Can you support a site you did not build?

Yes, after a review. We look at what the site runs on, how it is deployed, whether the access exists and whether the backups are real, and we say what has to be corrected before we take it on. Occasionally the honest answer is that a rebuild is cheaper than maintaining what is there, and we would rather say that early.

What happens if the site breaks at night?

If your operation needs an answer outside working hours, that is arranged as its own agreement, with the hours, the window and the cost written down, rather than implied by the word hosting. What is always true is that failures are logged, so the next working day starts with the fix rather than with somebody noticing.

Are we tied to you if you host the site?

No. Accounts, domain records and backups are held in your name and documented, and if you move to another provider we prepare the transfer rather than delaying it. Losing a client is a business outcome; holding their website hostage is not a method we are willing to use.

Software development

Hosting and ongoing support

A website is not a one-off purchase. It needs updating, backing up and watching, and somebody has to make the small changes a business needs between rebuilds. This is the part of a project that usually goes unspecified, so we specify it before the work starts.

Organisations whose site was built by somebody who has since moved on, teams with nobody to make small changes, and businesses that would rather have an arrangement in writing than an informal understanding.

How we work through hosting and ongoing support

What is watched, and what you are told

Certificates, software versions, available space, backups and whether enquiry forms are still delivering are all things that fail quietly, and usually at a weekend. Each is checked on a schedule you know about, renewals are tracked before they lapse, and the work that was done is reported rather than left to be assumed.

Updates applied on a schedule you can see
Backups taken, and a restore actually tested
Certificates and domain renewals watched before they lapse
Form and email delivery checked, because an enquiry that never arrives looks like nobody was interested

The response window is agreed in writing

We do not advertise a response time we cannot hold for every client at every hour of the day. The window that applies to your site is written into the arrangement before the work starts, along with what counts as urgent, how a request is made, who confirms it, and what happens outside working hours.

The response window stated in writing, not implied by a marketing line
What counts as urgent, agreed in advance
How a request is made and who confirms it arrived
Out-of-hours cover only where it has actually been arranged

A fix is not the same thing as new work

Most disagreements about support come from that boundary moving without either side noticing, so it is settled at the start. Maintenance — updates, renewals, restores, corrections — sits inside the arrangement; new pages and new features are quoted as their own piece of work before anybody starts on them.

Maintenance and new work separated before the work begins
A written log of what was changed, and when
A short note at the agreed interval, in plain language

Set up so it can be left

Access to hosting, domain records, certificates and backups is documented and held in your name, which makes changing supplier an orderly task rather than an emergency. We would rather you stayed for the work than because your accounts were somewhere you could not reach them.

Accounts and domain records in your name, with access recorded
A handover document listing every account and renewal date
An orderly transfer if you decide to move

What you receive

Hosting arranged, with access held in your name
Software updates applied on an agreed schedule
Backups taken, with restores tested
Certificate and domain renewals watched
Small changes handled inside the agreed response window
A written log of the work, and a handover document

Questions we are often asked

Can you support a site you did not build?
Yes, after a review. We look at what the site runs on, how it is deployed, whether the access exists and whether the backups are real, and we say what has to be corrected before we take it on. Occasionally the honest answer is that a rebuild is cheaper than maintaining what is there, and we would rather say that early.
What happens if the site breaks at night?
If your operation needs an answer outside working hours, that is arranged as its own agreement, with the hours, the window and the cost written down, rather than implied by the word hosting. What is always true is that failures are logged, so the next working day starts with the fix rather than with somebody noticing.
Are we tied to you if you host the site?
No. Accounts, domain records and backups are held in your name and documented, and if you move to another provider we prepare the transfer rather than delaying it. Losing a client is a business outcome; holding their website hostage is not a method we are willing to use.

One studio

What this connects to.

The other service lines this one meets on a real project, and what the two of them share.

Website development
Support only works if the build is understood, so the team that built the site is the team that looks after it.
Security hardening
Applying updates and reviewing configuration is where most known weaknesses are closed, and it happens here rather than in a separate project.
Cyber security
When something does go wrong, the log of what changed and when is what turns an incident into a question with an answer.

Next step

Talk to us about hosting and ongoing support.

A short description of the project is enough to start. We will reply with how we would approach it, what it needs and what it would take.

Start a project shasaistudio@pm.me 0799 003 003