Website Maintenance Cost (Expert Guide)

Not sure how much you should be paying for website maintenance?

Perhaps you think you’re overpaying for monthly maintenance on your current site. Or maybe you don’t even have a site yet and want to know what to expect.

Regardless of the reason, it’s important to be aware of the cost of website maintenance. The cost can vary widely depending on industry, site complexity, and other factors.

Also, various website maintenance providers may charge different prices for the same site. You should be informed so you can get a fair rate and avoid being overcharged.

In this article, we’ll cover all aspects of website maintenance costs. We’ll break down costs for all tasks associated with website maintenance, including industry-specific cost estimates.

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What Is Website Maintenance and Why Might You Need It?

Quickly, before we jump into the costs, we want to establish exactly what “website maintenance” is and why it is important for your business.

We’d like to emphasize that “maintenance” focuses on the technical aspects of a website that must be cared for to keep it running properly. Website maintenance does not include the cost of design, development, content creation, and other tasks involved in expanding and marketing your website.

So why is website maintenance important for your business?

Website maintenance keeps your site functioning properly so you can offer the best experience to your visitors and take full advantage of your marketing efforts.

If you’re neglecting website maintenance, your visitors may not be interacting with your website as you intended. You could be missing out on opportunities to connect with new customers and build trust.

Imagine pushing traffic to your website with an advertising campaign but your contact form is broken. That’s wasted opportunity!

Unfortunately, we’ve seen this happen to many businesses (and that’s why they come to us to manage it for them).

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How Much Does Website Maintenance Cost?

Now that you understand precisely what website maintenance means for your business, let’s talk about costs.

These costs can be broken down into the following categories:

• Domain renewal: $10 – $20 per year
• Website hosting: $5 – $75 per month
• Software updates and site optimization: $15 – $5,000 per month
• Inspections, troubleshooting, and repair: $50 – $10,000 per month
• Firewall protection and malware scanning: $0 – $100 per month
• File and database backups: $0 – $50 per month

As you can tell, the costs can vary widely. This is because all websites are unique. They serve different purposes and audiences depending on the business. There are also many different systems and software for running a website which all have different maintenance needs.

For example, if you’re using a website builder such as Wix or Squarespace, you won’t need to worry about software updates, firewall protection, and file backups. On the other hand, if you’re using WordPress, you will need to manually update plugins, monitor site security, and take backups of your files and databases.

As mentioned before, website maintenance does not include the cost of design, development, marketing, and other methods used to grow your website. Maintenance simply includes any required tasks that keep your website fully operational and secure.

In the sections below, we will break down different components of website maintenance and how much they cost. Use this to estimate how much maintenance will cost for your website or contact us for a precise quote.

Website Hosting and Domain Cost

The first essential cost of running a website is the hosting and domain renewal. Without these, your website could not exist in public view.

Domain renewal is the cost of retaining your domain name and costs between $10 and $20 per year.

Website hosting is where all your files and database are stored and retrieved. Most businesses work with a third-party hosting provider and pay between $5 and $75 per month.

The hosting cost can scale to hundreds or thousands per month depending on your needs. It will depend on your number of visitors, file size, resource usage, and speed requirements.

We find that many businesses underpay or overpay for their web hosting, so it’s important to learn how to pick the right hosting plan for your business.

Software Updates and Site Optimization

Often-neglected aspects of website maintenance are software updates and optimization.

We’ve dealt with many businesses who haven’t updated their website plugins in months which can put your site security at risk and increase the likelihood of something breaking.

Optimization also plays an important role in website maintenance. This includes page loading speed, database cleaning, and any other technical needs to keep your website running at maximum performance.

For most websites, software updates and site optimization will cost between $25 and $5,000 per month. Simple blogs or one-page websites will fall on the lower end of this cost range. The upper end of this cost range will apply to advanced web applications with numerous plugins and software integrations.

Remember, it is important to proactively manage updates and optimizations to avoid major problems with your website. Next, we’ll talk about the costs involved in troubleshooting and repairing site errors.

Inspections, Troubleshooting, and Repair

Although preventative maintenance will minimize website errors, some problems cannot be anticipated.

