PoodleCollective

WordPress Care Plan Service Agreement

Implementation warning: Confirm this agreement against the final checkout, billing, cancellation, emergency charging and support process. Obtain appropriate legal review before publication.

1. Service overview

WordPress Care Plans provide ongoing maintenance, backups, monitoring and technical support. Additional support, WooCommerce, development, SEO-health and strategy features vary by plan and are defined on the Care Plans page.

2. Support hours

Standard support is provided Monday to Friday, 8:00am to 6:00pm UK time, excluding public holidays.

Requests received outside these hours are normally handled on the next working day unless the selected plan includes access to an out-of-hours emergency route and the request qualifies as an emergency.

3. Included services

Depending on the selected plan, services may include:

  • WordPress core, plugin and theme updates
  • Backups and restoration assistance
  • Uptime, security and performance monitoring
  • Malware scanning
  • Database optimisation
  • Technical troubleshooting
  • Website changes and development within the monthly allowance
  • WooCommerce support
  • Technical SEO checks
  • Performance, user-experience and conversion recommendations
  • Reports, consultations and audits

The package list on the Care Plans page defines the included features of each plan.

4. Monthly support and development allowance

  • Essential Maintenance includes 30 minutes of support.
  • Priority Support & Development includes up to 3 hours of changes per month.
  • Growth & SEO Support includes up to 5 hours of development per month.
  • Business-Critical Support includes up to 10 hours of development per month.

Time can include investigation, implementation, testing, communication, coordination and project clarification connected to the request.

Unused time does not roll over between months unless agreed in writing. Work beyond the allowance is discussed and approved before additional charges apply.

5. Priority and response

Priority is based on business impact, security risk and plan level.

  • Essential receives standard handling during support hours.
  • Priority receives priority support during support hours.
  • Growth receives the Priority Support Queue.
  • Business-Critical receives Same-Business-Day Priority Response during support hours.

A response target refers to acknowledgement and triage, not a guarantee of full resolution within that period. Resolution can depend on complexity, third-party services, access and the availability of clean backups.

6. Out-of-hours emergency access

Priority Support & Development and Growth & SEO Support include Out-of-Hours Emergency Access. Business-Critical includes Priority Out-of-Hours Emergency.

Out-of-hours access applies to genuine website outages, active security incidents or critical business functionality. It does not cover routine content, development or maintenance requests.

{{INSERT FINAL AVAILABILITY, CONTACT METHOD AND WHETHER EACH PLAN'S OUT-OF-HOURS WORK IS INCLUDED OR CHARGED AT EMERGENCY RATES}}

7. Updates and testing

Updates are handled according to the website's risk, plan and available environment. Priority and higher plans include a staging environment. Some urgent security updates may need to be applied promptly where delaying them would create greater risk.

PoodleCollective is not responsible for defects introduced by unsupported or abandoned third-party software, but will provide reasonable diagnosis and recommendations within the plan scope.

8. Backups and recovery

Daily Cloud Backups are included in all Care Plans. Backup success is monitored according to the service setup, but no backup system can be treated as infallible.

Restoration and Emergency Website Recovery are prioritised according to the plan and incident. Extensive recovery from third-party hosting failure, widespread compromise or corrupted external systems may require additional work.

9. Exclusions

The following are outside standard Care Plan scope unless explicitly agreed:

  • Full website redesigns
  • Large new features or standalone projects
  • Content writing, marketing campaigns or ongoing SEO campaigns
  • Third-party software, licence, hosting or usage fees
  • Work on unrelated non-WordPress systems
  • Routine out-of-hours changes
  • Work requiring specialist legal, compliance, penetration-testing or forensic certification

10. Client responsibilities

The client must provide suitable access, maintain active third-party licences, ensure lawful ownership of content, respond to approvals, and disclose important changes made by other suppliers.

The client must not share PoodleCollective access credentials with unauthorised users or deliberately disable monitoring and backup systems without discussion.

11. Billing and cancellation

Care Plans are billed monthly in advance.

Either party may end the recurring service with 30 days' written notice, subject to payment of fees already due and any separate project commitments.

{{CONFIRM WHETHER THE FIRST MONTH, ONBOARDING OR MINIMUM INITIAL PERIOD HAS ANY SPECIAL TERMS}}

12. Third-party dependency

WordPress websites rely on hosting, domains, plugins, themes, APIs, payment gateways and other services outside PoodleCollective's control. Reasonable efforts will be made to diagnose and coordinate incidents, but the service cannot guarantee the performance or continued availability of third-party systems.

13. Changes to the service

Material changes to the agreement or package delivery will be communicated before they affect an active client. Price changes should state the notice period and effective date.

14. Relationship with the general terms

The general Terms and Conditions also apply. Where a project-specific proposal or signed agreement conflicts with this page, the signed or specifically accepted document takes precedence.

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