A WordPress problem, and no one to call.
Self-hosted WordPress has no support line. When something breaks — or just needs changing — you're on your own unless whoever built it is still around and still answering. I'm the person you call instead: one senior developer, European hours, no retainer to sign.
- !Something broke after a plugin, theme or PHP update
- !The contact form stopped delivering and enquiries are being lost
- !The site looks wrong on phones, or a layout has shifted
- !A page or section needs changing and nobody's available to do it
- !The site is slow enough that customers mention it
- !Odd redirects, unknown admin users, a warning from Google
- 01The developer who built it has moved on, or stopped replying
- 02The agency relationship ended, and the site came with you
- 03The site was inherited with a business, and nobody knows how it works
- 04Your current supplier is good but busy, and small tasks keep slipping
- 05It was built in-house by someone who has since left
- 06The job is too small for a studio and too risky to try yourself
Three things that make the estimate accurate first time.
You don't need to diagnose anything. But these three make the difference between a precise estimate and a range with a shrug in it.
- 1The URL of the exact page where the problem shows, not just the homepage. If it only happens when logged in, or on a phone, or with one product, say which.
- 2Roughly when it started, and whether anything changed just before — an update, a new plugin, a hosting move, an expired licence. This is often the whole diagnosis.
- 3Whether you have wp-admin and hosting logins. If one is missing, say so now: recovering access is usually half an hour, but it's better known upfront than discovered mid-job.
A screenshot beats a paragraph. Reply to the confirmation email and attach one.
A repeatable procedure, not guesswork.
- 01
You describe it, I estimate
Written estimate in hours within 24 working hours, plus a note on anything I can see going wrong beyond what you asked. No call required to decide.
- 02
Access and full backup
Files and database copied before anything is touched. Credentials can be temporary and revoked when the job is done.
- 03
Initial audit
Theme, builder, plugins, hosting, PHP version. On a site I've not seen before, knowing how it's built comes before changing it.
- 04
Work in a safe place
Staging when the change is structural or touches payment. Never blind on a live site that takes orders.
- 05
Fix and verify
The thing you asked about, plus a regression check on what surrounds it, on desktop and mobile.
- 06
Report and invoice
What I did, where, and what to watch. Billed on real 30-minute blocks — no rounding up to the hour.
How much can it cost?
Indicative range. Final estimate after seeing the site.
A text or layout change, a broken link, a menu item, a setting to correct. The kind of job that struggles to fit anywhere else.
Something broken whose cause isn't obvious: a conflict to isolate, a form that won't deliver, a feature that stopped working.
A site you've inherited or lost track of: audit, access recovery, backups in place, and the most urgent problems dealt with first.
The questions I always get.
01Where can I find WordPress support if I'm in the UK?
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Wherever the person actually is — WordPress work is remote by nature, and what matters is time overlap, not postcode. I work from Verona in northern Italy on Central European Time, one hour ahead of the UK: your morning is my morning. That's the practical difference from a supplier eight or nine hours away, where every question costs a day.
02Isn't there official WordPress support I can contact?
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Not for a self-hosted site. WordPress.com supports its own hosted product; WordPress.org offers community forums where volunteers answer when they can. Neither will log into your site and fix it. That gap — a real WordPress site with a real problem and no one contractually responsible for it — is exactly what this is for.
03How do I know what it'll cost before committing?
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You get a written estimate in hours before any work starts, and you decide from there. The rate is a flat €45/hour billed in real 30-minute blocks, so a 40-minute job is billed as 30 minutes plus 30 minutes — not as a one-hour minimum, and not as a "project".
04I'm not in Italy. How does invoicing and payment work?
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You get a standard Italian VAT invoice. For businesses elsewhere in the EU it's issued under reverse charge, so no VAT is added; for UK businesses it's outside the scope of Italian VAT. Payment by card, PayPal or bank transfer — you don't need to arrange an international transfer for a small job.
05My site was built by someone else. Can you still work on it?
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That's the normal case, not the exception. Most sites I work on I didn't build. It starts with a short audit to map the theme, builder, plugins and hosting, then a full backup, then the work. I don't need the original developer's permission or involvement — just your access to WordPress and the hosting.
06Is there a minimum, a retainer or a contract?
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None of the three. No monthly minimum, no plan to activate, no annual contract. You send a task, you get an estimate, you approve it, I do it and invoice the real minutes. If nothing needs doing for six months, you pay nothing for six months.
07How quickly do you reply?
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Within 24 working hours for an estimate, usually less. For something actively blocking a business — checkout down, site offline — it's normally within hours the same working day.
08What if I don't know what's actually wrong?
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Describe what you expected to happen and what happens instead, and send the page URL. Working out the cause is the job, not a prerequisite for asking. If it turns out to be bigger than the estimate covered, you hear about it before I carry on.
Or go straight to the specific thing.
Each of these has its own page with symptoms, likely causes, how I work through it and what it typically costs.
A feature stopped working
Forms, filters, checkout, sliders, member areas. It worked yesterday and doesn't today.
The form isn't sending email
It says sent and nothing arrives. Almost always deliverability, not the form itself.
Something needs changing
Texts, sections, menus, popups, header and footer. Billed in real 30-minute blocks.
The site won't load
White screen, critical error, 500. Backup first, then recovery.
An update broke something
Two plugins colliding after an update. Methodical isolation, targeted fix.
The shop isn't taking orders
Checkout stalling, payments failing, order emails nobody receives.