Free pilot Legacy PHP Fleet Program
Every WordPress site you keep on an old PHP version costs you money and leaves a customer quietly shopping. The program upgrades those sites, keeps them maintained, and gives each one a care plan the customer can see.
PHP 8.2 reaches end of life on December 31, 2026
A free audit of your legacy PHP sites and a no-cost pilot of up to 100 sites.
You pay per enrolled site, only for sites whose owners buy care. No setup fee, no minimum.
Upgrades and code patches are included for enrolled legacy sites. Rebuilds are quoted before any work starts.
Sites connect through the WPM Connector plugin, in bulk or when the customer opts in.
The problem
Most hosts spend money keeping old PHP running, whether they bill for it or not. The money buys a site that stays up. It does not buy a customer who stays.
| Hosting type | How legacy PHP is usually covered | What it means for you |
|---|---|---|
| Shared hosting | An OS with PHP hardening, bundled into the server license. Rarely listed on pricing pages and rarely charged to the customer. | You already absorb the cost. The Fleet Program or WP Care (Free) turns it into care. |
| VPS and dedicated | Extended PHP from a third-party vendor, often resold to the customer as a paid add-on. | That add-on fee can pay for WP Care+ instead. |
| Managed WordPress | In-house patching or a vendor-backed Extended PHP service, usually sold as a paid add-on. | Convert the add-on to WP Care+ at the same price. |
The program
Your existing care plans stay as they are. WP Care (Free) and paid WP Care join the care screens you already have.
Uptime and PHP version monitoring, plus a monthly report under your brand. It costs you nothing, and every report points the customer to paid care.
A low-cost tier, suggested at $9 to $19 a month by site, that runs monthly core, plugin and theme updates with rollback and moves the site to current PHP. You pay only for sites whose owners buy it, and keep the rest. Hosts whose own team runs updates offer WP Care at $6 instead, with the PHP upgrade bought a la carte.
If customers already pay to keep old PHP running, the same fee now buys a site that gets off old PHP and stays maintained. Retire the extended support license once a server’s sites are current.
We also recommend adding the PHP upgrade to your premium care plans, so a legacy PHP customer who buys care gets current PHP as part of it.
The care ladder
WP Care+ is deliberately narrow so it sells premium care instead of replacing it. Every report, free or paid, shows the work done and the next step up, so the upsell runs on every enrolled site each month with no sales call. Prices are suggested retail per site per month; what you pay WP Maintain is set in your agreement.
| Feature | WP Care (Free) WPM Free · monitor + reports Suggested retail Free | WP Care WPM · updates, your team runs it Suggested retail $6/site/mo | WP Care+ WPM+ · we run it, PHP upgrade included Suggested retail $9 to $19/site/mo | Premium care WP Care Pro tiers by Pro Services Suggested retail $29 to $199+/site/mo |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| You pay | Nothing | Your agreement rate, only when bought | Your agreement rate, only when bought | Pro Services partner rates |
| Who runs it | Runs itself | Your team, on the platform | We run it with your support team | Seahawk’s care team |
| Uptime and PHP version monitoring | Included | Included | Included | Included |
| Monthly report under your brand | Included | Included | Included | Included |
| Core, plugin and theme updates | – | Monthly, with automatic rollback | Monthly, with automatic rollback | Managed and ongoing |
| PHP upgrade | – | Minor fixes in the program, otherwise a la carte | Included, with code patches | Included |
| Backups | – | Cloud backups and rollbacks | Cloud backups and rollbacks | Cloud backups and rollbacks |
| Malware | – | Scanning | Scanning, removal and virtual patching | Hacked site repair |
| When an update breaks something | Not covered | Rolled back automatically | Rolled back automatically | Fixed by the care team |
| Support tickets and site tasks | – | – | Internal ticket coordination | SLA-backed tickets, 5 tasks to unlimited |
Suggested retail prices. You set your own. Premium care tiers are delivered by Seahawk Pro Services.
