Two starting routes
A defined repair
Where the problem and the deliverable are already clear, the work can be quoted as a fixed scope. Consequently you know the number before anyone touches the site.
Diagnosis first
Where the cause is unknown, diagnosis is its own deliverable. You receive the written findings whether or not the repair turns out to be viable, so the money buys an answer rather than an attempt.
What changes a price
- How urgently the work must begin.
- Whether the problem can be reproduced away from production.
- The number of systems involved.
- Third-party access and vendor dependencies.
- The availability and quality of a usable rollback.
- Whether the request is repair work or a rebuild in disguise.
The last one moves a price more than anything else on the list. For example, a site that needs rebuilding will absorb an unlimited amount of repair effort and still be broken, which is why that verdict is given before the work starts rather than halfway through.
Why WordPress support pricing is not a list
Incident work is not a product with a shelf price. The same visible symptom can be a five-minute configuration fix or a multi-day recovery, and the difference is not knowable from the description.
Therefore publishing a headline figure would mean one of two things: a number so high it prices out simple work, or a number so low it has to be revised upward once the real scope appears. Neither is honest. Instead the number is agreed against a defined scope, in writing, before implementation.
Before implementation
Four things are confirmed in writing: the scope, the exclusions, the price, and the rule for handling change. If new facts change the job, work stops for a new decision rather than continuing quietly and presenting a larger invoice later.
In other words, surprises are allowed. Unannounced surprises are not.
If budget is the constraint
Not every problem justifies paid help, and saying so costs an enquiry occasionally. For a non-urgent question on a site that is still running, the WordPress.org support forums are a legitimate first stop and cost nothing.
Paid work earns its place when the site is down, money is moving, evidence needs preserving, or somebody has to be accountable for the outcome. Otherwise, free help is often enough.
Questions worth asking before you commit
What exactly am I buying? A defined repair and an open-ended investigation are different purchases, and they should be quoted differently.
What happens if it turns out to be unfixable? You should know the answer before the work starts, not after.
Who decides that scope has changed? If the answer is “the provider, silently”, that is the risk.
Ongoing care is priced differently
Preventive work is predictable by design, so it is scoped as a recurring arrangement rather than an incident. What it covers, and what it deliberately does not, is set out under maintenance plans.
Before making contact, read the service scope to check the work is something DuePress takes on, and how the work runs to see where authorisation sits in the sequence. For a live fault, start at WordPress support.