Website Maintenance Cost in 2026: What You Should Be Paying

## The Number Most Developers Do Not Tell You Upfront

You get a quote for a new website. It looks reasonable. You approve the project. Six months later, something breaks. Or you need a new page. Or the plugin that runs your contact form stops working and nobody knows why. Suddenly you are paying again — for something you thought you already paid for.

Website maintenance is the ongoing cost of keeping a website secure, functional, and current after launch. Most businesses either underestimate it or do not budget for it at all. This guide gives you realistic numbers so you are not surprised.

## What Website Maintenance Actually Covers

Maintenance is not one thing. It is a bundle of different activities:

**Security updates.** WordPress, plugins, frameworks, and server software need regular updates. Unpatched vulnerabilities are how websites get hacked. This is non-negotiable.

**Bug fixes.** Browsers update. APIs change. Third-party services modify their behaviour. Things that worked at launch occasionally break without anyone touching your code.

**Content updates.** Changing team photos, updating pricing pages, adding new case studies, editing service descriptions. Even if your site has a CMS, complex changes may need a developer.

**Performance monitoring.** Hosting infrastructure occasionally has issues. Traffic spikes can expose performance problems. Someone needs to watch for these.

**Backups.** Regular database and file backups mean that if something goes catastrophically wrong, you can restore rather than rebuild.

**Domain and hosting renewal.** Annual costs that are easy to forget and expensive to lose — expired domains can be purchased by squatters within hours.

**SSL certificate renewal.** Most hosts handle this automatically, but on some configurations it requires manual renewal. An expired SSL certificate takes your site offline and kills SEO.

**Compatibility testing.** As browsers and operating systems update, layouts and functionality occasionally break. Periodic testing catches these before customers report them.

## Website Maintenance Costs by Website Type

### Simple Business Website (5–15 pages, no CMS)
**Annual maintenance cost: $300–$1,200**

At this level, maintenance is mostly hosting ($50–$150/year), domain ($15/year), and an occasional developer hour for minor fixes. If the site is static (no CMS, no database), security overhead is minimal. Budget for 2–5 developer hours per year at your developer's hourly rate.

### Business Website with WordPress or CMS
**Annual maintenance cost: $600–$3,000**

WordPress requires active maintenance. Core updates, plugin updates, theme updates — these need to be applied regularly and tested to ensure nothing breaks. Plugins conflict. Themes stop being supported. A neglected WordPress site becomes a security liability within 12–18 months.

Factor in: hosting ($100–$500/year for managed WordPress hosting), plugins ($100–$400/year for premium plugins), and developer time for updates and fixes (3–10 hours/year).

### E-Commerce Store (Shopify)
**Annual maintenance cost: $1,500–$6,000**

Shopify's platform maintenance is handled by Shopify. Your ongoing costs are:
- Shopify subscription: $468–$4,788/year depending on plan
- Apps: $600–$3,600/year
- Developer time for customisations and fixes: 5–15 hours/year
- Content updates: ongoing

### E-Commerce Store (WooCommerce)
**Annual maintenance cost: $1,200–$5,000**

WooCommerce on WordPress requires the same active maintenance as a WordPress site, plus commerce-specific updates. Payment gateway compatibility, shipping integration updates, and inventory system sync issues add complexity.

### Web Application (SaaS, Dashboard, Portal)
**Annual maintenance cost: $6,000–$30,000**

Complex applications need the most ongoing attention. Server costs, database maintenance, dependency updates (libraries go out of date and accumulate security vulnerabilities), feature additions based on user feedback, and monitoring infrastructure all contribute.

Most web applications budget 15–20% of the original build cost per year for maintenance. A $40,000 web application should budget $6,000–$8,000 per year to keep running well.

## The 10–15% Rule

A commonly used rule of thumb: **budget 10–15% of your original build cost per year for maintenance.**

- $5,000 website → $500–$750/year
- $15,000 website → $1,500–$2,250/year
- $40,000 web application → $4,000–$6,000/year

This rule holds reasonably well for most projects. It breaks down at the extremes — very simple static sites cost less to maintain proportionally, and very complex applications with active user bases cost more.

## Maintenance Pricing Models

When working with a developer or agency for ongoing maintenance, you will typically encounter one of these models:

### Retainer (Monthly)
You pay a fixed monthly fee for a defined number of hours or a list of covered services. Predictable cost, guaranteed availability.

**Typical range:** $150–$2,000/month depending on the scope.

**Best for:** Businesses that need regular updates and want a reliable developer on hand.

### Pay-As-You-Go (Hourly)
You contact the developer when something needs doing and pay their hourly rate. No commitment, but no guaranteed availability either.

**Typical range:** $60–$200/hour depending on the developer.

**Best for:** Sites that rarely need changes and have low maintenance requirements.

### Annual Support Package
A fixed annual fee covering a defined set of services: security updates, backups, uptime monitoring, and a number of included change requests.

**Typical range:** $500–$5,000/year.

**Best for:** Small business websites that need reliability without high frequency changes.

## What Is Not Included in Most Maintenance Agreements

Read contracts carefully. Most maintenance agreements exclude:

- **New features or pages** — adding a new section, creating a new landing page, or building new functionality is typically billed separately
- **Content writing** — maintenance covers technical upkeep, not producing new copy or photography
- **Major redesigns** — updating a component or layout is different from redesigning the site
- **Third-party service issues** — if your payment gateway goes down, your email provider has an outage, or an external API changes, that is outside the developer's control
- **Migrations** — moving the site to a new host or platform is a project, not maintenance

## How to Avoid Overpaying

**Pay for what you actually need.** A simple static business website does not need a $500/month maintenance retainer. An hour or two per year at your developer's rate is sufficient.

**Understand what you are getting.** Ask for a breakdown of what the maintenance covers before signing. "Maintenance" is vague. "Security updates, monthly backups, uptime monitoring, and 2 hours of change requests per month" is specific.

**Do not let a WordPress site go unmaintained.** The most expensive maintenance is deferred maintenance. A hacked WordPress site costs $500–$3,000 to clean up — if recovery is even possible. Paying $50/month for a managed WordPress host that handles updates automatically is worth it.

**Separate hosting from maintenance.** Some agencies bundle hosting and maintenance at a premium. You can often get equivalent hosting from a specialist host (Kinsta, Cloudways, WP Engine) for a fraction of the cost, and buy developer maintenance hours separately.

**Build in a content management system if you update frequently.** If you change your website content more than once a month, a CMS that lets you do it yourself will save developer fees within 12 months.

## What Happens If You Skip Maintenance

Deferred maintenance compounds. Here is what typically happens:

- **Month 1–6:** Nothing obvious. The site works fine.
- **Month 6–12:** Plugins fall behind. Minor visual inconsistencies appear on newer browsers.
- **Month 12–18:** Security vulnerabilities accumulate. Google may flag the site as unsafe. Performance degrades.
- **Month 18–24:** High probability of a serious incident — hack, data loss, or major functionality failure.
- **Recovery cost:** $500–$5,000+ to clean up, depending on severity. