Choosing the wrong website maintenance agency costs more than money. It costs time, trust, and in the worst cases, your search rankings and your customers’ data. This guide gives you ten questions — along with the answers you should expect from a provider you can trust. 

Before You Start: Know What You Actually Need

  • Your platform — WordPress, WooCommerce, Shopify, or custom-built? 
  • Your risk level — How dependent is your business on your website being live? 
  • Your involvement preference — Do you want to be fully hands-off, or stay involved in strategy? 

🔍 Abhay Khurana, Director at Logicsofts 

“Before I recommend any plan to a client, I do a business audit — not just a website audit. I want to understand how much revenue flows through the website, how many leads it generates, and what a day of downtime would actually cost. A business owner who says ‘I just need basic maintenance’ but whose website generates £20,000/month in enquiries doesn’t just need basic maintenance — they need SLA-backed cover with emergency response.” 

 

10 Questions to Ask Before Choosing a Website Maintenance Agency


1. What specifically is included — and what isn’t? 

Ask for a specific list of tasks completed each month. Good answers include weekly plugin and theme updates, daily backups, uptime monitoring, security scanning, performance checks, monthly reporting. Bad answers: ‘we keep your site running’ or ‘everything you need.’ 

2. What are your SLA response times, and are they contractually guaranteed? 

A critical incident (site down) should have a different SLA response time than a minor bug. Any provider worth trusting should publish these SLA response times and back them contractually — not just offer them verbally.

3. Do you offer out-of-hours emergency support? 

Websites go down at 10pm on a Friday. Ask explicitly whether emergency out-of-hours support is available, whether it’s included or costs extra, and what the process is for raising an emergency issue. 

4. Who will actually be maintaining my website? 

Is work done in-house or outsourced? Ask who your named contact will be. You should have a specific person — not just a generic support inbox — who is accountable for your account. 

5. Who controls my hosting, domain, and site files? 

The correct answer is you do. Your website should be hosted under your own account. Your domain should be registered in your name. Your WordPress admin, FTP, and database credentials should be yours. 

🔍 Abhay Khurana — The Real Cost of Lock-In 

“A solicitors firm came to us after trying to leave their previous agency. The agency owned the hosting account, the domain, and all the email hosting. When the solicitors tried to leave, the agency quoted £4,500 to transfer everything over. That’s not a maintenance fee — that’s a ransom. Our policy at Logicsofts: if you ever want to leave, we transfer everything within 30 days, no fees.” 

6. How will I know what you’ve done each month? 

Monthly reporting is the accountability mechanism that separates real maintenance from paying for promises. Ask to see a sample monthly report before you sign. 

7. What platforms do you support, and do you specialise in any? 

Not all agencies support all platforms equally. If your site is built on WooCommerce, you need a WooCommerce team that understands e-commerce-specific maintenance.

8. What’s your process when something goes wrong? 

Ask for a specific walkthrough of what happens when: (a) your site goes down, (b) a plugin update breaks your checkout, (c) your site is infected with malware. ‘We’ll sort it out’ is not a process. 

9. What are your contract terms and what happens if I cancel? 

Rolling monthly contracts are the standard for quality providers. If an agency requires a 6 or 12-month minimum commitment, ask why. Ask explicitly what happens if you cancel. 

10. Can I speak to a current client? 

A confident provider will facilitate this. A reluctant one is telling you something. If a direct reference isn’t available, ask for third-party review profiles — Google, Clutch, Trustpilot. 

What a Good Agency Contract Should Include 

  • Specific list of monthly tasks included 
  • Named SLA response times by priority level 
  • Explicit statement of website ownership (yours, always) 
  • Monthly reporting commitment (frequency and format) 
  • Clear cancellation terms (rolling monthly notice, asset transfer process) 
  • Intellectual property assignment (you own all content, code, and assets)