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Dental · Maintenance 99.99% uptime SLA

The unsexy line on the invoice that protects every other line above it.

Hosting, security, performance, compliance, and content updates for the dental site you already paid to build. Cheap on purpose — because maintenance isn't where we make our margin, it's the foundation that protects the SEO, paid, and conversion work that does.

site health · monthly report
brightlinedental.com
monitored
92/100
Overall site grade · Apr 2026

Excellent — 4 items resolved this month

SSL renewed · WordPress 6.5 patched · 2 broken links fixed · PageSpeed +14 points

PageSpeed98
SSL valid412d
Uptime (30d)99.99%
Malware scanclean
Schema (LocalBusiness)1 warn
WCAG 2.1 AApass
monitored every 60 seconds last incident: 87 days ago
99.99%
Uptime SLA across all dental clients (TTM)
14min
Avg. response time to a site-down alert
300+
Dental sites under active maintenance
87d
Avg. days since last security incident
Who this is built for

Three reasons practices end up on a maintenance plan.

Most practices don't shop for maintenance — they shop for it the day after something breaks. Pick the shape that matches yours.

02 — INHERITED SITE

Site built by an agency that vanished

Your last agency built the site, took the keys, and stopped returning emails. WordPress is now 4 versions out of date, plugins haven't been touched in 2 years, and you're one zero-day away from a problem you can't even diagnose.

Typical fit
Manage
03 — JUST LAUNCHED

Brand-new site, zero ops backbone

You shipped a new site last quarter and now nobody's watching it. Backups, security headers, content edits, broken links, SSL renewals — all "someone'll handle it." Until they don't, and your front desk is fielding calls about a 503 page.

Typical fit
Protect
— THE QUIET COST OF NEGLECT —

Most practices don't notice the bleed
until they read the report.

The cost of skipping maintenance shows up everywhere except the bill that reminds you it isn't there. Three numbers most practices have never measured.

$2,400/mo

Wasted ad spend on a slow site

A dental practice spending $4k/mo on Google Ads with a PageSpeed score of 42 vs. 92 sees roughly 38% more bounces on landing pages — a $1,500–$2,400/mo equivalent paid into a leaky funnel.

SOURCE: Aggregate dental client landing-page audits, 2024
14%

Of dental sites flagged for outdated software

Every dental site we audit on intake — over 300 audited so far — finds at least one critical security gap. 14% are running WordPress core or plugins with publicly disclosed CVEs.

SOURCE: Redefineweb intake audits, 2022 — 2024
6.4hrs

Avg. downtime when a hack actually lands

When a dental site is compromised — defaced, redirected, or blacklisted — the average recovery window is 6.4 hours of full downtime plus 2–3 weeks of damaged search rankings the practice keeps paying to claw back.

SOURCE: Recovery engagements, 2023
What's actually included

Six layers. All boring on purpose.

Maintenance shouldn't surprise you. Every plan includes the same six layers — the difference between tiers is depth, response time, and how much we proactively fix versus only patch.

02

Security & patching

WordPress core, theme, and plugin updates applied on a tested cadence — not auto-update roulette. Every patch tested in staging first; rollback ready if anything breaks.

  • WP core + plugin patching, weekly cadence
  • Daily malware scans · auto-quarantine
  • WAF (web application firewall) on Premium+
  • Security headers, CSP, HSTS
03

Off-site backups

Automated daily backups, off-server, with one-click restore. Verified weekly so the restore actually works the day you need it.

  • Daily automated backups, 30-day retention
  • Off-server storage (separate provider)
  • Weekly restore-test verification
04

Performance & Core Web Vitals

PageSpeed isn't a one-time launch metric — it drifts every time a plugin updates or a photo gets uploaded. We monitor it monthly and tune it before it costs you a CPA point.

  • Monthly PageSpeed + Core Web Vitals report
  • Image optimization · CDN tuning
  • Render-blocking + LCP fixes on Enterprise
05

Content & copy edits

Hours-bank for the everyday edits practice managers actually want — new doctor bios, hours updates, service pages, doctor-of-the-month, photo swaps. No support-ticket purgatory.

  • 2 / 4 / 8 hrs / mo by tier
  • Same-business-day turnaround on Premium+
  • Slack or email — no ticket portal
06

HIPAA-aware forms & compliance

Most dental sites have at least one form quietly mishandling PHI. We audit every form on intake, route any PHI-bearing form through HIPAA-compliant infrastructure, and re-audit annually.

  • Intake-form PHI audit · annual re-audit
  • HIPAA-aware form routing (BAA-covered)
  • WCAG 2.1 AA accessibility maintenance
  • Cookie consent · privacy-policy currency
07

Monthly site-health report

The scorecard from the hero of this page is what you actually get every month. Shipped to your inbox on the 1st. Not a screenshot of an analytics dashboard — a one-page, plain-English report on what we did, what we caught, and what's next.

  • Site-health grade · trend across 6 dimensions
  • Plain-English changelog of work performed
  • Issues caught + resolved · with links
  • One-page format — no 22-page PDFs
Maintenance plans

Three tiers, plus Custom. Same shape across every industry we serve.

Maintenance is the foundation that protects everything else — your acquisition spend, your patient pipeline, your reputation. Pick the depth that matches your site, then upgrade if it outgrows the plan.

