Website maintenance is the monthly work that keeps a site updated, backed up, secure and fast after launch. A typical plan covers software updates, offsite backups, security monitoring, uptime alerts and a few hours of small changes. Ours start at USD 120 a month, and the price mostly depends on what the site runs on and how quickly someone has to answer when it breaks.
What a maintenance plan includes
The names change from one agency to another, but a plan worth paying for covers the same ground:
- Updates: the CMS, the theme and every plugin, tested before they reach the live site.
- Backups: daily, stored away from the server, and restored at least once to prove they work.
- Security: hardening, malware scans, and someone who acts when a scan finds something.
- Monitoring: uptime and SSL alerts, so you hear about a problem before your customers do.
- Performance: keeping Core Web Vitals in the green as the site grows.
- Small changes: a monthly allowance for content edits, fixes and new sections.
- A report: what was updated, what was found and what was fixed, once a month.
If a plan only lists "updates", ask what happens when one of them breaks the site.
What it costs
A maintenance plan is a fixed monthly fee, so we publish ours:
- Essential, USD 120 a month: updates, daily offsite backups, uptime and SSL monitoring, security scanning and a monthly report.
- Care plan, USD 290 a month: everything above, plus a monthly allowance of work, Core Web Vitals kept in the green, a named contact, a response within one business day and a staging copy for anything risky.
- Custom: for sites where downtime costs money by the hour, with 24/7 cover and a rollback plan for every release.
Hosting is not included, on purpose. Keeping the two separate means you are never locked in by your own invoice.
What moves the price
Two sites can both be "a WordPress site" and need very different care. The main factors:
- What the site does. A brochure site that changes twice a year needs far less attention than a store taking orders all day.
- How many moving parts it has. Every plugin, integration and custom feature is something that can break on the next update.
- How fast someone has to answer. Next business day costs less than 24/7.
- How much work you expect each month. New pages and landing pages for campaigns need hours, not just updates.
Do you need a maintenance plan?
You probably do if the site brings in leads or sales, if it runs on WordPress or another CMS with plugins, or if nobody on your team has the time to test updates and check backups. You can skip it if the site is a static page that never changes and has no forms or plugins.
Most months nothing visible happens: updates go in, backups run, the report arrives. The plan pays for itself the month an update fails or the site goes down.
What to ask before you sign
- When did you last restore one of the backups?
- Do updates go through a staging copy first, or straight to the live site?
- Who answers when the site goes down, and how fast?
- Do I keep the access, the backups and the documentation if I leave?
- Can I cancel with a month's notice?
We have looked after DinoCloud's WordPress site for five years. What keeps that working is in the answers to these five questions.