Where can I find documentation of the complete Terms of Service regarding WordPress Care Plans?
The FAQs below summarize the main points, but I encourage you to read the complete Terms of Service. At the time you set up subscription payment, you will be asked to agree to these terms.
In the Terms of Service document, you won’t find any complicated legal terms or long passages of unreadable text. I’ve no desire to trick you into agreeing to something that you might later regret. What I do want is what’s best for both parties, now and in the future.
I don’t want a Care Plan. Will you still update my site?
It’s in your best interests to have a Care Plan, maintaining security and reliability of your WordPress site. I prefer to work only with those clients willing to invest in the overall health and security of their site.
Having said that, sometimes clients just don’t want to pay the monthly fee for services including ongoing daily monitoring, and access to tech support for any questions or issues. For those clients, I offer what I call a Site Tune-up, which is a one-time package of key Care Plan elements at a fixed fee:
- Create a new backup before any work is done.
- Install any updates to Core, themes, plug-ins, and then test to be sure the updates did not cause issues.
- Run security scans to check for malware, blacklisting, the other typical hacking stuff.
- Do a site overview check to make sure there are no other performance issues or problems.
- Provide a list of anything found that needs extra attention to fix (and associated extra cost, if applicable).
- After all updates and fixes, create another backup.
If the security scans or review uncover issues needing attention, I will provide a quote at my hourly rate for any necessary work, and clients can decide what to do from there. This package does not include other Care Plan features, such as daily backups, monitoring, or security scanning. If the site is later the victim of malware or hacking, work to fix those issues would be billed separately.
Can I save money by getting just some features of the Care Plan?
Care Plans are an all-or-nothing deal. I would not include an item in the Care Plan if I did not think it was required to keep your site as healthy as possible.
However, if you just want to get the items in the Site Tune-up on an occasional basis, that would be a way to get the benefit of key Care Plan elements, although you would not get the daily monitoring tasks or ongoing support.
Can I get a discount by paying in advance?
A 5% discount is available if you make a 6-month commitment and pay in advance.
Do non-profit organizations get discounted pricing?
Discounts are available for non-profits, and are worked out on a case-by-case basis, according to need and budget.
Can I get a discount if I have multiple websites?
Add another site to any plan for $39/month (to cover the maintenance tasks), and share the Site Update time across all sites!
Examples:
- You have 2 websites and need the Essential plan to cover up to 30 minutes of Site Update work per month shared across both sites: monthly cost = $69 + $39 = $108
- You have 3 websites and need the Pro plan to cover up to an hour of Site Update work per month shared across all sites: monthly cost = $119 + $39 + $39 = $197
What is your cancellation policy?
Care plans may be cancelled at any time with 30 days’ notice in writing (email is fine). If it’s not working out for you, no problem! I’m happy to stop the Care Plan when needed, with just a little notice. Unused hours for that 30-day period will not be refunded after cancellation, but can be used up until the end of the period. If you’re canceling with more than one month left on the annual plan, you’ll get a pro-rated refund for the unused time (minus the 30 days’ notice).
In addition, if I need to cancel your plan, I will give you 30 day’s notice, and any appropriate pro-rated refund for unused time (minus the 30 days’ notice).
What happens if I don’t use the allotted time in any given month?
Each Care Plan includes a specified amount of time per month for Technical Guidance, and a specified amount of time per month for Site Updates. Technical Guidance time expires if not used within the month. Unused Site Update time is “banked” for up to 6 months, and then expires. If you cancel your Care Plan, any banked time must be used before the plan ends (that is, within the 30-day notice window), and then will expire at the time the Care Plan is ended. No refunds for expired time.
As an example, suppose your plan includes an hour per month of Site Update time. In the first month, you use 30 minutes. In the second month, you’d have 1 hour + 30 minutes of Site Update time available. For clients who have few needs but occasionally have large projects, this is a good deal.
My goal is to get each client on a package that averages out appropriately over a span of several months, while providing a fixed-cost solution that facilitates budgeting and planning.
Can I borrow ahead against future months if I run out of time?
Clients are permitted to exceed their plan by up to one month’s plan size before additional billing. In other words, there’s an opportunity to “borrow” against the next month’s allotment. Hours in excess of this are billed at $120/hour at the end of the calendar month (non-profit discounts will apply).
Can I get a refund if I don’t use all of the time in any given month?
No refunds are issued for unused time, but unused time can be “banked” as described above.
What if I need a significant amount of additional time in any given month?
Any additional hours over the plan hours available (which includes the potential one-month “borrow”) will be billed at $120/hour (non-profit discounts will apply).