Website maintenance cost: what the money buys, in numbers
Maintenance is four jobs sold under one word: keeping the software current, watching that the site is up, changing what is on it, and the server it lives on. Price each one on its own and the monthly figure stops being a mystery.
The four parts of maintenance
- Updates. The software the site runs on: a CMS, its plugins, a framework, the libraries a build pulls in.
- Monitoring. Somebody notices when the site is down before a customer does.
- Edits. New opening hours, a changed price list, a new section, a photo swapped.
- Hosting. Where the files live, the certificate that makes it https, and your domain pointing at it.
A quote that says "maintenance" without saying which of the four it covers cannot be compared with anything. Ask for the four separately, then add them up.
The kind of site sets most of the bill
A site made of plain files (pages, styles, pictures) has no plugins to patch and no database to back up. Its maintenance is mostly edits and hosting, and months can pass with nothing to do.
A WordPress site runs code on every visit and keeps its content in a database. Plugins need updating most weeks, an update can break a page, and the database needs a backup somebody has restored at least once. That is real work, and it is why the same five pages cost more to keep on WordPress than as files.
What we charge, part by part
| Plan | Price | What it covers |
|---|---|---|
| Website Care Basic | $19 a month | Updates and uptime monitoring. |
| Website Care Plus | $39 a month | Basic, plus two hours of content and design edits each month and a monthly report. |
| Website Care Pro | $79 a month | Plus, with four hours of edits, an SEO snapshot and priority handling. |
| Edits without a plan | $0.03 a character | Each change priced by the words you write, $29 minimum per sheet. |
The prices come from our catalogue when this page is served. They are in US dollars in every language.
Edits: pay per change, or per month
On the bench an edit is priced by the words of the request, not by the hour. You mark the part of the page, write what to fit, and the line costs $0.03 a character. A sheet that adds up to less than $29 is charged $29, once per sheet, never per line.
- New opening hours, a 60-character note: $1.80, so the sheet costs the $29 minimum.
- Three paragraphs rewritten, 1,200 characters: $36.
- A new section of 2,500 characters: $75.
The sheet is paid before anyone touches the page, and its total cannot grow afterwards. The fitter may only lower a line, never raise it, and the difference comes back as credit. How edits work has the long version.
If you change something most months, compare a few sheets with Website Care Plus, which has two hours of edits in its $39. If you change something twice a year, a sheet when you need one costs less than any plan.
Hosting is part of the bill
Hosting is billed apart from care. Our three tiers are Publish at $19, Managed at $49 and Keep at $79 a month.
- Publish serves a site made of files, with a check on every new version before it goes live.
- Managed runs a WordPress or generated site for you: nightly backups with a restore we test, updates applied and checked again, a staging address, and a rollback when a version's score drops.
- Keep is Managed plus monitors on the live site and the edit hours of Website Care Pro.
For a WordPress site that changes every month, set Keep at $79 against Managed at $49 plus Website Care Pro at $79. What a small business site needs from hosting goes through the tiers one by one.
What to ask any provider
- Which of the four parts does the monthly price cover, and which are billed on top?
- What gets updated, how often, and who checks the site afterwards?
- When was a backup last restored, not just taken?
- Is an edit priced before work starts, or counted in hours afterwards?
- What happens to the price when a change turns out simpler than quoted?
Our answers are on this page: four parts priced separately, backups restored on Managed and Keep, every edit priced on the sheet before it is paid, and a line that may only go down.
Questions people ask
- How much does website maintenance cost per month?With us, $19 a month for updates and uptime monitoring, $39 with two hours of edits and a monthly report, and $79 with four hours of edits, an SEO snapshot and priority handling. Hosting is billed separately, from $19 a month.
- Does a static website need a maintenance plan?Often not. A site made of files has nothing to patch, so you pay for hosting and for edits when you make them, at $0.03 a character with a $29 minimum per sheet.
- Can an edit end up costing more than the sheet said?No. The sheet is paid before work starts and its total cannot grow. The fitter may only lower a line, and the difference comes back to your account as credit.
- Which currency are the prices in?US dollars, in every language the site is in.
Pick the part you need
Each plan opens a service sheet with the price from the catalogue. An edit starts from the address of your page.