Reading the small print: what managed actually covers
"Managed" is a sales word, not a defined service level. Two providers can both use it honestly while one means the operating system gets patched and nothing else, and the other means somebody will debug your theme at midnight. Most disputes are not broken promises. They are two parties holding different pictures of one word, discovered on the worst possible day. The fix takes a single pre-sales ticket: turn every boundary into a question, ask before you pay, and keep the reply.
Six boundaries to pin down in writing
| What buyers tend to assume | The question to ask instead |
|---|---|
| Patching is handled, all of it. | Which layers do you patch and which do I patch? Name them: kernel, control panel, web server, PHP or other runtime, database engine, and the application itself. The split usually falls between the stack and the software running on it, which is exactly where nobody looks until an old plugin is exploited. |
| If the site gets hacked, they clean it up. | If my site is compromised, what do you do, what am I expected to do, and when does the account get suspended? Is malware removal included, chargeable, or not offered at all? Ask what triggers suspension, because a defaced site on a shared range often gets isolated first and explained afterwards. |
| Backups exist, therefore recovery is covered. | Do you take backups, how many days back do they reach, and will you carry out the restore for me? A restore performed by staff, a restore you run yourself from a panel, and a copy that exists but is your problem to use are three different products. Ask which one this is. |
| Support covers problems with the site. | What counts as in-scope support and what becomes billable work? Ask for two concrete examples of each on this plan. Vagueness here is the commonest source of an unexpected invoice. |
| Anything running on the server is theirs to fix. | If the fault sits in software I installed, a plugin, a cron job, a package I compiled, do you diagnose it, tell me it is mine and stop, or fix it at an hourly rate? Ask the same about configuration you changed yourself. |
| Monitoring means somebody reacts. | What is monitored, who receives the alert, and does anyone act at 03:00 without me opening a ticket? Monitoring that only feeds a status page is reporting, not response. |
Backups and restores are separate purchases
Treat these as two lines on the order even when they are sold as one. A backup tells you a copy was taken. It tells you nothing about who may use it, how quickly, or whether a single database can be rolled back without reverting the whole account. Ask for the retention window in days, whether copies leave the machine they protect, and who performs the restore. If the answer to the last one is you, what you bought is storage, and your recovery time is however long it takes you to notice.
Where the responsibility line moves
One further question matters because the answer changes with the product, not the provider: does the boundary shift if I move up a tier? On a panel-based plan the provider usually owns the whole stack below your files. Take root on a VPS or a dedicated machine and much of that ownership transfers to you, sometimes silently. Ask what you become responsible for the moment root is handed over, and what happens to support scope if you change something the provider would not have chosen.
Getting the answer on the record
- Ask on a ticket, not in chat. A ticket is retrievable months later; a chat window rarely is.
- Ask which clause in the terms backs each answer. If none does, the answer is goodwill: real, but not enforceable.
- Prefer a stated exclusion to a warm generality. A provider who says plainly that application security is yours is easier to work with than one who says everything is covered.
- Re-ask at renewal, because scope changes quietly when plans are restructured.
Run the list past every provider you shortlist, including us. Put the six questions on a ticket and judge the replies against the assumptions above.
Still not sure which way to go?
Tell us what you are building. If it needs less than you think, we will say so.