WORDPRESS WEBSITE MAINTENANCE TERMS OF SERVICE

WP Crank and its operator are not affiliated with the WordPress Foundation or Automattic, Inc.

This WEBSITE MAINTENANCE AGREEMENT (hereafter referred to as “Agreement”) is made and entered into between Philip Light, an Ohio Sole Proprietor doing business as WP Crank (hereafter referred to as “Provider” / “we” / “our” / “expert”) and the purchaser of these services or the company they represent (hereafter referred to as “Client” / “you” / “your”) to provide hosting, maintenance, and support for their website hereafter referred to as “Website” / “site”).

Provider and Client hereby agree to accept and adhere to the following terms and conditions:

DESCRIPTION OF SERVICES

MAINTENANCE AND UPDATES

WordPress Core, Plugin and Theme Updates: New major/minor releases of the WordPress core, your plugins, and theme(s) are updated automatically upon release for Personal plans. For Business and Enterprise plans, only minor releases (generally security-related) are automatically applied and major releases are manually performed by a WordPress expert.

Manual updates include “Safe Updates”, which first creates a backup restore point, captures before/after screenshots, tests for a successful HTTP request to the site, and automatically rolls back on an error response. A Theme will only be updated if no changes have been made directly to the Theme files and updates can be made without losing any prior customizations.

Site Quick Checks: A WordPress expert will visit your site and take a quick look around to ensure everything is working properly. If an issue is discovered, we’ll alert you and begin mitigation efforts as covered by our Incident Response policy. A custom checklist can be developed for a particular site to ensure the priority pages/areas of your site are checked.

Critical Vulnerability Updates: Plugins and Themes can be labeled as having a “critical vulnerability” meaning they have a known security weakness. These issues need to be addressed as soon as possible to prevent malicious activity on your site. We monitor lists of those designations daily and apply updates when available, or can disable plugins which have been removed from the WordPress directory and attempt to find a replacement.

Server Software Updates: We periodically check and update the core website software running on your hosting server such as Apache, NGINX, PHP, MySQL, or MariaDB.

Manual Updates and Offline Testing: Business and Enterprise plans include manual updates performed by a WordPress expert including Safe Updates. We use a staging server to test the updates there prior to updating the live site, automatic roll-back on failure, and visual checks after updating. This greatly reduces the likelihood of problems occurring on your live site.

SUPPORT AND PROFESSIONAL SERVICES

General Support Tickets: General Support includes answers to your questions about WordPress or the admin center, plugin/site recommendations, light troubleshooting, etc, via email or ticketing system. General support does not include fixing issues, adding new features, nor custom coding. All plans include unlimited support with Enterprise plans getting the highest priority response followed by the Business plan and then Personal plan.

Small Tasks / Tweaks: Small tasks are minor changes/tweaks that we can completely finish in 30 minutes of work or less. Small tasks can be changes to the admin center such as adding/deleting a plugin, making adjustments to your Theme customizations, adding a blog post, or minor code changes. Any task that requires more than 30 minutes to complete is not included in our plans and will be quoted separately at our custom development rate. Personal plans include 1 small task per month, Business plans include 2 small tasks per month, and Enterprise plans include unlimited small tasks with the highest priority.

Incident Response and Mitigation: An “incident” is a service interruption to your site due to recent updates, hosting/infrastructure/DNS issues, a security breach, a feature/display issue, or significant drop in page load performance. All our plans include our urgent response to those issues and unlimited expert time to mitigate the incident excluding any issues requiring coding changes such as to a customized theme or problems within the code of any plugin / WordPress core. Additional time can be purchased, if necessary, at our normal development/optimization rate for any code-level fixes required.

Custom Development / Optimization Rate: Custom features, in-depth optimization, or code-level changes are billed monthly at a rate of $65/hr ($75/hr without a plan), due in 30 days. Budget requirements and timeline estimates are provided and must be approved prior to any work being performed. Larger projects may require a deposit prior to work starting.

WEBSITE SECURITY

Security Hardening, Monitoring, & Management: All plans include an initial security hardening process including manual scans, plugin installations and configuration, and setting up various monitoring and reporting systems. We then monitor those systems for vulnerabilities and intrusions on an ongoing basis and manage any security issues/hacks that may arise including clean-up of a hacked site.

Emergency Security Incident Response: All plans include our urgent response to any security issue. We’ll review the situation, apply fixes or restore the site from a backup, patch the vulnerability, and keep you informed of the situation per our Incident Response policy.

Malware, Blacklist, and Vulnerability Scans: We use multiple systems and checks to continuously monitor your website for any security related issues such as malware or critical vulnerabilities. If found, we implement our Emergency Security Incident Response plan to urgently find and fix the issue and implement any changes to help prevent the same issue from happening again.

Google Safe Browsing / Web Trust Checks: Our monitoring systems check to ensure Google and others haven’t added your site to a blacklist or have designed the site as potentially malicious. These checks in Google Safe Browsing, Norton Safe Web, Sucuri Labs, SpamHaus DBL, Yandex, ESET and others. We implement our Emergency Security Incident Response plan to urgently find and fix the issue and implement any changes to help prevent the same issue from happening again should the site be blacklisted.

