Most maintenance contracts are one line about updates and a monthly fee. What is missing only becomes clear when the site goes down. Here is what a usable contract has to settle.
Most contracts say maintenance happens but not how fast someone reacts when the site is down. Without that commitment the contract is worthless in an emergency, and the emergency is the only reason you signed it.
A daily backup is standard. The second question decides: how often is a restore rehearsed. A backup never restored is an assumption, not a backup.
A good contract lists what it does not cover. New features, text changes, an attack through a third party plugin. Anyone not writing that down argues about it later, exactly when it is urgent.
AUSFALL // 4 STUNDEN
For an unreachable site we respond within four hours on working days, for anything else within one working day. That sits in the contract, not in an email.
BACKUP // GEPRÜFT
A daily backup kept for thirty days, plus a restore onto a test environment twice a year. That last part is the one almost everyone leaves out.
NACHWEIS // MONATLICH
Once a month a single page with what was done: updates, outages, load times. So you see what you pay for, including in months when nothing happened.
A one hundred percent availability guarantee. Nobody can give one because no data centre gives one. Whoever promises it either has not read their own hosting contract or hopes you will not check.
A promise that the site will not be hacked. Maintenance reduces the risk considerably and does not remove it. What a contract can promise is a response in an emergency and a backup the site can be restored from.
And automatic renewal for twelve months with three months notice. For a service delivered monthly that is unusually long. Our contracts run monthly and can be cancelled at the end of any month.
The terms of our own maintenance contracts
Send us your current contract if you like. We will tell you what is missing, even if you then stay with your provider.
It depends on how many systems run and how fast we should react in an emergency. We state the monthly amount before the contract starts, it does not change mid year, and the contract can be cancelled at the end of any month.
Four things: a response time in hours, how often backups run and how long they are kept, a list of what is explicitly not covered, and the notice period. If one of the four is missing, the basis is missing in an emergency.
Safer, not secure. Maintenance reduces the risk considerably because most attacks use known holes in outdated components. Nobody can rule it out, and anyone promising otherwise should make you suspicious.
No, that is deliberately separate. Maintenance is technical safeguarding, content changes are support and run through their own hours package. That way you see what you pay for and can end one without losing the other.
Yes, gladly and without obligation. We tell you which of the four minimum points are missing and what that means in an emergency. Even if you then stay with your current provider, you know where you stand.