What the plans include
For a single site, Liquid Web's managed WordPress page lists Pro and Elite plans in tiers for 50,000, 150,000 or 400,000 monthly visitors (multi-site bundles of 3 to 25 sites are listed too). Storage and bandwidth are the same for Pro and Elite at each tier. Both include staging, automatic WordPress updates, Visual Comparison for plugin updates and an Edge CDN powered by Cloudflare. The visible plan cards did not show a monthly price on 30 October 2026, so get a written quote, and note that annual billing is listed as saving 10%.
The same page says optional add-ons such as Performance Shield and usage-based extras such as autoscaling and CDN overage are listed in plan details. Before a launch, ask in writing how a spike above your visitor tier is billed, and check the portal's usage figures after the launch month.
| Monthly visitor tier | Storage | Bandwidth | Pro backups | Elite backups |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 50,000 | 15 GB | 2 TB | 14 days of daily backups | 30 days of daily backups |
| 150,000 | 40 GB | 3 TB | 14 days of daily backups | 30 days of daily backups |
| 400,000 | 100 GB | 5 TB | 14 days of daily backups | 30 days of daily backups |
Finding your way around the portal
The Nexcess Client Portal is at sites-portal.nexcess.com. Plans in the left menu lists your sites; each plan has a Plan Dashboard, and each site has a Site Dashboard reached from the Domain dropdown. Team Members sits at the top right. Add a site with +Site and your domain.
DNS depends on who registered the domain. If Liquid Web manages the registration, follow its guide to making a WordPress site live; if another registrar or DNS provider holds it, you change the records there using the values shown in the portal. Your SFTP and SSH credentials are sent when the account is created, and WordPress admin credentials for a new install can be viewed in the portal.
Staging: create it early, back it up yourself
Create staging from Plans, the three-dot menu next to the site, Plan Dashboard, Environments, Staging Environments. Two documented limits matter. First, staging sites cannot be backed up in the Client Portal, so if you spend days building a new course layout on staging, export it or keep a plugin-based backup of that work. Second, the getting-started documentation does not describe how changes are pushed from staging to production, or whether files and database can be pushed separately.
Ask support, before launch, exactly what a push overwrites. If a push replaces the production database, every enrolment, lesson completion and order recorded on production since staging was created would be lost. Until you have that answer in writing, move finished work to production by re-applying it, or by pushing files only if that option exists.
Backups and restores
The whole site is backed up automatically every 24 hours, and you can create an on-demand backup from the portal at any time; Nexcess recommends one before significant updates. You can restore any available automatic or on-demand backup point from the portal. The getting-started guide lists three restore options from the three-dot menu beside a backup: Restore Files, Restore Databases, and Restore Files + Databases. A database-only restore rolls back enrolments and orders while keeping new files, so know which one you need before you click. The documentation does not say how long a restore takes, so test one in your first week while the site has no students.
For a course site, the key fact is the retention window from the plan page: 14 days on Pro and 30 on Elite. If a problem with a membership or payment plugin takes three weeks to notice, a Pro plan will no longer have a clean copy. Keep a monthly off-host export as well.
Automatic plugin updates and Visual Comparison
Automatic WordPress core and plugin updates are on every plan, and Liquid Web's scope of support says it helps with issues caused by them. Visual Comparison runs every 4 days: it copies production to a staging environment, updates plugins there, compares priority pages side by side, and applies an update to production only if the visual change stays under a threshold. A plugin that fails the check is not updated on production, and the dashboard notes which plugins were held back.
