How Hostnet added 2000+ WordPress maintenance plans & opened a new revenue stream

Metrics That Matter 

Hostnet is one of the largest hosting providers in the Netherlands. Their infrastructure is rock solid, their customer base is wide, and WordPress represents a significant portion of the websites they host. Like many hosting companies, they faced a familiar challenge:

WordPress-related issues accounted for a large share of support tickets – frustrating customers and consuming resources – yet generating no recurring revenue, despite being critical for clients.

Although they offered effective reactive support and had great customer relationships, they recognized an opportunity to deliver more value – proactively.

Instead of competing further on price, Hostnet chose a different path: turn WordPress maintenance into a structured, scalable product on top of hosting.

What is Hostnet?

An established hosting provider from Amsterdam with more than 26 years of experience.

What was their challenge?

→ Client needed WordPress maintenance, but Hostnet wasn’t structuring or monetizing this service.

When you run a hosting company, you see the same problems over and over:

Customers call in because their WordPress site is down. They’re panicking. Your support team quickly responds and resolves the issue—but the customer still experiences frustration.

Most of these problems aren’t even infrastructure-related. They come from a single, recurring root cause: outdated WordPress sites.

For Hostnet, offering WordPress updates and maintenance seemed like the obvious next step. But doing so, manually at scale, would have required significant engineering and operational investment.

They needed a way to:

• Monetize the WordPress maintenance services their clients already needed;
• Reduce reactive support tickets from panicked clients;
• Generate recurring monthly revenue by offering structured WordPress care plans.

What was their solution?

→ Using WP Umbrella, Hostnet automated WordPress maintenance and introduced a new service tier to their clients alongside their hosting plans.

Hostnet’s team first connected with WP Umbrella at a WordCamp – a chance meeting that would reshape their service offering.

With WP Umbrella, they launched a new service tier: WordPress maintenance layered on top of Hostnet’s hosting plans. This service handles plugin, theme and WordPress core updates; security, downtime and performance monitoring; extra offsite backups; and more—on behalf of their customers.

What was the impact?

→ Seamlessly added 2000+ new WordPress care contracts from their existing customers – increasing both customer satisfaction and monthly recurring revenue.

Introducing WP Umbrella and the new service tier, created three massive benefits for Hostnet:

1. Customers are happier. They experience fewer issues and downtime.
2. They added a new source of revenue without acquiring a single new customer.
3. Hostnet’s support team spends less time on emergency troubleshooting.

The new maintenance service has grown fast—Hostnet already have over 2000 WordPress care contracts, with more signing up every day.

How did they implement WP Umbrella?

→ Hostnet rolled out WP Umbrella in minutes, backed by ongoing support from a Customer Success Manager and fast, direct communication through a Slack channel.

Not needing to make any upfront investments for WP Umbrella, allowed Hostnet to roll out their new WordPress care service without touching infrastructure or risking significant resources.

They used the free trial to validate the concept, then seamlessly transitioned to WP Umbrella’s transparent, pay-as-you-go subscription.

The onboarding was guided by WP Umbrella’s dedicated Customer Success Manager, supported by a shared Slack channel for real-time questions and issue handling.

This setup, and WP Umbrella’s intuitive UX, meant that Hostnet’s support and operations teams could start using it immediately, with little to no formal training required.

How do they use WP Umbrella day to day?

→ WP Umbrella is the operational backbone for comprehensive monitoring, automatic updates, offsite backups, client-facing reports, and a centralized overview on all Hostnet’s sites.

1. Performance, Downtime and Security Monitoring

Hostnet uses WP Umbrella’s monitoring and alerting system to track downtime, website performance and security vulnerabilities.

When it comes to monitoring website performance, their approach is structured and calculated.

• During onboarding, Hostnet’s team analyzes each website.
• Then they create a baseline performance speed.
• They continue to track the baseline performance speed over time using WP Umbrella’s automatic PageSpeed and Core Web Vitals monitoring.
• If performance degrades by 30% consistently over time, they take action and re-optimize.

This helps them make informed decisions for each site they manage, rather than reacting to every temporary and short-lasting performance drop.

We create a baseline of performance speed, and then we track it. When it fluctuates 30% on an ongoing basis then we take action again. We use WP Umbrella to create a graph and monitor the performance baseline.

