Backups are the safety net behind every other maintenance task — updates, migrations, and content changes are all far less risky when there's a recent, verified backup to fall back on.
Backup schedule
Hosting accounts include automated daily backups of your site's files and database, taken and stored independently of your live server so a problem on the live site doesn't affect the backup copy. Retention periods vary by plan — check your Services page in the client portal for the specifics of your package, or ask via a support ticket.
What's included in a backup
A full backup covers your site's files (themes, plugins, uploads, code) and its database (posts, pages, product data, form submissions, user accounts) together, since restoring one without the other typically doesn't produce a working site.
Requesting a restore
Submit a support ticket specifying what needs restoring and, if you know it, roughly when the site was last working correctly — this helps us pick the right backup point rather than restoring further back than necessary and losing more recent changes than needed. Restores are usually straightforward, but we'll always confirm with you before overwriting the current live version, in case there's recent work on the live site you want preserved separately first.
Backups vs. version control
Automated backups are a safety net for the whole site — not a substitute for proper version control if you have developers actively working on custom code. If that applies to you, talk to us about integrating your development workflow with a proper Git-based process alongside the standard backup schedule.
Testing that backups actually work
A backup you've never tried restoring is an assumption, not a guarantee. As part of ongoing maintenance on retainer plans, we periodically verify that backups are both being taken correctly and are actually restorable — not just present.