RPO tells you how much website data you can afford to lose when something goes wrong.

RTO tells you how long your WordPress website can realistically remain unavailable.

For example, a daily backup can mean an RPO of up to 24 hours of lost edits, orders, or comments.

But your scheduled backup frequency is only useful if those backups actually complete successfully.

A failed backup job can make your real RPO much worse than the number you planned for.

RTO is more than the time required to restore your files and database.

It includes four stages: detecting the problem, deciding to restore, performing the restore, and waiting for caches or DNS to update.

For a small website, the actual restore may take only a few minutes.

Larger websites can take significantly longer because of file size, database size, and transfer speed.

Where your backup is stored can also have a major impact on recovery time.

Backups stored on the same server as your website may become useless if that server fails.

An out-of-band restore can be especially valuable when WordPress itself is broken and wp-admin is inaccessible.

The best way to know your real RPO and RTO is to regularly perform and time a test restore.

For agencies, these numbers can also become clear and measurable SLA commitments for clients.

Read the full guide: https://backupyoursite.com/blog/rpo-and-rto-for-a-wordpress-site-in-plain-numbers/

The key takeaway: measure your real recovery numbers before an incident forces you to discover them.