Website support: what’s included?

If dot create built your website and it remains hosted with us, or you have an active website maintenance plan, ongoing support is included.

✓ What’s included

✓ Your hosting and website care plan covers services such as us reviewing and installing software updates, monitoring, backups, security protection and high-performance hosting.

✓ Questions about how to use WordPress, edit pages, and use the website features we have provided.

✓ Help identifying unexpected website behaviour.

✓ Bug fixes where functionality built by us is no longer working as intended.

If dot create builds your website, but you choose to host and maintain the website elsewhere, free support is included for the first 30 days after launch.

This period is intended to help you get started and become familiar with your new website. After the first 30 days, support is chargeable.

You and your chosen WordPress hosting provider will then be responsible for the ongoing maintenance and protection of the website. This includes keeping the software (WordPress, the theme and plugins) up-to-date with security patches, taking routine backups, maintaining appropriate security measures, and taking any other precautions needed to keep the website running safely and reliably.

If you’re ever unsure about website maintenance, security, or your hosting, you’re of course always welcome to ask dot create for further advice.

If your website was originally built by another developer and is transferred to dot create hosting, we’ll still support you with the day-to-day use of WordPress and the hosting service we provide.

Because we didn’t build the original website, there are some sensible limits around what we can include as free support.

✓ What we can help with

We can help with general WordPress questions, hosting-related queries, and, where practical, offer guidance to help identify where an issue may be coming from and what the next step should be.

× What isn’t included

We can’t take responsibility for the way the original website was built, including its theme, plugins, custom code or previous development work.

If something within that existing setup needs investigation, repair or development work, this will usually be chargeable.

Some parts of your WordPress website may rely on third-party software (called “plugins”) supplied by other companies. These products are maintained and supported by their own developers.

If you choose, purchase or install a plugin yourself, free support for that plugin is not included from us. In most cases, support is available directly from the plugin makers, who often provide help guides, documentation or their own support channels.

We’re still happy to help where we can, but if you would like us to investigate the issue, or liaise with the plugin makers, or develop a fix, that work will normally be chargeable.

Your website may also interact with external services, tools and platforms. These can include search engines, Google Search Console, analytics services, SEO audit tools, and social media platforms. These services sit outside the website itself.

We’re happy to offer general guidance where we can, but reviewing notifications or reports, investigating search engine issues, or looking into other external services and tools is not normally included within free website support.

Regular website backups are included with our hosting, with the frequency and retention depending on your hosting and website care plan.

If we identify that your website is not working correctly following maintenance or a software update carried out by dot create, we will restore the website from a suitable backup as part of our inclusive support, at no additional charge.

If you ask us to restore a backup for another reason, this will normally be chargeable. For example, this may include recovering content that has been changed or deleted, or rolling the website back following changes you have made yourself.

For e-commerce websites, general questions about using WordPress and the basic workings of WooCommerce are covered by our free support.

However, investigating individual end-customer issues (e.g. ordering or payment issues) is outside the scope of free support and is chargeable.

Our free support is primarily a Q&A and guidance service covering the core WordPress software, editing help, and features and functionality set up by dot create.

If you ask us to carry out work on your website, rather than explain how to do something that is available for you to edit, that work is normally chargeable.

Please note that not every part of a website is necessarily editable through the dashboard. Some elements may be fixed as part of the website design or require coding or other development work to change. In these cases, the change would normally be treated as a chargeable task.

Should you wish only to have free support, please make this clear when making a request to us.

Free Q&A support is provided on a fair-use basis and is intended for straightforward questions and guidance, rather than teaching you how to become a website expert.

As a guide, we consider around 30 minutes of Q&A support in a calendar month to be reasonable for websites on our Personal and Small Business plans, and 60 minutes per month for Business and Enterprise plans.

We are not strict about these limits, but complex or unusually time-consuming requests may become chargeable. Free support does not include teaching coding or teaching advanced technical skills, where it would be more appropriate for dot create to carry out the work for you.

If a request goes beyond something we can easily explain or guide you through, we’ll let you know. We also offer training at our standard rates, which may be more appropriate for more advanced or in-depth support.

Support is provided to the named account holder or agreed contacts for your business or organisation.

We cannot extend free support directly to your wider team, contractors, customers or other end users, unless this has been agreed separately.