Know your backups are actually running
A backup you have never checked is not a backup. It is a hope. The failure mode that ruins an agency’s week is not the site going down: it is the site going down and the most recent good backup being nineteen days old, on a plugin that silently stopped running in July.
Siteward reads UpdraftPlus status on every site you manage and puts the whole fleet on one screen, so a backup that stops running becomes something you notice on a Tuesday rather than something you discover during an incident. It is one of the daily checks in the agency maintenance checklist, turned into something you no longer have to do by hand.
What Siteward checks
Four things, on every connected site, every time the dashboard syncs:
- Latest backup age. When the most recent UpdraftPlus backup was taken, per site.
- Backup errors. The most recent UpdraftPlus run reported errors, with the site named.
- Missing backups. Sites where UpdraftPlus is absent, inactive, or has no backup on record.
- WP-Cron health. Overdue cron events, which is usually the real reason a backup silently stopped: the schedule is not firing, so the backup plugin is never called.
That last one matters more than it sounds. Most “the backups stopped” incidents are cron incidents. A backup dashboard that only reads backup status will tell you the backup is old. It will not tell you why.
The four flags
Every site carries health flags, colour-coded by severity, so the fleet sorts itself:
- No backups. UpdraftPlus is not active, or has no backup on record.
- Backup stale. The most recent backup is older than your threshold, seven days by default.
- Backup failing. The most recent run reported errors.
- Cron failing. Scheduled events are overdue by more than your threshold, an hour by default, so nothing on a schedule can be relied on.
Flags are recomputed after every sync, which runs hourly by default, and an email goes out the first time a backup or cron flag appears on a site. So this is a screen you can actually open every morning, and one that tells you when something changes, rather than a report you run monthly and then do not read. If a stale backup turns into a broken site, when an update breaks a client site covers what to do next.
Why this is in the free tier
Because a maintenance business that cannot prove its backups are running does not have a maintenance business. Backup and cron health is free on every plan, on unlimited sites, with no per-site fee. There is no upgrade prompt attached to knowing whether your clients are protected, and Pro, when you want it, is one flat price.
What it does not do
Siteward monitors backups. It does not take them. UpdraftPlus takes the backup, Siteward tells you whether it worked.
If you use a different backup plugin, Siteward will still report cron health and every other flag, but the backup-specific checks read UpdraftPlus, so a site backed up by something else shows as No backups. You can switch backup alerts off in the dashboard settings if that is your setup.
We would rather say that plainly than have you install it and find out.
Common questions
Does Siteward take the backups?
No. Siteward monitors UpdraftPlus backups across your fleet and flags missing, stale and failing runs. UpdraftPlus performs the backup itself.
What if a site uses a different backup plugin?
Backup-specific checks read UpdraftPlus, so a site backed up by another plugin shows as No backups. Every other health check, including WP-Cron status, uptime and critical-error detection, works regardless of which backup plugin the site uses.
How often does Siteward check backup status?
Every time the dashboard syncs, which is hourly by default and adjustable in settings. Flags are recomputed after each sync, and an email goes out the first time a backup or cron flag appears on a site.
Is backup monitoring free?
Yes. Backup and cron health is in the free tier, on unlimited sites, with no per-site fee.
Install the free Siteward plugin and every connected site’s backup and cron health is on one screen.