Service Description
WP Start is intended for hosting your WordPress website. It is suitable for the maintenance and development of a wide range of conventional websites. A suitable service plan for the maintenance and development of a low-traffic, smaller or well-optimized website, for example for simple presentation pages.
The WP Start plan may not be used for e-commerce purposes (such as WooCommerce), and installing a WordPress network (multisite) is not allowed. The plan must be upgraded if you want to use an e-commerce plugin or install a WordPress network. If needed, Seravo’s customer support will help you determining the right plan.
WP Start is not suitable for hosting poorly optimized sites with heavy traffic or sites featuring many integrations, as these generate more database queries, processor load and often have higher memory usage.
Service Content
The service is subject to Seravo’s Terms.
WP Start includes a production website environment with a database and a WordPress installation. Powerful caching (HTTP cache and Redis object cache) is also included in the plan. The SLA for site uptime and availability on a monthly basis is 99.9%. The current status and availability of the servers is available at status.seravo.com.
The plan also includes the registration and maintenance of one domain (the main domain of the site), its automatic renewal, HTTPS certificate and name servers (DNS). HTTPS is enabled by default, and the Let’s Encrypt certificate is activated when the domain is pointed to Seravo’s servers in the DNS. The price of the plan is the same even if the main domain of the site is managed elsewhere. Multiple domains can be routed at the name server (DNS) level for an additional fee. The additional fee will apply even if the additional domain is not transferred to Seravo.
Prior to launch, the site is hosted on a server in a temporary development address until the traffic for the domain is routed to Seravo in DNS.
The site environment provides a rich set of developer tools pre-installed. In addition, Seravo’s own tools and commands are available to facilitate your work.
The service plan includes updates to the WordPress core, plugins and themes, which are implemented using Seravo’s own update system. Seravo’s proprietary update system tests site updates in a separate shadow environment before deploying them in production, to ensure the updates do not break the site and cause problems with its functionalities.
All Seravo’s plans include automatic 30-day on-site backups. Backups are performed once a day, usually at night. The backups are freely available to customers, and the site can be restored at any time up to one month in the past. Automatic backups do not use up the disk space quota of the plan. A separate off-site backup is also available in the event of exceptional circumstances, such as server failure, and is included in the plan.
The WP Start plan includes 10 GB of disk space. Additional disk space is available at an additional cost, or the plan can be upgraded a bigger plan if needed.
Usage of the plan is monitored on a monthly basis by tracking HTTP request traffic, which includes all web traffic received by the site environment. If the HTTP request volume is exceeded, the service plan level may need upgrading. The WP Start service plan has a monthly HTTP request limit of 150 000 requests. However, temporary traffic spikes are allowed, and the number of requests is inspected on a monthly basis. The plan may be upgraded if necessary in the event of increasing web traffic.
The WP Start service plan includes 500 SMTP requests per month. Seravo uses SendGrid for emails sent by WordPress sites. You can also use another SMTP service if you wish.
All plans include 24/7 monitoring, in which site activity and availability is monitored around the clock. The service also includes Seravo’s Security Guarantee. The monitoring interval for WP Start is 15 minutes, and its SLA is the next business day.
WordPress experts can be reached via customer service, and are available on weekdays to respond to problems via e-mail, phone or chat at seravo.com. There are no additional charges for contacting customer support. During nights and weekends, Seravo’s 24/7 monitoring keeps the sites up and running. Customer service includes guidance on how to use the service, changes to the domain and DNS, or restoring a site from a backup, for example.
Extensive troubleshooting or site development, such changes to code, theme development or site content updates are not included in the plan. These services can be purchased from Seravo as an additional service, and are billed separately, by the hour. Extensive optimisation and debugging can be purchased as a special expert service. All expert services are agreed beforehand with the customer, on a case by case basis.
Additional Services
PHP upgrades are not included in the service plan. Seravo provides tools and instructions to update the PHP version on your site.
WP Start is not allowed to be used for e-commerce (WooCommerce, etc.) and is not allowed to have a WordPress network (multisite) installed, but should instead be upgraded to a bigger plan.
The service package includes the management of one domain (the primary domain of the site). Additional domains can be pointed to Seravo in DNS and added to the plan for an additional fee.
The service does not include a Content Distribution Network (CDN) solution. Seravo’s environment is inherently efficient and specifically optimised for WordPress, without the need for separate caching or optimisation plugins. In most cases, the site will be up and running faster by migrating to Seravo’s WP service.
The limits of the service plan are contractual and the site’s bandwidth or resources will not be throttled or blocked even if the plan’s limits are temporarily exceeded. The plan will need to be upgraded if the site’s traffic increases, and resource usage repeatedly exceeds the plan’s limits. Once a service plan has been set up, it is not possible to adjust limits such as HTTP or SMTP request volumes, but additional services (disk space, email, etc.) can be ordered.
SMTP requests for the service plan are for email traffic sent by the WordPress site. For separate mailboxes, a separate email service from the provider of your choice can be used. It is also possible to purchase an email service through Seravo or get advice and recommendations on purchasing email services.
The WP Start plan does not include a dedicated account manager, nor does the service include any debugging or development consultation. All support requests, especially urgent ones, should be directed to Seravo’s customer support, preferably by e-mail, to help@seravo.com.