WordPress Maintenance Partner for 2 Elementor Sites (Paid Test, Then Monthly Retainer)

We run two WordPress sites and need a reliable partner for ongoing maintenance. This is a long-term arrangement, not a one-off fix. We are a small US company based in Vista, CA, rebuilding our contractor bench, so there is additional design and development work available for someone who does this well. THE SITES nonstopprinting.com: WordPress + Elementor. Marketing and lead generation site for a custom printing business. Content-heavy with galleries, service pages, an interactive book spine calculator, JotForm quote forms, and Google Tag Manager. No ecommerce. pacificnexus.com: WordPress + Elementor. Agency portfolio site with case studies, service pages, and a blog. Jetpack image CDN and LinkedIn ads pixel. No ecommerce. The two sites are currently running different Elementor versions, so updates are not in sync. Getting both onto a consistent, tested update cadence is the first order of business. WHAT THE MONTHLY RETAINER COVERS - Core, theme, and plugin updates, tested on staging before they go to production - Offsite backups with a defined retention period, plus one tested restore in the first 30 days - Uptime monitoring with alerts routed to you, not to us - Security scanning, with malware remediation included - Small content changes: text, images, minor layout adjustments - Monthly report of what changed, what was updated, and time used HOW THIS WILL RUN We start with a paid test engagement: one full maintenance cycle on one site. Set up staging, backups, and monitoring, run the update cycle, and send us the report. Quote that separately. If it goes well, we move to a monthly retainer covering both sites and reassess at 90 days. We expect routine maintenance to be 1 to 3 hours per site per month. Propose a retainer with pooled hours across both sites and a stated overage rate. Larger work such as custom development, redesign, or integrations is quoted separately as it comes up, and we are happy to do that. TWO TERMS WE ARE FIRM ON 1. Updates get tested on staging before production. These are Elementor sites, and Elementor updates are the most common cause of a WordPress site breaking. Working live with a backup is not acceptable. 2. If an update you push breaks the site, the fix comes out of your time, not the retainer allocation. ANSWER THESE FIVE QUESTIONS IN YOUR PROPOSAL Please do not send a generic template. We will not read past the first paragraph if you do. 1. Walk us through your actual update process, start to finish, for a monthly plugin update run on an Elementor site. Where does staging live, and how do you promote changes back to production? 2. Describe a specific time an update broke a client site. What happened, and how did you handle it? 3. What tools do you use for backups, monitoring, and security, and where are backups stored? 4. What are your working hours in your local time zone, and is this you personally or a team? 5. Your price for the paid test cycle, plus your proposed monthly retainer, pooled hours included, and overage rate. The posted rate range is a placeholder. Propose against the scope. We will evaluate on structure and process, not price alone.