This Hosting Contract sits alongside the proposal you accepted and covers my managed hosting for you. If anything in the proposal and this document seem to clash, I will ask before I act so we can agree, in writing, what we are actually doing.
What I manage
Managed hosting means I take responsibility for keeping the hosting and WordPress stack I am managing online, patched, backed up, and watched for trouble, on an ongoing retainer. Most work happens in a weekly maintenance window for updates and tuning, with monitoring and incident response running all the time.
Your proposal lists what is included. It covers, at a minimum, the deliverables below.
* VPS provisioning and lock-down * WordPress updates and security * Uptime monitoring * Incident response and cleanup * Backups and restore management * Site migrations and cutover
Response and coverage
Monitoring alerts come to me first. When an alert hits, I check whether it is a real outage or a false alarm, then I start recovery. My typical response time is 30 minutes. After I have confirmed what is happening and what I am doing about it, I will message you with a short status update.
I sort issues into two buckets: urgent incidents (down, hacked, payment flow broken) and planned maintenance (updates, hardening, performance). Urgent incidents jump the line. If I miss a level you are counting on, I will tell you why, what I did to stabilise things, and what I am changing so it does not repeat.
Payment
Managed hosting is a retainer billed monthly. I invoice at the start of each month, and each invoice is payable within 7 days of its date.
If your proposal includes setup work, it is billed 30% to start and the other 70% when setup and cutover are complete. I do not schedule provisioning or a migration cutover until the start payment is in, because that work blocks out focused time and usually touches live DNS and SSL. If you ask for work that sits outside managed hosting, I will quote it separately before I start.
Price reviews
I review your retainer price at least once a year, or sooner if your site changes in a way that materially changes the workload. Common triggers are traffic growth that needs a bigger server, a switch in ecommerce or booking plugins that increases update risk, or a change in how email and DNS are set up.
If a new price is needed, I will give you written notice before it applies, and I will tell you what changed and what I am covering at the new level. The notice period is something I will agree with you in writing.
Access I need
To do managed hosting properly, I need working admin access to the systems that control your site. That usually includes your hosting account or VPS, DNS provider, domain registrar, WordPress admin, and any place that terminates email so I can avoid breaking it during a cutover.
You will send access by a secure method. I will not paste passwords, recovery codes, or entry details into this agreement, online forms, or email threads. If access is missing or wrong, I may have to pause work, because guessing on live infrastructure is how outages happen.
What I need from you
You will name one person who can approve changes and answer questions about the site and the business. If there are multiple decision makers, I am happy to listen, but I need one clear voice for approvals so an incident does not stall while people sync up.
You will tell me, ahead of time where you can, about changes that affect hosting and maintenance. Examples include a new developer, new plugins, new payment or booking tools, marketing campaigns that may spike traffic, or moving email to a new provider. If I ask for a decision, content, or confirmation and it is time sensitive, delays can push work into the next maintenance window.
Insurance
I carry the business insurance that makes sense for the work I do: professional cover for the services I provide and general cover for my day to day operations.
You are responsible for insuring your own business risks, including your devices and accounts, your customer data responsibilities, and any business interruption exposure if your website being down has a direct impact on sales or bookings. If you have a specific insurance requirement for vendors, tell me before we start so I can confirm whether I can meet it.
When something goes wrong
If I cause a problem while working, I will tell you as soon as I see it, and I will write up what happened in plain language. For most hosting work, “damage” looks like downtime, a broken page or checkout, a misrouted DNS record, or a security hole that needs cleanup.
My first job is to stabilise the site and stop the bleeding. After that, I will propose the fix and the safest path to restore service. If putting it right involves paid third parties you control (like a plugin vendor, registrar, or email provider), you agree to cooperate quickly so I can complete the repair.
Not hiring me direct
You are hiring me because you want one accountable person watching your site. While this agreement is running, you will not try to hire me directly as an employee or contractor outside this retainer to do the same work for you.
This also applies for a period after the agreement ends. I will confirm that period in writing. The reason is simple: the retainer price reflects the time I have already invested in your setup, documentation, and hardening, and it protects my ability to serve existing clients without being pulled into side arrangements that leave someone else uncovered.
How the retainer renews
Managed hosting runs month to month. Each month renews automatically, and I invoice at the start of the month for that month’s coverage.
Either of us can end managed hosting with notice. Because the right notice depends on your setup and whether there is an active migration or a sensitive change in flight, I will confirm the notice period with you in writing before the first invoice is sent. Until the end date, I will keep monitoring and incident response running as normal, and I will keep work within the agreed scope unless you approve extra work separately.
Handback at the end
When managed hosting ends, I will return what you need to run without me: admin access, an inventory of the key services involved (hosting, DNS, domain, WordPress), and any notes that help the next person avoid breaking things. If you want it, I will provide a final backup before I remove my access.
After the end date, I will remove my keys and accounts from your systems and confirm in writing what I have removed. If you ask for help after the end date, I can quote it as extra work, but I do not keep monitoring or on call response running once the retainer ends.
Limits that match real life
I take care with changes, but hosting work touches systems that can fail in ways no one can fully control. I am not responsible for outages or losses caused by third parties you use, like registrars, DNS providers, email providers, payment processors, or upstream network issues, even if I am the one troubleshooting them with you.
I am also not responsible for problems caused by changes made by others without telling me, including new plugins, theme edits, code deployments, or access shared to additional people. If something breaks because the site itself is being changed, I can usually fix it, but that repair is extra work unless it is directly part of the stack I am managing.
Ending this agreement
Either of us can end this agreement by giving the notice we have agreed in writing. You will pay for work done up to the end date, including any setup milestones already completed, and any third party charges you approved.
If you end the agreement during setup or a migration, I will pause at a safe point, tell you what is complete, and hand over what I have built so far in a usable state. If I need to end the agreement because access is repeatedly withheld, invoices go unpaid, or I am asked to do something unsafe, I will still aim for a clean handover so your site is not left in a worse place.
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