Website maintenance: what it costs per month and what it should include
A website is not finished at launch. Servers, CMS, plugins and forms change constantly, and every missed update is a risk to security, enquiries and rankings. This article shows what running costs consist of, what a maintenance plan should actually include, and how to spot plans that are overpriced or too thin.
Fixed costs you always have
Whoever looks after the website, there are base costs. Typical guide values for a business website:
- Domain: about €10–30 per year depending on extension and registrar.
- Hosting: from €0 (static hosting) to about €25 per month for solid managed hosting with backups.
- Paid plugins, themes or shop subscriptions depend on the system; a Shopify store starts at around €30 a month.
- Mailboxes and extras such as newsletter tools are usually billed separately.
What a maintenance plan should include
The real cost of maintenance is working time. A serious plan therefore names services, response time and an hour allowance, not just a monthly fee. Check for these items:
- Updates to CMS, plugins and server software with testing, not blind auto-updates.
- Daily or weekly backups stored in a second location, plus a tested restore.
- Monitoring: uptime, SSL certificate, domain expiry, form delivery.
- An hour allowance for small changes and clear rules for unused hours.
- A defined response time and contact; response means starting diagnosis, not resolving.
Typical price tiers
You will find three models. Monitoring with little fixing usually costs a low two-digit amount per month. Plans with a few hours of help sit in the low three digits. Full support with regular content changes and reporting costs more. At Onravetoni these are €49 (monitoring and up to 1 hour of fixes), €149 (up to 4 hours of help) and €399 per month (up to 12 hours and a report); extra work is €30 per hour after approval.
Always compare plans by the effective hourly price and what is included. A cheap plan without backups and without a restore test is the most expensive one when something breaks.
What happens without maintenance?
Outdated plugins are one of the most common entry points for hacked websites. Then there is the server side: according to php.net, PHP 8.2 receives security fixes only until 31 December 2026. A WordPress site still running on it after that date runs without security fixes to its runtime.
Less visible but just as costly: contact forms that silently stop sending email after an update. Without monitoring this often goes unnoticed for weeks, until enquiries dry up.
Frequently asked questions
- Can I do maintenance myself?
- Yes, if you test updates on a staging copy first, restore backups regularly and test forms after every update. Realistically plan one to three hours a month.
- Do static or Next.js websites need less maintenance?
- Usually yes, because there are no plugins on the live system. Dependencies, hosting and form integrations still need updating and monitoring.
- Is maintenance included in the website price?
- Rarely beyond launch. Ask about warranty, handover and the cost from month two before you sign.
Sources
Send us your website address. We check versions, backups and forms and tell you which maintenance plan you actually need.
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