Your site was altered or broken some days ago, you only noticed today, and you are now looking at a backup list that may or may not reach back far enough. Whether a free WordPress backup plugin saves you in that moment comes down to two settings most owners never open: how many copies it keeps, and where those copies sit.
followedapp is published by the team behind RecurPost, which is a covered vendor under the same rules as every other vendor. Vendor pages cited below were fetched on 2026-10-10 and prices were verified on that date. This post is not Watchdog data and is not on the re-verification schedule, so check the vendor page before you buy.
The two-week problem
Here is an illustration, not a report. A plugin update corrupts a page template on day 0. The owner notices on day 10 when a client mentions it. The plugin runs a daily backup and keeps the last 7 copies, so the oldest copy was taken on day 3. Every copy on disk postdates the damage and contains it.
Two numbers decide that story. The first is retention, meaning how many copies, or how many days, the plugin keeps. The second is discovery lag, the time between the problem happening and someone noticing. If lag is longer than the window, there is no clean copy to go back to. Catching problems sooner shortens the lag, which is why uptime monitoring for the page a campaign sends traffic to belongs in the same conversation as backups.
A setting that says “keep the last few” is a count of copies, not a count of days. The days covered depend on the schedule. This is arithmetic, not vendor data: a daily schedule keeping 7 copies reaches back 7 days, and a weekly schedule keeping 7 copies reaches back 7 weeks, or 49 days.
Where the copy lives matters as much as how long
A backup stored inside the site’s own hosting account shares the fate of that account. If the host has a failure, suspends the account, or the account is compromised and then cleaned or wiped, the copy can go with the site. A same-server copy still helps with undoing a bad edit or update.
The WordPress developer documentation on backups, fetched 2026-10-10, makes the general point in its answer to how many backups to keep: “at least 3-5 recent WordPress backups,” with “copies stored in different locations,” for example the hosting server, cloud storage and your own computer. (developer.wordpress.org).
None of the BackWPup, UpdraftPlus or Duplicator pages, as fetched, states which destination is selected out of the box, so do not assume it is a remote one.
So check two things in your own plugin. First, the storage setting for your scheduled job. Second, whether a remote destination has been authorised, meaning you completed the sign-in or entered working credentials, rather than the plugin merely listing it as supported.
Plugin by plugin: retention default, destinations, and what the free plan leaves out
The table records what each vendor’s own pages said on 2026-10-10, with no ranking.
| Plugin | Default retention as documented | Remote destinations, free version | Listed as paid | Pages fetched 2026-10-10 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| UpdraftPlus | Not stated on the page fetched. The premium list mentions “more control over how many backups are stored in a specified interval.” | Dropbox, Google Drive, Amazon S3 (or compatible), Rackspace Cloud, FTP, DreamObjects, Openstack Swift, email | OneDrive, Azure, Google Cloud, Backblaze B2, SFTP, SCP, pCloud, WebDAV, UpdraftVault; incremental backups; set run times; multiple locations. Premium price not captured. | wordpress.org/plugins/updraftplus, teamupdraft.com add-ons |
| BackWPup | Not stated as a number. The page says each destination “has its own settings, including how many backups to retain.” | Website Server (local), Dropbox, FTP, Microsoft Azure, Amazon S3 and compatible, SugarSync, Rackspace Cloud Files | Google Drive, Microsoft OneDrive, Amazon Glacier, HiDrive; migration to a new URL. Pro price not captured. | wordpress.org/plugins/backwpup |
| Duplicator | Not stated as a number. The page says local folders keep “automatic retention of the most recent ones.” | Local, and Duplicator Cloud (separately priced, see below) | Dropbox, Google Drive, OneDrive, Amazon S3, FTP/SFTP via Pro. Plans normally $79 (Basic, 2 sites), $199 (Plus, 5), $399 (Pro, 20), $599 (Elite, 100), shown during a 60% promotion. | wordpress.org/plugins/duplicator, duplicator.com/pricing |
| Jetpack VaultPress Backup | Chosen by the owner: 7 days, 30 days, 120 days, or 1 year on the 10 GB plan, per the vendor’s retention article. | None. The vendor stores the copy itself and the plugin page says it does not save directly to Google Drive or Dropbox. | Backups are not in Jetpack Free. The pricing page shows Free as “Not included” for backup storage. | wordpress.org/plugins/jetpack-backup, jetpack.com/pricing, storage and retention |
Duplicator’s wordpress.org description lists scheduled backups among its features and also calls the free plugin the Lite version of Duplicator Pro, “which comes with scheduled backups,” so that page does not settle which schedule options the free plugin includes. Duplicator Cloud, per the pricing page, runs from 2GB at $29 per year to 150GB at $199 per year, in USD.