2. One extra, offsite backup

Hostnet already provides backups through their own hosting platform. But they still actively use WP Umbrella’s automatic backup feature, because of three main reasons:

1. WP Umbrella’s one-click restore – Great-to-have option because of its speed of access and simplicity.
2. Extra safety — having one extra, offsite backup layer is a smart strategy for never losing a client site, even in extreme cases of servers going down.
3. Longer data retention — WP Umbrella keeps backups for 50 days.

Even though we already have our own backup system, the longer retention in WP Umbrella is a real advantage. It’s never too much backup. Having another fallback is always valuable.

3. Centralized dashboard and great UX

A major benefit for Hostnet is having all their WordPress Care customers in one dashboard. Single sign-on and the global search bar significantly simplify daily operations. Plus, easy access to each site’s WordPress admin is highly valued.

What we really love is having all our premium care customers in one overview and easy access to their WordPress admin. Single sign-on and the search bar make it very easy to manage a large number of sites.

4. Safe plugins, themes and WordPress core updates

Using WP Umbrella safe update feature, Hostnet keeps WordPress cores, plugins, and themes up to date across hundreds of sites, in minutes.

Where possible, updates are applied automatically. While legacy issues – like custom themes or plugins – are flagged and communicated transparently to customers during the onboarding.

This approach allows Hostnet to offer a proactive WordPress care service without overloading their team with risky updates at all times.

5. Automatic Client Maintenance Reports

One challenge with great maintenance is that when everything works perfectly, customers might not even notice. Hostnet solved this with regular reporting.

We report monthly to our customers what we’ve done that month. If everything goes perfectly, the customer doesn’t know what we do unless we communicate it. The reporting feature is key to our offer.

These reports transform invisible background work into tangible value that customers can see and appreciate.

How do they get ROI on WP Umbrella?

→ Hostnet’s support team is the strongest driver behind selling WordPress care packages – converting ~90% of customers who need help with WordPress-specific issues.

While both outbound and inbound channels contribute to scaling Hostnet’s WordPress care offering, the core engine behind their success metrics is their support team.

With a large client base and thousands of hosted sites, Hostnet’s support team manages numerous tickets daily. These interactions give them the opportunity to educate clients and build trust. And as a natural byproduct, they generate upsells.

We just give the customer options and good information, and they come back to us. It is a beautiful way to make more money…offering really something of quality. And I just love a company where the customer service and the sales departments are working together in a good way.

The process usually goes like this:

1. Customer reports issue: WordPress problems, downtime, plugin/theme errors.
2. Support troubleshoots and guides the customer. They explain transparently: “Here’s what we can do; here’s what we recommend.”
3. Follow-up: After ~1 week, support checks if the issue is resolved. If not, they offer additional help, creating an opportunity for sales.
4. Lead generation for sales: Support identifies warm leads from unresolved issues or requests for help. Examples: Widescreen of Death, PHP updates, performance care.
5. Sales engagement: Sales team contacts warm leads. They focus on education, not hard selling: “Do you know the importance of maintaining your website?” “How often do you update plugins, themes, WordPress core?” Where suitable they offer WordPress care plan packages.
6. Conversion: Customers choose to subscribe to one of Hostnet’s WordPress care packages. They convert about 90% of the leads that go through this process. So those are their best and warmest leads.

PHP version management is an important value driver for them and a proven opportunity for upsell. Customers on outdated PHP versions are informed about legacy status and offered updates as part of a WordPress care package.

PHP every year has a lifecycle. All our customers running on 8.1 or lower get an email to inform them about this, and get them to subscribe for extended PHP support. Or we sell updating their PHP. It’s a beautiful awareness campaign.

What does this mean for other hosting companies?

→ Other hosting providers can use WP Umbrella to start offering WordPress care services and open an additional recurring revenue stream with clear ROI.

Hostnet’s success shows that WordPress care can be productized and monetized by hosting providers, without touching their hosting infrastructure or making big investments.

WP Umbrella is so easy to implement, that every hosting provider can test the concept risk-free. You can start small, measure the impact, and see the results for your own business.

If it works, you gain an additional recurring revenue stream with clear ROI (that doesn’t require a math formula to calculate).

If it doesn’t, you can stop at any time. WP Umbrella’s pay-as-you-go pricing per site means there’s no sunk costs and no lock-in contracts.

It’s a low-risk, high-potential opportunity to offer a service your customers genuinely need while generating additional recurring revenue every month.