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Certified Umbraco partners, for agencies & in-house teams

The Umbraco practice
agencies lean on.

Most of what we do is the quiet part: keeping Umbraco estates patched, monitored and moving, month after month. We build them too, and we upgrade the ones that have fallen behind.

Talk about supportCheck an upgrade

01 / The practice

Support, builds, upgrades.
In that order.

  • /01

    Support & maintenance

    Monitoring, patching and retained senior hours. The largest part of what we do, the part clients notice least, and the part we most enjoy getting right.

  • /02

    Full builds

    Greenfield Umbraco platforms: e-commerce, marketing estates, member portals, built API-first on the current LTS and handed over documented.

  • /03

    Upgrades

    Version jumps at fixed price, with migration scripts, regression testing and a content freeze that protects everything.

02 / Support & maintenance

Someone who already knows the codebase.

Umbraco estates do not fail loudly. They drift out of support, accumulate unpatched packages and quietly become the thing nobody wants to touch. A retainer is how that stops happening.

  • Monitoring & alerting

    Uptime, error rates and certificate expiry watched around the clock, with someone on the end of it.

  • Security patching

    Umbraco and package CVEs applied on a schedule, tested on staging before they reach production.

  • Retained developer hours

    Senior time each month for the small changes that would otherwise queue behind a project.

  • Backups & restore drills

    Backups verified by actually restoring them, because an untested backup is a rumour.

  • Version headroom

    We keep you inside the supported window, so an upgrade is never an emergency.

  • A named developer

    The same person, release after release. No ticket roulette, no re-explaining your architecture.

  • Essential

    £120/month

    • 24/7 server monitoring
    • Phone support, 9–5 UK
    • Umbraco security patches
    • Dev work billed separately

  • Standard — free upgrade

    £500/month

    • Everything in Essential
    • Ticket support & updates
    • 3 retained dev hours/month
    • 17 LTS upgrade free on 12-month plan

  • Time & materials

    £80/hour

    • Ad-hoc senior dev time
    • Pre-agreed rate
    • Discounted for retainer clients
    • For roadmaps & features

Most of our support work is code we didn't write.

Inherited estates are the norm, not the exception. We start with a free health check to find out what is actually there: the undocumented integration, the package forked in 2019. Then we tell you honestly what it will take to hold. Taking on someone else's codebase is a normal Tuesday.

03 / What we build

Umbraco, past the brochure site.

A standard install is rarely the difficult part. It's the custom editors, competing brands and integrations that have to keep working after launch.

  • Multi-site estates

    Dozens of sites on one codebase, with shared components and per-brand content governance.

  • Headless & Delivery API

    Umbraco as a content backend for Next.js and native apps, using the Delivery API or a bespoke layer.

  • Commerce

    Umbraco Commerce builds and integrations with payment, tax and fulfilment providers.

  • Member portals

    Authenticated areas, custom member logic and role-driven content for membership organisations.

  • Integrations

    CRM, PIM, ERP, identity and search wired into the backoffice so editors never leave it.

  • Backoffice extensions

    Custom property editors, dashboards and workflows that make the CMS fit how the team actually works.

04 / Upgrades

And when it has fallen behind.

Upgrades are usually how people find us. Where your version sits, what actually breaks on the way, and how the work runs.

Scroll for upgrade path and effort →

Umbraco version support status, upgrade path to 17 LTS and typical effort
VersionStatusPath to 17 LTSTypical effort
v7End of life — Sep 2023. Unsupported, unpatched.Rebuild: 7 → 173+ weeks
v8End of life — Feb 2025. Unsupported.Rebuild: 8 → 173+ weeks
v9–12End of life. Short hops remaining.Direct to 17 LTS1–2 weeks
v13LTS — security-only until Dec 2026.Direct to 17 LTS3–5 days
v17Current LTS — supported into 2028.You're current—

Indicative effort for a typical estate. The free health check turns it into a fixed quote.

What actually breaks

7 → 8

Heavy

The backoffice and codebase change substantially. Custom property editors need reworking, the grid gives way to newer content structures, and much of the v7 package ecosystem simply has no v8 equivalent.

Watch for: custom property editors, abandoned packages, grid-heavy content.

8 → 13

The big one

This is the .NET Framework to modern .NET move. Every line of custom code, every integration and every template pipeline is recompiled or rewritten, and Windows-only hosting assumptions stop being true.

