Candid Support — the support standard
Last updated: July 21, 2026
Every hosting company claims great support. So this page tells you exactly what ours is — the specific commitments we make, the response times we publish, and the things we will not do inside a support conversation.
We call it Candid Support. It goes with the brand for a reason. The person who answers your ticket has the access and the authority to fix your problem, and will tell you plainly what broke and what we did about it.
The five commitments
1. Real answers, not routing.
A chatbot may collect your account and problem details upfront so an engineer isn’t asking you to re-explain — that’s fine, it saves your time. But the reply that solves your problem comes from someone who can actually solve it. Not a tier-1 rep whose job is to route your ticket up a ladder to somebody with the actual permissions.
2. The engineers on the support rotation have production access.
Every engineer who replies to your ticket also deploys code, restores backups, and reads the same server logs the runbook is based on. There is no separate escalation tier that has more context than the person answering you — because they already have that context. If they need help, they ask a peer. That is not a customer-facing escalation, it is how a healthy engineering team works.
3. No upsells inside a support conversation. Ever.
You had a broken plugin. You do not need to hear about our next tier. The support conversation ends when your problem is solved. If we ever notice something that suggests a plan change would fit you better, we send that as a separate, opt-in message from billing — never mixed into a ticket.
4. Root cause and fix in the reply — not just “resolved, please close.”
When we fix something for you, the closing reply includes what actually broke, why it broke, and what we did. Every ticket. If we cannot identify root cause (rare, but it happens), we tell you that too, plainly, and what we would need to trace it further.
5. Response-time targets are published — and honest.
Not “we’ll get back to you soon.” Numbers we can actually hit, published here, held to.
| Ticket type | First response | Resolution or ETA |
|---|---|---|
| Site down | 1 hour (business hours) | Same day |
| Migration in progress | Same business day | Priority attention until it’s done |
| Everything else | 1 business day | 3 business days |
These targets assume the business hours below. In practice we usually reply faster — but a target you can only sometimes hit isn’t a target, it’s marketing. If we miss one, we owe you an explanation in the ticket, not a form apology.
What we don’t do
- We don’t run separate tier 1 / tier 2 / tier 3 support ladders. There is one tier. It has production access.
- We don’t outsource support to a third-party call center.
- We don’t require you to prove you tried clearing your browser cache before we look at the problem.
- We don’t close tickets without an explanation.
- We don’t sell add-ons inside a support conversation.
- We don’t push you off the ticket back to a knowledge base article that doesn’t answer your question.
Hours
Business hours: 9am–6pm ET, Monday through Friday. The first-response targets above apply during these hours.
Outside business hours: automated monitoring watches every server around the clock, and a down site alerts us immediately. We also read tickets well past posted hours most days — you’ll often get an answer at 9pm — but that’s a courtesy, not a commitment. An after-hours emergency line is in the works; when it’s real, it will be announced here.
Public and religious holidays: monitoring still runs and outages still get attention. Routine tickets may wait until the next business day.
We do not pretend to be a 24/7 shop. That would be dishonest for what we can staff today. As we grow, hours expand and we announce it here.
What to include when you open a ticket
Faster fixes start with better tickets. Please include, where possible:
- The URL affected.
- Approximate timestamp of when the problem started.
- What you were doing when it broke.
- Any recent changes you know about (plugin updates, code deploys, DNS changes).
- Your account email so we don’t have to ask.
How to reach us
- Client portal: my.candorhost.com → Open a Ticket.
- Email: hello@candorhost.com — auto-opens a ticket.
Escalation, when it applies
If a Candid Support response ever falls short — a target is missed and we haven’t explained why, an issue is closed without root cause, or something feels off — email legal@candorhost.com with the ticket number and a short description of what went wrong. That inbox is monitored by leadership and the response is not routed through support.
Why “Candid Support”?
Because that’s what our whole company is about. If we can be honest about the price you renew at, the number of sites on your box, and the fact that our migration promise is included in the plan you buy — we can be honest about what support means too.
It’s not fanatical. It’s not legendary. It’s not blazing. It’s the person who answers your ticket telling you exactly what broke and fixing it.