How to Create Cron Jobs on Sites Hosted on BionicWP

BionicWP is a fully managed WordPress hosting platform. To maintain platform stability, security, and predictable performance, customer access to system-level Linux cron (crontab) is restricted.

While SSH access and WP-CLI are fully supported, customers cannot create traditional system cron jobs that reference a PHP executable path (for example, /usr/bin/php). This article explains the supported and recommended ways to create cron jobs on sites hosted on BionicWP.

On BionicWP:

• SSH access is available

• WP-CLI works normally and uses PHP CLI internally

• PHP CLI exists on the server

However:

• System-level cron (crontab) is not available to customer accounts

• PHP CLI executable paths are not exposed or supported for customer-defined cron jobs

This means cron jobs that rely on commands such as:

/usr/bin/php /path/to/script.php

cannot be configured on BionicWP.

These restrictions are intentional and help:

• Prevent misconfigured background jobs from impacting server stability

• Control long-running or resource-intensive processes

• Maintain consistent performance across all hosted sites

Method 1: Use WordPress Cron (WP-Cron)

WordPress includes a built-in scheduling system called WP-Cron, which runs scheduled tasks when visitors access your site.

To create and manage cron jobs using WP-Cron, we recommend installing one of the following plugins:

• WP Crontrol

• Advanced Cron Manager

These plugins allow you to:

• Create custom cron events

• Modify existing schedules

• Manually trigger cron jobs

• View registered cron hooks and execution times

This method does not require system cron access or a PHP binary path.

Recommended for:
Low to medium frequency tasks that do not require precise execution timing.

Method 2: Use an External Cron Service (Recommended for Reliability)

For cron jobs that must run at specific intervals and should not depend on site traffic, BionicWP recommends using an external web-based cron service.

Popular services include:

• EasyCron

• cron-job.org

Instead of executing a PHP command, the cron service sends an HTTP request to a URL on your site.

Common configurations include:

• Trigger WordPress cron directly

  https://yourdomain.com/wp-cron.php?doing_wp_cron

• Run a custom PHP script

  https://yourdomain.com/path/to/custom-script.php

This approach is fully supported and is the preferred method for reliable and time-sensitive cron jobs on BionicWP.

BionicWP is a fully managed WordPress hosting platform where SSH access and WP-CLI are supported, but customer access to system-level Linux cron is restricted. Because of this, PHP CLI executable paths are not exposed for use in customer-defined cron jobs. To run scheduled tasks, sites hosted on BionicWP should use WordPress Cron (WP-Cron) or an external web-based cron service, with external cron services being the recommended option for reliable and time-sensitive execution.