You’ll want to budget for troubleshooting and repair expenses. We also recommend performing routine inspections to make sure your website looks and functions as intended.

You can expect inspections, troubleshooting, and repair costs to be between $50 and $10,000 per month on average. The cost ranges widely because your site may need anything from a freelancer to a full in-house website support team.

Most businesses will find their needs on the lower end of this cost range, however there are some sites that require extensive support teams.

Firewall Protection and Malware Scanning

Website security gets more important every year as hackers find new ways to exploit businesses for their own gain.

Although you may not have experienced a hack before, the chances are high that you will eventually. Don’t wait until your site is infiltrated.  You should act today to protect and monitor your site.

Firewall protection, malware scanning, and other protections will cost between $0 and $100 per month. Free software can offer the most basic protection, meanwhile software costing $50+ per month usually offers all the tools you need to keep your site safe.

If you haven’t implemented website security yet, we highly recommend prioritizing it.

File and Database Backups

One of the best ways to keep your website protected is by taking frequent backups of your files and databases.

Backups can be useful for many emergency scenarios such as a critical website error or website hack. It’s important to keep these backups stored off your primary web server to minimize risk.

Software to manage website backups costs between $0 and $50 per month. Simple sites with minimal content changes could rely on free software. Advanced sites with frequent changes should use a comprehensive, real-time backup tool.

You can also take these backups manually, but it is typically more efficient to use an automated tool.

Typical Website Maintenance Pricing Tiers

As an example, here are our pricing tiers for website maintenance. We find that these pricing plans work well for most businesses, however we occasionally need to scale these plans to meet the needs of our customers.

Website Maintenance Costs by Industry

Another useful way to look at website maintenance cost is by industry.

We’ve chosen various industries that have specific website needs and estimated the monthly maintenance costs based on those needs.

Use this information to estimate costs for your own website. If you’re looking for an exact cost for your website and industry, contact us for a free quote.

Blogs and Information

These sites have a sole purpose of providing information to users using written content, images, and videos.

Blogs and information sites cost $50 to $500 per month on average to maintain.

These sites are typically simple and don’t require many software requirements, therefore the maintenance cost can be pretty low. However, some informational sites publish high volumes of content and use software to track users on their site, which can be more expensive to maintain.

Community Services and Development

Websites for community services and development typically contain a lot of information about their organization and programs.

Community services and development websites typically cost $100 to $750 to maintain.

If the organization is heavily event-based or publishes content regularly (such as press releases), the maintenance cost will be on the higher end of this range.

Consulting and Strategy

A consulting website is used to display services offered by the company and to generate leads for the business.

A consulting and strategy website can cost $100 to $400 for monthly website maintenance.

These sites usually don’t change much but may have appointment booking functionality or perhaps a basic online education system which can make maintenance more complex.

Customer Service

A customer service website can serve a crucial role for many businesses. This may either be a standalone customer support site or an extension on a business’s primary site.

Maintaining a customer service and support website can cost between $500 and $10,000 per month.

When a website is used for customer support, maintenance is very important. The site must always run smoothly. If something breaks, you’ll need a quick-response team to repair any issues immediately so your customers are not impacted.

The cost of maintain a customer service and support website will depend on the number of users that the site is supporting.

Ecommerce

Ecommerce websites can be notoriously challenging to maintain. These websites sell products through an online store. This involves product management, payment processing, customer support, and other functionality.

Due to the complexity of ecommerce sites, maintenance can cost $250 to $10,000+ per month.

Sites on the lower end of this cost range only sell a handful of products and don’t attract many users. The most complex ecommerce sites have hundreds of products with thousands of real-time users. These sites much also be able to handle large spikes in website traffic during sales and promotions.

Education and Training

Websites in the education and training industry may offer online and in-personal training at a national or local level.

Education and training websites can cost anywhere from $250 to $10,000 per month to maintain.

Websites in this industry that are less expensive to maintain may offer in-person events to a local audience. More complex websites typically offer online training such as live webinars, one-on-one video meetings, or an instructional course. They involve user logins and may contain large libraries of content (such as videos).