Watch for: custom code volume, third-party integrations, hosting infrastructure.

13 → 17

Modest

Content, templates and most custom code carry over. The new backoffice can break custom extensions, and some packages lag behind the release. A straightforward v13 estate typically takes three to five days; heavier custom work can take weeks.

Watch for: custom backoffice extensions, package release timing.

How an upgrade runs

  1. 01

    Health check & fixed quote

    Free. We assess the estate and give one fixed price, with the scope written down.

  2. 02

    Upgrade & migration scripts

    Custom migrations for deprecated data types, packages and plugins.

  3. 03

    QA, then your UAT

    Full regression pass, then a staging environment for your sign-off.

  4. 04

    Content freeze & migration

    A short freeze protects content while it moves. Nothing gets lost.

  5. 05

    Deployment & DNS switch

    Including infrastructure changes for pre-v9 estates. Then support begins.

05 / Upgrade checker

Two minutes to a straight answer.

Tell us what your estate looks like. The checker scores likely upgrade effort and shows what drives it; the free health check turns that into a fixed quote.

Current version
Content nodes
Multi-lingual?
Which of these apply?

Your result

Straightforward

Estimated effort

3–5 days

A clean jump with no real surprises in it.

What's driving it

  • 200–1,000 content nodes to migrate and re-test.

06 / Questions

Support and upgrades, answered.

Do you support Umbraco sites you didn't build?
Yes. Most of our Umbraco support work is on codebases we didn't write. We start with a free health check, then offer monitoring and patching from £120 per month. Retained development hours are available on plans from £500 per month; taking over someone else's estate is routine for us.
What does an Umbraco support retainer include?
Essential starts at £120 per month for Umbraco monitoring and security patching; development work is billed separately. Standard starts at £500 per month and adds ticket support and three retained development hours. Both plans include a named developer, with patches tested on staging before release.
Can you take over support from our current agency?
Yes, we can take over Umbraco support from your current agency. A free health check establishes what is being handed over; monitoring and patching then start from an agreed date. The outgoing agency's cooperation helps, though we can work without it.
What can Helitz build in Umbraco?
Multi-site Umbraco estates on a shared codebase, headless builds using the Delivery API, Umbraco Commerce, member portals and backoffice extensions. We are certified Umbraco partners and build API-first on the current LTS.
Is Umbraco 8 still supported?
No, Umbraco 8 reached end of life in February 2025 and no longer receives security patches. Umbraco 7 reached end of life in September 2023. Security vulnerabilities on either version may therefore remain unpatched.
Which Umbraco version should we upgrade to?
Umbraco 17 LTS, which is supported into 2028. Upgrading to anything earlier means repeating the exercise sooner. If you are on v13 you have security-only support until December 2026, so the jump is worth planning but is not an emergency.
How long does an Umbraco upgrade take?
For a straightforward Umbraco v13 estate, Helitz's indicative effort is three to five days; v9–12 with some custom code is usually one to two weeks. A v7 or v8 estate crosses the .NET Framework boundary and is treated as a rebuild, at three weeks or more. Custom member logic, indexing and large content trees can increase the effort; a health check establishes the quote.
Why is the jump from Umbraco 8 to 13 the difficult one?
The Umbraco 8 to 13 jump moves an estate from .NET Framework to modern .NET. Custom code, integrations and template pipelines need recompiling or rewriting, and Windows-only hosting assumptions may need revisiting. The 7 to 8 jump is heavy for different reasons: custom property editors and the old package ecosystem. The 13 to 17 jump is modest for most estates.
Can we get the upgrade for free?
On the Standard support plan, yes. Join at £500 per month for twelve months and the upgrade to Umbraco 17 LTS is included. After that, continue, change the plan, or walk away. The offer applies to most estates on v9 and above.
Will our content team be able to keep publishing during an upgrade?
Your content team can usually keep publishing during a Helitz Umbraco upgrade's build and QA phases. There is a short freeze while content migrates to the upgraded environment, typically a day or less. We agree that window with your team in advance.

Put it on a
steady footing.

Whether that means a retainer, a rebuild or just an honest look at what you've got. The health check is free and we'll tell you if you don't need us.

Talk about supportCheck an upgrade