What website maintenance includes and what it costs

A website is not finished on launch day. Like a car or a building, it needs regular care to keep working. Website maintenance is that care. Here is what it includes, why it matters and how it is usually priced.

What maintenance includes

A backup is a copy of the data that can be used to restore it after a loss [1].

• Hosting: the server that keeps your site online.
• Domain and SSL: renewing your web address and the security certificate on time. See what is an SSL certificate.
• Software updates: keeping the system, plugins and libraries up to date and secure.
• Backups: regular copies of the site, so a problem never means losing everything.
• Monitoring: noticing when the site is down or slow, ideally before your customers do.
• Security: protecting forms from spam and the site from attacks.
• Small changes: new prices, opening hours, photos, a new team member.
• Support: someone to contact when you need help.

Why it matters

An unmaintained site slowly breaks. Outdated software becomes a security risk, certificates expire and show warnings, forms stop working, and old information costs you customers. Many of the problems in 10 mistakes that are killing your business online are maintenance problems. WordPress's own security guide stresses keeping all software up to date [2], and free certificates such as those from Let's Encrypt are issued by software that runs on the server without human intervention [3].

How it is priced

There are three common models:

1. Per hour or per task. You pay when something needs doing. Cheap when nothing happens, unpredictable when something does, and nobody is watching the site in between.
2. A monthly maintenance package. A fixed fee for a defined set of services, sometimes with a number of hours for changes.
3. Included in a website subscription. Maintenance is part of one monthly price that also covers the build and hosting.

Prices vary a lot depending on the size and complexity of the site and what is included. When comparing, check exactly which of the items above are covered, how quickly they respond and how much a change outside the package costs.

Questions to ask

• Is hosting included, and where is the site hosted?
• How often are updates and backups done?
• How do I request a change, and how fast is it done?
• What counts as a "small change"?
• What happens if the site goes down at the weekend?

Maintenance is invisible when it is done well, and expensive when it is not done at all.

How we handle it

At Studio V1, maintenance is not an extra: hosting, updates, backups, minor changes and a real person to contact are included in our monthly plan. Read why we chose this model in website subscription vs. one-off payment.

References

1. Wikipedia. "Backup." en.wikipedia.org
2. WordPress.org. "Hardening WordPress." developer.wordpress.org
3. Let's Encrypt. "How It Works." letsencrypt.org