01 — Essential

Essential

$199/mo
Best for: established practices with stable traffic and no active paid spend.
  • Uptime monitoring (60s)
  • SSL monitoring + renewal
  • Core + plugin patching (monthly)
  • Daily off-site backups
  • Monthly malware scan
  • 2 hrs / mo content edits
  • Monthly site-health report
Start with Essential
03 — Enterprise

Enterprise

$499/mo
Best for: high-spend practices where every PageSpeed point is a CPA point.
  • Everything in Premium, plus:
  • Monthly performance tune-up (LCP, INP, CLS)
  • Image + CDN optimization
  • 10 hrs / mo content edits
  • Schema + structured data maintenance
  • Conversion-tracking integrity checks
  • Quarterly accessibility re-audit
  • 2-hr avg. incident response SLA
Start with Enterprise
04 — Custom

Custom

Let's talk
Best for: DSOs and multi-location groups with 5+ properties, white-label, or regulated workloads.
  • Everything in Enterprise, plus:
  • Multi-site management dashboard
  • Per-location uptime + health reporting
  • Dedicated maintenance pod
  • 1-hr SLA on critical incidents
  • Quarterly architecture review
  • Security review + pentest support
  • Bring-your-own-PMS integration upkeep
Request a quote
important

Maintenance is month-to-month. No annual lock-in, ever. If a tier doesn't earn its keep, downgrade or cancel with 30 days' notice. Every plan includes the monthly site-health report so you can see exactly what you're paying for — or aren't getting.

How we stack up

What you'd pay somewhere else.

The maintenance market is a mess: $29/mo "managed WordPress" hosts, freelancers who disappear, in-house staff who'd rather not, and DIY that quietly stops happening. Here's the honest comparison.

Capability
Cheap host support
Freelancer
DIY (in-house)
Redefineweb
Dental-specific (HIPAA, PMS, schema)
rare
build it yourself
Avg. response time, site-down
2 — 24 hrs
"when I see it"
whoever's free
14 min avg.
Off-site backups + restore tested
Sometimes
in theory
Plugin patching tested in staging
auto-update
often skipped
Monthly site-health report
Performance tuning included
$$$ extra
whoever knows
HIPAA-aware form audit
your problem
Typical monthly cost
$29 — $99
$300 — $800
$0 (sort of)
$150 — $500

Cheap host support comparison reflects the included support tier from major managed WordPress hosts. "DIY (in-house)" cost reflects the visible expense, not the ~3 hrs/mo of practice-manager time it actually consumes — which is the line item nobody ever budgets.

Real practices

Real maintenance.
Real outcomes.

Three engagements where maintenance was the line item that quietly protected everything else. Browse the full archive for more across single-location, group, and DSO clients.

Common dental questions

Questions every practice manager asks before signing.

Yes — most of our maintenance clients didn't build with us. Onboarding starts with a free site-health audit so you see exactly what you're inheriting. If the site is on a non-standard stack we can usually take it on; if it's on something genuinely broken (custom WordPress fork, abandoned theme, etc.) we'll tell you upfront and recommend the smallest possible rebuild.
No. We're host-agnostic. Whether you're on WP Engine, Kinsta, GoDaddy, or some niche reseller, we work with what's there. We may recommend a move if performance or security is structurally impossible on your current host, but it's a recommendation, not a requirement.
Essential is "the lights stay on" — uptime, backups, monthly patching, 2 hours of basic edits. Premium adds the WAF, daily malware scans, weekly patching cadence, faster incident response (14 min vs. best-effort), 5 hours of edits, and an annual HIPAA form audit. Most practices running paid or SEO spend should be on Premium minimum; the cost difference is roughly one PPC click.
No. Maintenance is month-to-month with 30 days' notice to cancel or downgrade. We've inherited too many clients from agencies that locked them in with annual contracts, and we don't replicate that model. The monthly report is what should keep you on the plan, not a contract.
The everyday edits a practice manager actually needs: hours updates, new doctor bios, photo swaps, service-page tweaks, doctor-of-the-month, holiday banners, FAQ additions. Edits are billed against the monthly hours bank (1 / 4 / 8 hrs by tier). Larger work — a new service-line page, full redesign of a section — is scoped separately. We never "use up" hours on emergency work; that's covered.
On Manage and above, recovery is included — restore from off-site backup, malware sweep, vulnerability patch, and Search Console reconsideration request if needed. Avg. recovery time across our incident history is 4 hours to back-up-and-running, 30 days to fully restored search rankings (most cases see zero ranking loss). On Protect, recovery is billable hourly but you have the same backups and monitoring.
Yes, any time. Most clients start on Essential or Premium and move up when they start running paid acquisition or hit a PageSpeed ceiling. Downgrades are also fine — though we'll usually flag if the site has features (HIPAA forms, schema, etc.) that the lower tier doesn't cover.
Yes — that's the Enterprise tier. Multi-site dashboard, per-location reporting, dedicated pod, and 1-hr SLA. If you're rolling out new locations, maintenance integrates directly with the DSO rollout playbook so each new location enters maintenance on day-one of going live.
Pairs naturally with

Three services that compound on top of it.

Maintenance is the foundation. These three are what use the foundation to actually drive revenue. Most practices stack at least one within 90 days of moving to Manage.

Ready when you are

Start with the free site health audit.

30 minutes. No commitment. We'll run the same scorecard from the top of this page on your live site, walk you through what's green and what's amber, and tell you which tier (if any) you actually need. Most practices walk away knowing whether they need us.

  • 01 → 15-min audit run on your live site — uptime, security, performance, schema, HIPAA forms.
  • 02 → Walk through the scorecard with a senior engineer (not an account rep selling you up).
  • 03 → Honest tier recommendation — including "you don't need us" if your current setup is solid.
  • 04 → Onboarding scoped within 5 business days if you want to move forward. Live in 10.
// Case studies

Real practices, real numbers.

A sampling of recent engagements that match this work.

Browse all case studies