How often should a WooCommerce store back up?

1. Find your busiest hour from your order history, and count the orders in it.
2. Multiply by the interval you are considering. That is the most orders a restore could lose.
3. Ask what it would take to rebuild those orders from payment records and emails, and who would do it.
4. If that sounds acceptable, the interval is fine. If not, shorten it, and repeat.

Don’t forget what else changes between backups: new customer accounts, refunds, stock levels, and edits by your staff.

WooCommerce’s backup guide describes two locations: the wp-content folder and the database. Orders live in the database, so a files-only backup misses them, and the guide notes that the standard WordPress export leaves out order and product tables. A plugin that backs up only some tables deserves a close look too, especially if your store uses High-Performance Order Storage, where orders sit in their own tables.

Two hours isn’t a recommendation for every store. It is the schedule on that one, a store that must stay up. Prices are invoiced in the customer's local currency.

A backup on the same server fails along with the server, and may be reachable by whatever compromised the site. Keep a copy in separate storage, under separate credentials. S3-compatible object storage works well for this, and it’s what we use on the store above. Decide how long copies are kept too, because a problem such as malware can go unnoticed for days, and then all your recent copies contain it.

Until you have restored one, you only have a file. Try this on a separate environment, never over the live store:

• Restore files and database from your latest copy, and time it.
• Log in, open recent orders, and check that the newest one is as recent as you expect.
• Place a test order, with payments in test mode and outgoing email turned off.
• Write down the steps and the time, so someone else could do it under pressure.
• Repeat on a schedule, and after any large change to the store.

Going back to a copy means losing whatever came after it. Before you restore, export any newer orders you can reach, and compare with your payment provider’s records afterwards. If orders also travel to an ERP, it may hold orders the restored store no longer knows about, and numbering can collide. Our order sync guide covers reconciling the two. And take a fresh backup before any update, as WooCommerce advises.

See what maintenance should include for the wider picture, or our WooCommerce maintenance plans.