the boundary visible early enough that adjusting it is a conversation rather than a confrontation.
What a plan must define
- Included support hours per month, and what happens when they run out
- Response and resolution targets, separately
- Backup frequency and retention period
- Update cadence and who approves what
- Report frequency and format
- What is explicitly excluded
- Notice period and what happens on cancellation
A structure that scales
Three tiers is the right number: enough to give clients a choice, few enough that you can deliver each one consistently. Adjust the names and numbers to your market.
Essential — the floor
Monthly updates with verification, daily backups with 30-day retention, uptime monitoring, security patching, and a monthly report. One hour of support included. This tier exists to be the responsible minimum, not to be cheap. If it loses money, the fix is a higher price or a tighter definition, not a longer list.
Professional — the default
Weekly updates, daily backups with 90-day retention and quarterly restore testing, performance monitoring, priority response, and four hours of support. This should be the tier most clients land on and the one your delivery is optimised around.
Business critical — for stores and revenue sites
Hourly or real-time backups, staged update windows outside peak trading, checkout and form verification after every change, same-day response, and eight or more support hours. Priced from what an hour of downtime costs the client rather than from what the tier below costs.
The exclusions section
New feature development, content writing, design changes, third-party service costs, SEO work, and anything on a site not covered by the plan. This is the section clients read least and that protects you most.
WordPress maintenance contract clauses worth writing down
Hours and rollover
State whether unused hours roll over. Most agencies should say no, because rollover creates a liability that accumulates invisibly.
Response vs resolution
Two different promises. Response is when someone replies; resolution is when it is fixed. Promising resolution times on problems you do not control is a mistake.
Backup and recovery
Frequency, retention, storage location, and a recovery time you have actually measured rather than estimated.
Emergency work
Define what counts as an emergency and how it is billed if it falls outside included hours. Do this before the emergency.
Price review
An annual review clause, stated up front, makes the increase conversation routine rather than adversarial.
Exit terms
Notice period, final backup handover, and connector removal. Clients who know they can leave easily are more comfortable signing.
The tier most agencies price wrong
Nearly every agency that measures cost to serve finds the same thing: the entry-level tier loses money. It surprises people, because intuition says the cheapest tier should be the least demanding.
The mechanism is that entry-tier clients tend to be smaller businesses with older sites and less technical confidence. They generate more support contact per pound of revenue, not less. They also tend to email directly rather than raise a request, which means their time is the least likely to be recorded, which is why the pattern stays hidden.
The response is rarely to abolish the tier. It is to define it tightly, hold the entitlement, and make the upgrade path obvious when a client consistently exceeds it. All three require the plan to be written down first.
Clauses agencies regret omitting
- No explicit exclusions list
- Hours that roll over indefinitely
- Resolution promises on third-party problems
- No annual price review clause
- No defined emergency or out-of-hours rate
Questions about care plans
Three. Two gives no sense of choice and pushes everyone to the cheaper one; four or more makes the decision harder and the delivery inconsistent. Three lets most clients land in the middle, which is where you want them.
Usually not. Rollover creates an accumulating liability that can be called in at the worst moment, and it encourages clients to bank hours rather than use the service. If you offer it, cap it at one month.
New feature development, content writing, design changes, SEO work, third-party service fees, and work on sites not covered. Write the list explicitly, because the absence of a list is read as inclusion.
Far more easily if an annual review clause was in the original agreement. Without one, lead with evidence of what the account actually consumes and give substantial notice. Never raise prices in the same conversation as an incident.
Track what your plans actually deliver
Entitlements, SLA terms and hours consumed tracked live against every account, so plans are enforced rather than described.
Free during early access. No credit card required.