IT maintenance and the services around it
IT and website maintenance are separate orders from hosting. Website maintenance looks after the site. IT and server management looks after the office and the servers on the plan. SFTP backup and hardware firewalls sit beside them. Shared hosting does not include maintenance. A Plesk login does not include help-desk hours. The long article is IT and website maintenance. This page is the map of what you can buy.
Website maintenance
Basic is 3 hours a month, monthly core and plugin updates, daily backups kept 7 days, basic security monitoring, email and phone, a 48-hour response, Google Merchant Center and Search Console monitoring, staging and CDN configuration. Standard is 5 hours, updates every two weeks, daily backups kept 14 days, advanced security monitoring, email, phone and WhatsApp, a 24-hour response, weekly performance monitoring and internal uptime monitoring, plus staging and CDN. Enterprise is 8 hours, weekly updates, daily backups kept 30 days, premium security monitoring, priority email, phone and WhatsApp, a 12-hour response, daily performance monitoring, dedicated 24/7 uptime monitoring, emergency support, staging and CDN.
Critical security patches are applied when they are available, on every plan. Systems include WordPress, Drupal, Joomla, Shopify, Magento, WooCommerce and custom sites where the stack allows. Core updates are tested on staging. Changes are requested through the portal, email or phone. Further work past the included hours is at the standard hourly rate. Upgrades start immediately. Downgrades start at the end of the billing cycle. Month-to-month and annual billing exist, and the FAQ says you can cancel without a long-term contract.
Not included: a redesign, major features, new blog posts or product descriptions, custom plugins, SEO services, email setup, domain registration or transfer, hosting setup or migration, and a security audit. Search Console monitoring is monitoring. It is not a campaign. New catalogue text is new content. A sentence change can be a content edit inside the hours. Say which you need.
IT and server management
Micro is 4 hours a month, help desk, remote workstation support, business-hours coverage, basic Microsoft 365 and Google Workspace management, a 12-hour response, monthly security updates, automated monitoring, and email and phone. Small is up to 10 users, 8 hours, a 4-hour response and a basic SFTP backup solution. Standard is up to 25 users, 16 hours, extended hours, a 2-hour response, Microsoft 365 management, basic Linux management, a standard SFTP backup, monthly network security scans, chat, and a quarterly IT review. Enterprise is 25 or more users, 24 hours, priority help desk, extended hours, a 1-hour response, an enterprise SFTP backup, monthly scans, priority email, phone and chat, a monthly IT strategy meeting and a dedicated account manager.
Microsoft 365 work on the FAQ includes users, licences, security settings, Exchange Online, SharePoint, Teams, OneDrive and multi-factor authentication. Google Workspace work includes users, Gmail, Drive, Meet, Calendar, authentication and mobile devices. Linux support names Ubuntu Server, CentOS and Rocky Linux, Red Hat Enterprise Linux, Debian, SUSE and Amazon Linux: patches, users, services, backups and faults. Remote support is phone, email and remote access for laptops, software, VPN, printing and collaboration tools. It is not a site visit, and it is not co-location remote hands.
Backup and firewalls
Standalone SFTP backup is Basic at 50 GB SSD with 24/7 email support and SSH keys, Standard at 250 GB with 24/7 email and chat and one sFTP Client Cloud licence, and Enterprise at 600 GB with priority support, a dedicated account manager, SSH keys and two sFTP Client Team licences. The IT plans mention a basic, standard or enterprise SFTP solution at Small and above. Read both checkouts before assuming the 600 GB plan is inside Micro. Micro does not list SFTP backup.
Hardware firewalls are a Cisco ASA plan and a Cisco Firepower plan, for a rack. Database hosting has its own firewall choice: none extra, the managed cluster firewall, or a dedicated self-managed Cisco appliance. Website maintenance has site-level firewall configuration. Three different firewalls. Order the one that sits in front of the thing you mean.
What to put on the first invoice
A small site and a few laptops: shared hosting, website Basic or Standard, and IT Micro or Small. Add email hosting or Microsoft 365, not both by accident. Add SFTP backup when the copy must leave the laptop. Add a database plan when MariaDB or PostgreSQL needs its own address. Add Kubernetes when the application is pods. Add a firewall when there is a rack.
Write down the response time you bought. Twelve hours on Micro and one hour on IT Enterprise are different products. Forty-eight hours on website Basic and twelve hours on website Enterprise are different products. The hours are a cap. A busy month does not enlarge them. Ask before work continues past the cap. The plan pages are where the price is confirmed. This page is where the split is written down so the right queue gets the ticket.
Hours, response, and who the plan is for
Match the IT plan to the headcount printed on it. Micro is the startup plan, 4 hours, business hours, 12-hour response. Small is up to 10 users, 8 hours, 4-hour response, and it is the first plan that lists a basic SFTP backup solution. Standard is up to 25 users, 16 hours, extended hours, 2-hour response, monthly network scans, chat, and a quarterly review. Enterprise is 25 users and above, 24 hours, 1-hour response, priority help desk, monthly strategy and a dedicated account manager. A company of 12 people on Micro has bought the wrong cap. A company of 4 on Enterprise has bought a response time and a meeting cadence it may not need. The hours do not roll into a busier month.
