Case Study — WordPress & WooCommerce

Fixed in 3 days. £60k rebuild avoided.

Six weeks of failure from the incumbent agency. A £60,000+ rebuild on the table. Then Resolve Beyond was called in. Three days later the subscription platform was live, fully operational, and no data had been lost.

Platform broken for
6 wks
before we were called
Time to full fix
3 days
from first engagement
Rebuild cost avoided
£60k+
quoted by previous agency
Data loss
subscribers, orders, or content
The situation

A subscription platform broken for six weeks. A rebuild quoted. A business waiting.

My GSN is an online subscription platform built on WordPress and WooCommerce. Subscriptions, recurring billing, member access — the business runs on the platform working. When it stopped working, revenue stopped with it.

The incumbent agency spent six weeks investigating without resolution. Their conclusion: the codebase was too damaged to fix. A full rebuild was quoted at over £60,000. Neal Rawlinson, the founder, was weighing up a decision he shouldn’t have had to make.

Resolve Beyond was brought in for a second opinion. We assessed the codebase, identified the root cause, and resolved the issue in three days. No rebuild. No data loss. No drama.

They fixed in three days what another agency couldn't solve in six weeks. A rebuild had been quoted at over £60,000. Resolve Beyond fixed what we had, with no data loss and no disruption to our subscribers.
NR
Neal Rawlinson
Founder, My GSN
Client
My GSN
Online subscription platform
Platform WordPress & WooCommerce
Engagement type Emergency rescue
Time to resolution 3 days
Rebuild cost avoided £60,000+
Contact Neal Rawlinson, Founder
Services delivered
Emergency codebase assessment
Root cause diagnosis
WooCommerce subscription fix
Data integrity verification
Full regression testing
Ongoing support retainer established
The full timeline

What happened, and when.

This isn't an approximation. These are the actual stages of the engagement from first contact to full resolution.

Weeks 1–6, Before Resolve Beyond
Subscription platform breaks, incumbent agency fails to fix
My GSN's WooCommerce subscription system stops processing renewals and new sign-ups. The incumbent agency investigates for six weeks without identifying the root cause. Revenue stops. Subscribers start to churn. A full rebuild is quoted at over £60,000.
Day 1 — Resolve Beyond engaged
First contact, full codebase assessment begins
Neal Rawlinson contacts Resolve Beyond. We take full access to the codebase, hosting environment, and database. A senior WordPress and WooCommerce developer begins a structured assessment. No assumptions, we read what's actually there.
Days 1–2 — Root cause found
Plugin conflict and database inconsistency identified
The failure stems from a version conflict between WooCommerce Subscriptions and the payment gateway integration, compounded by a database inconsistency from a previous update. The rebuild recommendation was not justified. This is fixable.
Days 2–3 — Fix deployed
Subscription processing restored, all subscriber data intact
Plugin conflict resolved, payment gateway repaired, database inconsistencies corrected. All subscriber data intact. Renewals and new sign-ups tested across multiple payment scenarios. Full regression test in staging before deployment to production.
Day 3 — Live in production
Platform fully operational, zero data loss confirmed
Fix live in production. Subscription processing verified. No subscriber records lost, no order history affected, no billing disruption to existing members. Neal Rawlinson confirms the platform is working exactly as expected. Ongoing retainer agreed.
3
days to full resolution
6
weeks the previous agency spent failing
£60k
rebuild cost avoided
subscriber records lost
Fix applied to the existing codebase. No migration. No rebuild. No re-onboarding of subscribers. Platform back to full operational status in 72 hours from first contact.
What was at stake
Six weeks of subscription revenue lost during downtime
Subscriber churn from non-functional renewal process
£60,000+ rebuild cost on the table
3–6 months rebuild timeline with no platform during construction
Platform operational again in 3 days
All subscriber data fully intact
Rebuild cost avoided entirely
Ongoing retainer means it won't happen again
In 26 years, there has never been an issue we could not resolve.
Not one. If another agency has told you it needs a rebuild, talk to us first
Get a second opinion
The fix-first principle

Why we didn't rebuild it.

Every agency that looked at My GSN’s platform saw the same thing we did: a messy plugin interaction, some database inconsistency, and a codebase that had accrued technical debt over years of updates. The difference is what conclusion they drew from it.

A rebuild recommendation is commercially attractive for an agency. It means a large, defined project, clear scope, and predictable revenue. It also means the client spends £60,000 and waits six months with no platform.

We assessed the actual root cause, not the surface-level disorder around it. The subscription failure had a specific, diagnosable origin. Once identified, it was fixable. The rebuild was never necessary. It just required someone prepared to look properly.

The Resolve Beyond position on rebuilds

We have never recommended a rebuild that wasn't genuinely necessary. In 26 years, that has been a rare outcome. We assess honestly, tell you what the platform actually needs, and explain exactly why, before we spend any of your budget finding it out.

After the fix

What happened next.

Following the resolution, My GSN moved to an ongoing Resolve Beyond support retainer. The same senior developer who fixed the platform now maintains it, with full context, no re-briefing, and a response time that means problems are caught before they become crises.

The subscription platform has operated without incident since. Platform updates are managed, plugin compatibility is monitored, and Neal has a direct line to the team that knows the codebase.

Ongoing retainer includes
P1 critical response, senior developer allocated within 1 hour
3-hour acknowledgement on all non-critical requests
Ongoing WordPress and WooCommerce updates and compatibility
Subscription plugin and payment gateway monitoring
Named senior developer with full platform context
More case studies

Other platforms. Same outcome.

Let's Talk

Is your platform telling you it needs a rebuild? Get a second opinion.

In 26 years we have never had an issue we couldn't resolve, including the ones other agencies had already given up on.

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