Government

There are a huge range of potential costs associated with government websites. These sites could serve anything from a small municipality to a national government website.

The cost to maintain a government website is $100 to $50,000 per month or higher.

Although there are plenty of small government websites that are easy to maintain, there are also plenty of large-scale government websites that serve on a national level. These sites tend to have high volumes of users and advanced security needs. For an example of a complex national government website, see studentaid.gov.

Healthcare and Medical

A healthcare and medical website could involve anything from a local dentist to a large hospital.

Maintaining a website in the healthcare and medical industry can cost anywhere from $250 to $10,000 per month or higher.

These sites usually have extensive information about the organization and the services they offer. They often include special software for paying medical bills, scheduling appointments, and more.

Local Small Businesses

In this section, we’re referring to small businesses with no more than a handful of locations, such as a coffee shop or plumber.

The cost to maintain a small business website is between $100 and $1,000 per month.

These websites usually don’t need many pages and can be quite simple to maintain, however some of these businesses require software for online ordering, appointment scheduling, and ecommerce.

Manufacturing, Legal, Engineering and Other

This section can be a bit hard to define, but essentially includes small and mid-size businesses who use their website to display basic information about their company with a focus on hiring new employees.

Websites in this category typically cost between $100 and $1,000 per month to maintain.

These are often fairly static since they simply serve as a means to provide information about their company, services, and projects. Occasionally these websites will be integrated with software to attract new job applicants, which can cost more to maintain.

Nonprofit

Nonprofit websites can have a wide variety of needs, so it’s difficult to establish an accurate range of costs for these types of websites.

Maintenance of a nonprofit website typically costs between $0 and $5,000 per month.

Small nonprofits may have their website maintained for free by a volunteer or at reduced pricing rates from an agency.

It common for nonprofits to host events, so they may need information published and maintained on the website more frequently than other types of websites. Consider the content management needs of your nonprofit website when estimating this cost.

Real Estate

A website is an important part of a real estate company’s marketing strategy. It is one of the best ways to keep their listings in the public eye.

Most real estate websites cost in the range of $150 to $1,000 per month to maintain.

One of the most dynamic aspects of a real estate website is often their property listings. These listings will need to be added, removed, and changed as properties are bought and sold. However, most of the time this information is automatically imported from their multiple listing service (MLS) and requires minimal maintenance.

Sports and Recreation

Sports and recreation websites can vary widely. These sites could include anything from a local recreational group to a large sports venue.

The website maintenance cost for a sports and recreation website is anywhere from $150 to $5,000 per month.

Most of these websites rely on a robust events management system which can require constant maintenance. It’s also common to see these sites have online ticket sales or ecommerce functionality which drives up the maintenance cost.

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Lower Your Website Maintenance Costs Today

We’ve seen a lot of companies overpay for website maintenance services because they are not informed of the true costs.

After all, if you aren’t a website expert, how can you know what resources are required to get the job done? Unfortunately, some website maintenance companies charge exorbitant rates to take advantage of this knowledge gap.

At WPCharger, we proudly offer affordable website maintenance pricing scaled to fit the needs of your business.

Our U.S.-based team of website maintenance professionals are happy to explain the process and costs associated with your site.

Learn more about our website maintenance services.

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Frequently Asked Questions About Web Maintenance Costs

If we haven’t answered your questions yet, here are some more frequently asked questions about website maintenance costs!

How long should website maintenance take?

The time it takes to perform website maintenance depends on several factors such as your team size and maintenance needs. Most businesses require between 2 and 25 hours of maintenance per month.

How much does website maintenance cost per hour?

Most companies charge $30 to $150 per hour for website maintenance, depending on their expertise and the complexity of your website.

Why is a website so costly to maintain?

Lots of work can be involved in keeping a website running properly. It involves a wide variety of complex tasks and troubleshooting. Website maintenance helps minimize downtime and errors which can provide a lot of value for a business.

What does website maintenance include?

Website maintenance typically includes software updating, error troubleshooting and repair, backups, security, database optimization, and page inspections. Other tasks may be involved depending on the needs of the website.