Website Change History Logging: We install and configure the Simple History plugin to record changes made in the WordPress admin center. This provides a record of changes made by each user and the date the change was made which can help in troubleshooting potential problems.

Premium Security Plugin with Website Application Firewall: All plans include the installation, configuration, monitoring, management, and maintenance of the security plugin. Enterprise plans also include a license for the premium version of WordFence, Sucuri, and Akismet anti-spam for additional protections.

PAGE LOAD SPEED

Basic Speed Optimization and Management: All plans include expert implementation configuration of various speed tools to ensure the site is loading as quickly as possible. We also monitor the performance of the site and manage any speed issues according to our Incident Response policy. Code-level fixes/optimizations are not included but are available at Provider’s hourly rate.

Content Delivery Network (CDN): A CDN serves your site from many servers across the country to help the site run faster for everyone while having less drain on your hosting server. All plans include setup and configuration of the free CloudFlare CDN. Enterprise plans include the premium Sucuri Pro CDN and enhanced security platform. Use of either CDN requires DNS changes to allow those systems to manage the DNS records going forward.

Google PageSpeed Performance Tests: There are many things that can affect the performance of your site. Our monitoring system runs tests every day or hour so we know if it starts running slow. We implement our Incident Response policy if your site speed drops significantly.

WP Rocket Premium Speed Plugin: Each plan includes a premium license for the WP Rocket plugin which adds caching, minimizing, and other tools to help sites run faster.

Image Optimization System: We install and configure a free image compression plugin, compress the existing media library. and set up the system to automatically compress images as they are added to the site going forward. We use a ‘lossless’ setting by default which should produce no loss of visual quality.

NitroPack Speed Plugin: Each plan includes installing and configuring the plugin to test results vs. WP Rocket. If it performs better, then the Personal, Business, and Enterprise plan includes respectively 25,000/mo pageviews and 15/GB CDN bandwidth, 50,000/mo pageviews and 25/GB CDN bandwidth, and 100,000/mo pageviews and 50/GB CDN bandwidth. Additional capacity of 25k views / 15GB CDN can be purchased for $25/mo.

WEBSITE, NETWORK, AND DOMAIN MONITORING

Uptime Monitoring and Alerts: All plans include setup and monitoring of several uptime alert systems. Upon notification of a site being down, we alert you to the issue and urgently attempt to fix the problem per our Incident Response policy.

Site Health Monthly Checks: A team member manually checks your WordPress Site Health tool to ensure now warnings exist. We implement our Incident Response policy should there be a warning listed there.

Google Analytics Integration: All plans include us implementing the Google Analytics tracking code into the website via a plugin such as MonsterInsights or adding the code via Theme settings or files. We don’t provide any further support for using Analytics as that role is best left to a specialist in that field.

Broken Link Checker: All plans include a link monitoring system that checks your website for broken internal or external links. These daily checks are performed separately from your website to prevent server overload. We’ll report to you when any broken links are found as they can be fixed.

Domain Name Expiration Monitoring: This monitoring and alert system helps to ensure your domain name doesn’t accidentally expire and cause downtime or even the loss of your domain. We’ll notify you upon a domain name approaching expiration so it can be renewed. This monitoring is included in our Business and Enterprise plans.

SSL Certificate Expiration Monitoring: This monitoring and alert system helps to ensure your SSL Certificate doesn’t accidentally expire and cause downtime. We’ll notify you upon a certificate approaching expiration so it can be renewed. This monitoring is included in our Business and Enterprise plans.

Nameservers Change Detection: Accidental or malicious changes to your sites nameservers can cause site outage. This monitoring system alerts us any time there are changes to the nameservers and we can then verify the change was intentional and everything continues to work properly. This monitoring is included in our Business and Enterprise plans.

Downtime Network Diagnostics: This monitoring system records additional information during an outage such as exact errors encountered, ping and MTR samples. This additional information can be useful in troubleshooting the outage and is included with Business and Enterprise plans.

WEBSITE HOSTING

Hosting is included but optional. Each site includes it’s own Cloudways+DigitalOcean cloud-based server (no shared servers) depending on the level of plan. The Personal plan includes a 1GB RAM/1 CPU/25GB Disk/1TB Bandwidth server, Business plans get a 2GB RAM/1 CPU/50GB Disk/2TB Bandwidth RAM, and Enterprise a 4GB RAM/2 CPU/80GB Disk/4TB Bandwidth RAM server.

BACKUPS AND SAFEKEEPING

BlogVault Backup and Restore System: All plans include a subscription, configuration and management of the BlogVault system. This system is an extra backup system to be extra safe and includes tools to quickly restore or migrate your site. Enterprise plans include Real-Time backups which capture every change instead of a daily backup of all changes. 90 days of backups are kept for Personal and Business plans. 365 days are retained for Enterprise plans for additional protection.

Manual Test Restore from Backups: We periodically do a “test restore” of your website from a backup. This helps to ensure your backup system continues to work properly and that the site can be restored if ever needed. This check is performed annually for Personal plans, semi-annually for Business plans, and Quarterly for Enterprise plans.