The hosted service route: retention is a plan feature
A hosted backup service flips the arrangement. The copy lives with the vendor, off your host, and the retention window is part of what the plan sells. Jetpack’s retention article says: “Jetpack VaultPress Backup 10 GB: You can choose between 7 days, 30 days, 120 days, or 1 year,” and “Jetpack Backup Realtime, Jetpack Security Realtime, and Jetpack Complete: 1 year, no storage space limit.” The pricing page warns that at the storage limit “older backups will be deleted,” so the window is set by plan and storage rather than a setting you can leave wrong, but it can shrink if the site grows. The pricing page was served in Indian rupees on the fetch date, so check your own currency.
BlogVault’s pricing page was readable. It lists Personal at $99 per site per year with “30 days backup retention,” Business at $299 with “90 days backup retention,” and WooCommerce at $499 with “365 days backup retention,” all in US dollars, billed yearly, and shown at a 50% discount on the fetch date. It also says backups are “stored away from your host, in the EU.” Source: blogvault.net/pricing.
UpdraftVault is UpdraftPlus’s own storage. The vault page says it is an add-on usable with the free or premium plugin, and lists 5GB at $35 per year, 15GB at $70 per year and 50GB at $175 per year. No retention period is stated. Source: teamupdraft.com/updraftplus/updraftvault.
What a restore actually needs
A file existing is not a site coming back:
- Database and files together. The WordPress documentation says you need both to fully restore a typical WordPress site. BackWPup’s page describes its full backup as the database plus files including wp-content, themes, plugins and uploads, and also offers database-only or files-only jobs. Confirm your job is the full one.
- The configuration file. UpdraftPlus’s changelog on its wordpress.org page refers to an “Over-write wp-config.php” option during restoration. Check how your plugin treats wp-config.
- A working WordPress to restore into. Jetpack’s manual restore guide, fetched 2026-10-10, starts with “Make sure that WordPress is installed and functioning on your server,” then has you unpack a download with wp-content folders and .sql files. Jetpack’s backup guide lists a plan that includes backups and “a working Jetpack connection” as requirements.
Two things this post could not confirm from vendor restore documentation: whether the storage account sign-in must be on hand at restore time, and whether a restore needs the same plugin installed. Check your plugin’s own restore guide for both before you need it.
Then do one test restore to a staging copy and write down the date.
A short audit the reader can run today
Four questions, in order, about five minutes:
- How often does the job run?
- How many copies are kept, and therefore how many days back?
- Where is the newest copy stored, and is that destination authorised?
- When did a restore last get tested?
Turn the answers into a figure with the arithmetic from the first section. Suppose the answers are weekly, 4 copies, newest copy in Dropbox with sign-in completed, never tested. Four weekly copies reach back 28 days. If problems can go unnoticed for a month, that is not enough: raise the count or add a daily job.
A synced folder is a different tool: it typically follows changes, including bad ones, where a backup keeps dated copies. How storage is priced for social teams covers version history on the creative side.
FAQ
How many backups does a free WordPress backup plugin keep?
It depends on the plugin and on a setting the owner can change. As fetched 2026-10-10, the UpdraftPlus, BackWPup and Duplicator pages do not state a default number (see the table). Copies kept multiplied by the interval between backups gives the days covered.
Is a backup stored on my own hosting account safe?
It protects against a bad edit or plugin update, but not against loss of the account or server. The WordPress developer documentation advises keeping copies in different locations. This post makes no claim about how often hosts fail.
How do I know my backup works?
Restore it to a staging copy and write down the date you did it. A file existing on disk does not show that.