How the PHP upgrade works
Powered by PHP Lifecycle in WP Maintain, which monitors every site’s PHP version, sorts the fleet into lanes and tracks each upgrade.
Core, theme, plugins and custom code checked against the target PHP version.
A full copy of the site, with a snapshot to return to.
PHP raised on the copy, with code patches where a theme or plugin blocks it.
Key pages compared before and after, so layout breaks are caught on staging.
The change goes live, and rolls back automatically if a check fails.
| Feature | Typical blocker | Covered by |
|---|---|---|
| Upgrades in place | None, or minor fixes | Included on WP Care+ |
| Needs code patches | Outdated theme, abandoned plugin, custom code | Included on WP Care+ |
| Rebuild candidate | Code too old to patch economically | Quoted through Pro Services before any work starts (suggested retail $499) |
While a site waits its turn, WP Care+ protects it at the application layer: safe updates, malware scanning, virtual patching and backups with rollback. We do not patch PHP itself. Protection covers the wait, and the upgrade ends it.
Already charge for Extended PHP?
Today the add-on buys a server that stays on old PHP. After conversion, the same fee buys a site that gets off old PHP and stays maintained.
Connect the sites behind your Extended PHP add-on. We audit each one and sort it into a lane.
Sites that can move in place are upgraded, with code patches where themes or plugins block it.
As each server’s sites come current, rename the add-on to WP Care+ at the same price. The customer does nothing and pays the same.
Once every site on a server is on supported PHP, drop the extended support license on that server.
Model your fleet
Enter your own numbers. These are illustrations; the free audit and pilot replace them with your real take rates and upgrade results.
Monthly program revenue
Enter the per-site rate from your agreement to see your margin; volume pricing is shared after the free audit. WP Care (Free) sites cost nothing and are not counted. Premium care revenue assumes you resell Pro Services tiers or your own care plans at the price you enter.
How sites connect
Neither path uses SSH keys, passwords or stored credentials.
Install the WPM Connector across your WordPress fleet with your own tooling, the way you preinstall other plugins. Every site starts on WP Care (Free), and paid care is sold from the monthly report.
Show WP Care (Free) and WP Care next to your existing care plans, at checkout and in the account panel. The customer’s opt-in is the authorization to connect, and it carries the WP Care terms, so your terms of service do not change.
On either path, your billing sends WP Maintain one notice when a customer buys or cancels, by webhook or API call. We supply the spec. On cancellation the site disconnects and billing stops.
Who does what
Commercial terms
WP Care+ is priced per paid site under your agreement, PHP upgrade included, with volume tiers set from the free audit. No setup fee, no minimum volume, and no charge for sites that never opt in.
| Feature | You pay | Your customer pays | Billing starts |
|---|---|---|---|
| WP Care (Free) | Nothing | Nothing | Not billed |
| WP Care, PHP upgrade a la carte | Your agreement rate, per paid site per month | Suggested $6/mo | When the customer buys |
| WP Care+, PHP upgrade included | Your agreement rate, per paid site per month | Suggested $9 to $19/mo | When the customer buys |
| Extended PHP conversion | Paid from the add-on fee you already bill | The same add-on price, unchanged | At conversion |
| PHP upgrade outside the program | Pro Services partner rates | Suggested $299 | Per job, approved before work |
| Rebuilds and heavy refactoring | Pro Services partner rates, quoted per site | Suggested $499 | Per job, approved before work |
Customer prices are suggested retail. You set your own. See the full plan list on pricing.
WP Care + PHP Upgrade Bundle
WP Care, WP Care+
Convert Extended PHP customers to WP Care
Suggested retail
$6, $9+ /site/mo
WPM, WPM+
PHP Upgrades
Upgrade sites to a current PHP version
WP Rebuilds
Rebuild aging sites on a modern WordPress stack
Customer prices are suggested retail per site per month. You set your own, and your WP Maintain rate is set in your agreement. See every plan and what each includes on the pricing page.