Manual Backup System Checks: Each month, we manually check the backup system to ensure it’s still connected to your site and capturing backups properly.

Annual Site Archival / Safekeeping: We store a copy of a backup on our Dropbox account every year as a further precaution from any complete site loss. We share this file with you and recommend you also save a copy.

Migrate / Restore Site from Backup: All plans include us migrating your site as needed or restoring it from a backup.

PRICE OF SERVICES PROVIDED

The Client agrees to pay the Provider a recurring fee relative to their plan for ongoing services as outlined in this agreement. Payments for services are prepaid and can be paid annually via check or monthly via automated, recurring payments set up via credit/debit card. No credit card information is ever stored by the Provider.

Personal – $99.95/monthly or $1,099.45/annually
Business – $199.95/monthly or $2,199.45/annually
Enterprise – $299.95/monthly or $3,299.45/annually

The client must approve in advance of work performed any increase in fees proposed or requested by the Provider. The additional development time for tasks not covered by this agreement will be billed at a rate of $65/hour, billed monthly, due in 30 days.

Ala Carte packages are available for the price listed on our website. These terms and conditions apply to those packages as well.

ACCOUNT ACCESS

The Client agrees to provide Provider full access to any systems necessary for Provider to fulfill the terms of this agreement and expressly consents to changes to those systems, including DNS settings, as necessary for providing the services described herein.

INDEMNIFICATION

Client agrees to defend, indemnify, save and hold Provider harmless from any and all demands, liabilities, losses, costs, and claims, including reasonable attorney’s fees, arising out of or resulting from any representations made by Client on the Website or from any services provided by Client. Provider agrees to defend, indemnify, save and hold Client harmless from any and all demands, liabilities, losses, costs, and claims, including reasonable attorney’s fees, arising out of or resulting from any failure of Provider to comply with or maintain any software license(s) necessary to provide the services described in this Agreement.

LIMITATION OF LIABILITY

The provider does not guarantee that the Website will meet the Client requirements, or that the operation of the website will be uninterrupted or error-free. In no event will Provider be liable to the Client or any third party for any damages, including any lost profits, or other incidental, consequential or special damages arising out of the operation of or inability to operate the Website. The client expressly understands and agrees that any claim against the Provider shall be limited to the fees Client has paid or are due to Provider under the terms of this Agreement. To the extent permitted by law, Provider will not be liable for any direct, indirect, incidental, consequential or exemplary loss or damages which Client may incur as a result of using Provider’s services, or as a result of any changes, data loss or corruption, cancellation, loss of access, or downtime.

SOLE AGREEMENT

This Agreement constitutes the sole agreement between Provider and Client. Any additional work not specified in this Agreement must be authorized by a written change order. All prices specified in this Agreement will be honored for the Term of the Agreement as defined below. Continued services after the Term of the Agreement may require a new agreement.

TERM

Unless terminated earlier as herein provided, the initial term of this Agreement shall commence on the Effective Date and renew automatically unless either party notifies the other in writing at any time that this Agreement shall not be renewed, this Agreement shall be automatically renewed for successive terms. The Initial Term and all subsequent terms shall be referred to herein, collectively, as the “Term.” Each party shall have the right to terminate this Agreement at any time for any reason whatsoever. No refunds are provided should the agreement be terminated.

JURISDICTION

This Agreement shall be governed and construed in accordance with the laws of the State of Ohio. The parties agree that if any part, term, or provision of this Agreement shall be found illegal or in conflict with any valid controlling law, the validity of the remaining provisions shall not be affected thereby.

ASSIGNMENT OF WORK

The Provider reserves the right to assign subcontractors to ensure timely completion of tasks. Any such assignment by Provider shall not alter the terms and conditions of this Agreement. Provider shall be solely responsible for all fees, costs, and expenses associated with the use of any subcontractors, and in no event shall the monthly fee agreed to by Client herein be altered by Provider’s retention or use of subcontractors.

DISPUTES

If a dispute arises under this agreement, Provider and Client agree to first try to resolve the same with the help of a mutually agreed-upon mediator located in Hamilton County, Ohio. Any costs and fees, other than attorney’s fees, associated with mediation will be shared equally. If the parties are unable to agree upon a mediator, or if a mutually satisfactory solution cannot be achieved, Provider and Client agree to submit the dispute to binding arbitration in Hamilton County, Ohio under the rules of the American Arbitration Association. Judgment upon the award rendered by the arbitration may be entered in any court with jurisdiction to do so.

DISCLAIMER

UNLESS OTHERWISE EXPRESSED, PROVIDER EXPRESSLY DISCLAIMS ALL WARRANTIES AND CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, WHETHER EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES AND CONDITIONS OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.

MISCELLANEOUS

Provider shall not assign this Agreement voluntarily or involuntarily, by operation of law or otherwise, without Client’s prior written consent. This Agreement may be executed in counterparts, each of which shall be deemed an original, but all of which shall be deemed to constitute one and the same instrument. All captions and headings used herein are for convenience of reference only.

Provider agrees to use best efforts to comply with the terms and conditions of this Agreement and to perform all services described in this Agreement in a good and workmanlike manner.