Match website maintenance to the update rhythm. Monthly core and plugin updates, 3 hours and a 48-hour response is Basic, with 7-day backups. Every two weeks, 5 hours and a 24-hour response is Standard, with 14-day backups. Weekly, 8 hours and a 12-hour response is Enterprise, with 30-day backups, daily performance checks and 24/7 uptime monitoring. Critical patches are applied when they exist, on all three. Staging is on all three. CDN configuration is on all three. Merchant Center and Search Console monitoring are on all three, and they remain monitoring.
Work that belongs in the hours
Website hours cover core and plugin updates after a staging test, removal of unused plugins, security scanning and site firewall and login hardening, performance checks, content edits that are not new articles or new product copy, backups and restores, and browser checks. IT hours cover the help desk, remote workstation faults, Microsoft 365 or Google Workspace administration as the FAQ lists it, and Linux on Ubuntu, Rocky and CentOS, Red Hat, Debian, SUSE or Amazon Linux when that server is in scope. VPN, printing and collaboration tools for people working away from the office are the remote-support list.
Work that does not belong is a redesign, a new integration, a new blog, email setup, a domain transfer, hosting migration, or a formal security audit, unless it is scoped separately or into an Enterprise arrangement that says so. A Plesk SEO Toolkit session is not that scope being waived. A Kubernetes manifest is not an IT hour unless you have asked the IT plan to spend time on a server, and even then the cluster itself stays with managed Kubernetes. Database backups stay with the database plan. Mailbox quotas stay with email hosting.
Backup, firewall, and the first ticket
If the IT plan lists SFTP backup, confirm at checkout whether that is the standalone Basic 50 GB, Standard 250 GB or Enterprise 600 GB product, or the line included on Small, Standard and Enterprise IT. SSH key authentication is on the standalone SFTP plans. Licences for the sFTP client apps are on Standard and Enterprise standalone, one and two respectively. Do not assume client licences on Micro.
If you need a device, the firewall page is Cisco ASA or Cisco Firepower. If you need the database locked down, use the database option. If you need the website's login and application firewall, that is the maintenance description. Opening one ticket that says "firewall" without saying which of those three will bounce between queues. Say the site, the database, or the rack.
The first ticket is easier when the plan is already the right size. Name the user or the URL, say whether the fault is a laptop, a mailbox, a content system or a server, and say what changed. Business-hours coverage on Micro and Small is not extended hours. Extended hours start on the larger IT plans. WhatsApp is on website Standard and Enterprise, not on Basic. Email and phone exist across them. Use the channel the plan lists, and expect the response time printed on it, not the response time of a plan you did not buy.
A year of the plans, without mixing the queues
Month one is the inventory. List the sites and the content system, the users and the laptops, and where mail actually lives. Put the site on Basic, Standard or Enterprise maintenance so the update rhythm matches how often you can tolerate a staging test. Put the office on Micro, Small, Standard or Enterprise IT so the hours and the response match the headcount. Note SFTP backup if the IT plan includes it or if you bought 50, 250 or 600 GB on its own. Note a firewall only if a rack or a database option needs one.
The middle of the year is the cap. Website hours get used by updates, small edits and the occasional restore. IT hours get used by joiners, leavers, a lost laptop and the Microsoft 365 or Google Workspace changes on the FAQ list. If the cap is hit in the first week of every month, the plan is too small. Upgrade. Upgrades on website maintenance start immediately. Downgrades wait until the end of the billing cycle. IT hours do not become website hours, and website hours do not become a mailbox migration. Email setup is outside website maintenance. A domain transfer is outside it. A redesign is outside it. Say so at the start of the ticket and the work can be priced as itself.
Linux on the IT plan is Ubuntu, Rocky or CentOS, Red Hat, Debian, SUSE or Amazon Linux, when we have been asked to look after that server. It is not a silent takeover of a self-managed VPS, and it is not the Kubernetes cluster, which we already keep as part of managed Kubernetes. Database backups stay on the database plan: 7 days daily unless you bought longer, or hourly for 28 days on Enterprise. Website backups are the 7, 14 or 30 days on the maintenance plan. SFTP backup is the third copy, on its own sizes. Three copies can exist. They are not one copy with three names.
The ticket that gets a useful answer names the plan, the URL or the user, and what changed. The response you should expect is the one printed: 48, 24 or 12 hours on the website plans, 12, 4, 2 or 1 hour on the IT plans. Extended hours and chat are on the larger IT plans. WhatsApp is on website Standard and Enterprise. Business hours are what Micro and Small IT say they are. Order from the plan pages when the size is known. Use the article when someone needs the exclusions in a single narrative. Use this page when the question is which Broadbent Host service does the looking-after, and which services are deliberately something else.
What to have ready before the first hour is spent
Have a list of sites, who may request an edit, and which content system each site uses. Have a list of users, whether mail is a Broadbent mailbox, Microsoft 365 or Google Workspace, and which laptops are in scope. Have the response time you think you bought, and check it against the plan: website Basic is 48 hours, Standard is 24, Enterprise is 12; IT Micro is 12 hours, Small is 4, Standard is 2, Enterprise is 1. Hours included are 3, 5 and 8 on the website plans and 4, 8, 16 and 24 on the IT plans. If those numbers are a surprise, change the plan before the first urgent ticket, not during it. The work inside the hours can then start on a staging test, a joiner, or a patch, instead of on an argument about what the invoice was for.