Question 1

What exactly gets audited?

Accepted Answer

Your public-facing footprint and the configuration behind it: domain registration and WHOIS privacy, DNS records, email authentication (SPF, DKIM, DMARC), SSL/HTTPS, two-factor coverage, exposed admin surfaces and password hygiene. The Premium audit adds your CMS and plugins, hosting and backups, staff account access, third-party integrations, and how payment and customer data are handled.

Question 2

How long does it take?

Accepted Answer

The Basic Security Audit takes 3–5 business days from the moment we have your brief. The Premium Security Audit takes 5–7 business days and includes a 45-minute walkthrough call once the report is delivered. Remediation packs take 2–5 days depending on the tier.

Question 3

What does the deliverable look like?

Accepted Answer

A plain-English PDF report. Every finding has a risk rating, what it means for your business in one sentence, and the exact steps to fix it. Premium also includes a prioritised remediation roadmap with rough effort estimates.

Question 4

Is this done remotely?

Accepted Answer

Yes — every audit is fully remote. Most of the work is done from the outside in. For the configuration reviews we either walk through screens with you on a call or you send read-only exports; we never ask for passwords.

Question 5

Do you need access to my systems?

Accepted Answer

Not for the external checks. For the Premium configuration reviews we ask for read-only visibility into specific dashboards, agreed in writing beforehand. You can revoke it the moment the audit is done.

Question 6

Is this a subscription?

Accepted Answer

The audits and remediation packs are one-time services with a one-time price. Security Monitoring is an optional monthly retainer ($149/mo or $1,499/yr) you can start or stop anytime — there's nothing locked in.

Question 7

Do you offer ongoing monthly monitoring?

Accepted Answer

Yes. The Security Monitoring Retainer is $149/month (or $1,499/year) and lives right here on upbuildrsecurity.com. It includes monthly vulnerability scans, uptime and SSL monitoring, new-exposure alerts, and a quarterly mini-audit. The $49/mo Security Add-on on upbuildr.com is a different product — it bundles monitoring into a website care plan. This one is standalone.

Question 8

What's the difference between the monitoring retainer and the $49/mo add-on?

Accepted Answer

The $49/mo Security Add-on on upbuildr.com is an add-on to a website care plan — it bundles security monitoring with ongoing website maintenance, updates, and hosting support. The $149/mo retainer here is standalone security monitoring only: scans, alerts, and a quarterly refresh, with no website maintenance bundled in. If you already have a care plan on upbuildr.com, the add-on may be the better fit. If you just want security monitoring, this is it.

Question 9

What happens after the report?

Accepted Answer

Most clients fix the items themselves using the steps in the report — that's what it's written for. If you'd rather we handle it, the Quick-Fix Pack ($299) closes the urgent findings and the Hardening Sprint ($599) goes deeper into structural hardening — both quoted after the audit so we fix exactly what was found.

Question 10

Do I need an audit before remediation?

Accepted Answer

The Quick-Fix Pack and Hardening Sprint are built to close the gaps an audit finds, so we quote them after delivering your report. If you already know what's broken and just want it fixed, tell us in the contact form and we'll scope it directly.

Question 11

What's the difference between an audit and a penetration test?

Accepted Answer

An audit is a configuration and exposure review — we check what's set up wrong and what's exposed, then hand you a prioritised fix list. A penetration test goes further: we manually attempt to exploit those gaps the way an attacker would, to see what's actually reachable. Audits start at $199; pen testing is quote-on-contact, typically $899–$1,499.

Question 12

Can you build or fix my website too?

Accepted Answer

That's the other half of the business. Website design, build and care plans live at upbuildr.com — same team, same standards.

Questions people ask before booking