Set priority pages in wp-admin under Nexcess, Dashboard, Priority Pages. The documentation recommends five or fewer and says each must load on production. A logged-out screenshot cannot see a student's lesson view, so pick public pages that exercise the same templates. The Visual Comparison documentation describes one off switch, the Plugin Upgrades toggle in the site's Management section, which stops automatic plugin updates until it is turned back on; it does not describe a per-plugin exclusion.
| Priority page | Why it is on the list |
|---|---|
| Home or main sales page | Theme, page builder and header changes |
| Course catalogue or course landing page | LMS templates and course grids |
| Login or registration page | Membership plugin forms and security plugin changes |
| Checkout or pricing page | Payment plugin and WooCommerce template changes |
| A public sample lesson | Lesson layout, video embeds and progress buttons |
PHP workers and logged-in students
Nexcess allocates 10 or more PHP workers per site on managed WordPress, with more on larger plans. A worker handles any request that is not served from cache, one request at a time. When more uncached requests arrive than there are workers, a queue forms, and a long queue produces slow pages or 504 Gateway Timeout errors. The only permanent way to get more workers is to upgrade the plan; Nexcess Cloud Auto Scaling can add workers temporarily during a traffic surge.
Course sites lean on workers because a student's lesson views, quiz submissions and progress updates are personal to that student. If 30 students submit quizzes in the same minute after a live session, each submission needs a worker. Keep public pages cacheable, avoid plugins that run heavy queries on every page, and watch for 504 errors around scheduled live sessions.
Who does what
| Task | Host (per scope of support) | You |
|---|---|---|
| Automatic core and plugin updates | Runs them; helps with issues they cause, in collaboration | Choose priority pages; check functionality the screenshots cannot see |
| Plugin conflicts | Identifies third-party plugin and theme conflicts, in collaboration | Plugin configuration, customisation and resolving conflicts |
| Website security issues | Handled in collaboration with you | Website development, design and monitoring |
| Migration | Migrating your application to the host, in collaboration | Testing the migrated site before DNS changes |
| Staging backups | Not available in the portal | Export or back up staging work yourself |
Launch sequence
- Two weeks out: add the site in the portal, record SFTP, SSH and admin credentials, and confirm who controls DNS.
- Two weeks out: create staging; ask support in writing what a staging push overwrites.
- Ten days out: run a test restore from a daily backup and time it.
- One week out: set five priority pages for Visual Comparison and note the next run date.
- Three days out: create an on-demand backup, then make final plugin changes.
- Launch day: watch for 504 errors and slow pages during the first live session; check the portal usage figures.
- After the first month: compare visits with your tier and decide whether Pro's 14-day backup window is enough.
Questions before you decide
How long does Liquid Web keep managed WordPress backups?
Liquid Web's managed WordPress page lists 14 days of daily backups on Pro plans and 30 days on Elite plans. The site is backed up every 24 hours and you can create on-demand backups from the portal.
Can I back up a Liquid Web staging site?
Not from the Client Portal. The Nexcess getting-started documentation states that staging sites cannot be backed up in the portal, so keep your own export of work done on staging.
How often does Visual Comparison check plugin updates?
The Visual Comparison documentation says the tool runs every 4 days and applies a plugin update to production only if the visual change on your priority pages stays under its threshold.
How many PHP workers does a Liquid Web managed WordPress site get?
Nexcess documentation says managed WordPress and WooCommerce plans allocate 10 or more PHP workers per site, with larger plans getting more, and upgrading is the only permanent way to add workers.
Sources & verification
Product details and prices can change. Check the linked provider before buying.
- Liquid Web: Managed WordPress hosting Accessed 30 Oct 2026
- Liquid Web Help: Managed WordPress scope of support Accessed 30 Oct 2026
- Nexcess Docs: Getting started with WordPress and WooCommerce hosting Accessed 30 Oct 2026
- Nexcess Docs: Managed WordPress backup and restore Accessed 30 Oct 2026
- Nexcess Docs: Website management in managed WordPress Accessed 30 Oct 2026
- Nexcess Docs: Visual Comparison Accessed 30 Oct 2026
- Nexcess Docs: PHP workers and WordPress site performance Accessed 30 Oct 2026
Sources link directly to providers. Product buttons may use separately labeled affiliate links. Read our disclosure.