Modernize your legacy fleet
| WPM | WPM+ | |
|---|---|---|
| PHP Version Monitor, lane sorting, Legacy PHP Tracker | Yes | Yes |
| Free fleet audit | Yes | Yes |
| Protection while waiting (virtual patching, malware removal, legacy risk report) | Your team runs it with your integrations | We run it |
| PHP upgrade for enrolled legacy sites | A la carte through Pro Services at partner rates | Included: minor fixes and code patches |
| Rebuilds and heavy refactoring | Pro Services | Pro Services |
| Extended PHP to WP Care conversion | Your team performs or purchases the upgrades | The WP Care + PHP Upgrade Bundle |
| Customer-facing SKU switch and notice | Your team | Coordinated with your support team |
| Quarterly legacy KPI report | Self-serve in the tracker | Prepared for your QBR |
Rollout
Nothing changes for your customers until the audit and pilot show real numbers.
You share your WordPress sites by PHP version. We audit a sample free and report the share that upgrades in place, needs patches or should be rebuilt, with projected hours.
Up to 100 sites connected at no cost to you or the customer. Upgrades run and the first reports go out.
Volume tiers and the plans you commit are set from the pilot results.
WP Care+ live in your care screens, with an email campaign to legacy PHP customers ahead of PHP 8.2 end of life.
Every WordPress site connected, with the first quarterly legacy PHP report.
What we measure
What we need from you to start
Two ways to start
Not ready to commit a legacy fleet? Start every site on WP Care (Free) and let the monthly report find your legacy PHP customers.
Monitor + reports
$0 for you and your customers, on every site
WP Care+: updates + PHP upgrade
$9+ suggested retail per site / month, PHP upgrade included on a committed-volume agreement
Customers who want hands-on help move up to Pro Services tiers, sold from the same monthly report.
No. WP Care (Free) costs you nothing, on either connection path. You pay only for sites whose owners bought WP Care+, from the month they buy it. There is no setup fee and no minimum volume.
No. A site connects through the WPM Connector plugin, installed in bulk by your own tooling or only after the customer opts in. No SSH keys, passwords or stored credentials are involved, and you store nothing new.
Not on the opt-in path. The customer accepts the WP Care terms when they opt in, and a site that does not opt in gets no plugin. If you connect in bulk, you decide it the same way you decide any plugin you preinstall.
No. Your existing care plans stay as they are. The change is WP Care (Free) and WP Care added to the care screens you already have, plus a notice to WP Maintain when a customer buys or cancels.
On WP Care+, every enrolled legacy site gets safe updates, malware scanning, virtual patching and backups with rollback, so the application layer stays current even while the runtime is not. On WP Care (Free), the report shows the site’s legacy PHP exposure, what blocks the upgrade and what it would take to fix.
No, and that’s deliberate. Manufacturing security patches for dead runtimes forever monetizes sites staying old. WP Care+ shields the site at the application layer while it moves to a supported runtime. Protection is the waiting room. The upgrade is the destination.
The fleet audit. Send us your legacy PHP list, we audit a sample free, and you get a report showing what share upgrades cleanly, what share needs code patches, and what share should be rebuilt, with projected hours. You see the numbers before you commit to anything.
WP Care+ is deliberately narrow so it sells your premium care instead of replacing it. It runs updates once a month and reports on them. It does not take support requests, fix what breaks or include site tasks. Those are what premium care adds, and every monthly report points the customer there.
One funnel per PHP version: legacy PHP sites, upgraded, rebuild candidates, remaining opportunity. It shows the legacy count falling on a schedule and tells you when a version can be retired outright. On WPM+ we prepare it for your QBR.
Step one, no commitment
Send us a count of WordPress installs by PHP version. We audit a sample free and show you what share upgrades in place, needs patches or should be rebuilt, before you commit to anything.
Prefer to talk it through? Book 30 minutes with Ryan, Co-Founder