Brochure / lead-generation site
A local service business or professional site mainly needs the basics done reliably: managed hosting, tested updates, off-site backups, malware monitoring, uptime checks, and — crucially — confirmation that lead forms actually deliver. The main risk here is lost enquiries and trust, not lost orders, so the plan can be lighter. The one thing not to skimp on is form delivery, since a silently broken contact form loses leads with no error.
WooCommerce store
A store needs everything the brochure plan has, plus a layer that protects revenue: checkout testing, payment-gateway and webhook review, order-email checks, more careful staged updates, and faster incident response when sales are blocked. This is a different cost and intensity of plan — see WooCommerce maintenance. A store on a brochure-grade plan is the classic underbuy.
Membership or booking site
Membership and booking sites live or die by access, not just uptime. The plan should cover login and password-reset reliability, renewal and subscription checks, calendar or booking-confirmation testing, the customer emails that carry them, and backup rules that protect constantly-changing user data. A member who cannot log in, or a booking that did not confirm, is the equivalent of a down checkout.
Agency portfolio
An agency managing many client sites needs consistency and clear ownership across the portfolio, plus a defined line between covered tasks and project work. The care model often becomes a productised plan applied across sites, sometimes white-labelled — see agency care-plan pricing.
Care plan by site type
Each site type has a different key path and a different cost of failure. Match the plan to that.
| Site type | Key path to protect | Plan emphasis |
|---|---|---|
| Brochure / lead-gen | Contact and lead forms. | Reliable basics + form-delivery checks. |
| WooCommerce store | Checkout, payments, orders, emails. | Store-aware care + fast incident response. |
| Membership | Login, renewals, gated content. | Access + renewal checks + frequent backups. |
| Booking site | Calendar, confirmations, payments. | Booking-path testing + email reliability. |
| Agency portfolio | Consistency across many sites. | Productised plan + clear covered-task scope. |
Which example fits you?
Find your site type, then size the plan to the cost of its key path failing.
Keep it light if you run a brochure or lead-gen site
Reliable basics plus form-delivery checks are usually enough. Don’t pay for store-grade incident response a static site will never use — but do protect the forms.
Go store-grade if you take payments
A store needs checkout, payment, and order-email coverage plus faster response. The premium over a basic plan is small next to a day of blocked sales.
Prioritise access if customers log in or book
Membership and booking sites should treat a failed login or unconfirmed booking as urgently as a store treats a down checkout. Make sure the plan names those paths.
Matching mistakes
- Putting a revenue store on a brochure-grade plan, leaving checkout and payments unprotected.
- Overbuying complex support for a simple static site.
- Forgetting form delivery on a lead-gen site, where a broken form silently loses enquiries.
- Ignoring login and renewal paths on membership and booking sites.
- Treating every site in an agency portfolio identically regardless of risk.
How we size a plan to a site
In our experience, the right care plan starts with one question: what is this site’s key path, and what does it cost when it fails? For a brochure site that’s a lost lead; for a store it’s a lost order; for a membership site it’s a locked-out customer. We size the plan — and the response time — to that, which is why a one-size plan almost always means someone is overpaying or under-protected. Use what a care plan costs to translate the right depth into a budget.
- Identify the site’s key revenue or trust path first.
- Size protection and response time to the cost of that path failing.
- Don’t put a store on a brochure plan, or a brochure site on a store plan.
- For agencies, productise but still tier by client-site risk.
Frequently asked questions.
Do all WordPress sites need the same care plan?
No. The right plan depends on revenue, customer activity, site complexity, and how fast problems must be fixed. A brochure site, a store, and a membership site each have a different key path to protect and a different cost of failure.
What is the safest starter care plan?
A solid starter covers managed hosting, tested updates, off-site backups, security and uptime monitoring, malware response, and a clear path to human support. For a lead-gen site, add form-delivery checks; for a store, you need the store-aware layer on top.
How do I know if I’ve overbought or underbought?
Compare the plan to your site’s key path. If you run a store on a plan that never mentions checkout, you’ve underbought. If you run a static brochure site on a store-grade plan with rapid incident response you’ll never use, you’ve overbought.
What does a membership site need that a brochure site doesn’t?
Access protection: reliable logins and password resets, renewal and subscription checks, the emails that carry them, and more frequent backups for constantly-changing user data. A locked-out member is as serious as a down checkout.
Research sources.
This guide was checked against current platform and search documentation before publication.