Maintenance contracts are where vague promises go to hibernate. Here’s what a good one pins down, and the warning signs we see in agreements that rescued sites arrive holding.

What belongs in writing

A patch window with a number. “Security updates within 72 hours of advisory release” is a commitment; “timely updates” is a mood.
Staging before production. Updates tested on a copy first — stated, not assumed.
Backup terms that include restoration. Frequency, retention, and — the part almost everyone omits — how often a restore is actually tested. A backup is a rumor until somebody restores it.
What the included hours cover, and what happens at the boundary: quote first, never invoice-surprise.
Response expectations that are honest. Business-hours response in N hours plus a written after-hours protocol beats a 24/7 promise nobody staffs.
Exit terms. You keep the site, the repo, the credentials, and the backups — on request, without drama, cancel-anytime or short notice.

The seven red flags

“Unlimited” anything. Unlimited requests meets a finite team somewhere private, and you’re not in the room when it does.
No named patch window. If the number isn’t in the contract, the number is whatever the quarter allows.
Backups without restoration language. Where do they live, how long, and when was one last actually restored?
The agency owns your credentials. Domain, hosting, or admin access registered to the vendor is the leading cause of the disappeared-developer emergency.
Auto-renewing annual terms with 90-day exit windows. Maintenance should retain you by being good, not by calendar trap.
No mention of major version upgrades. Most cheap plans quietly exclude the one job that matters most — ask where the upgrade money comes from before the year it’s needed.
A price that only works offshore. $99/month buys a script and a shared inbox. Fine, if that’s what the site is worth — just buy it knowingly.

The comparison shortcut

Ask any provider — including us — the five questions in the pricing post, in writing. Comfortable, specific answers predict a good year. Our own answers are already published on the services page, tiers and caps included, because a contract you can read before the sales call is the first deliverable.

Dead North writes its maintenance terms on the public services page — $350 to $1,500/month, honest SLA, cancel anytime, Minneapolis.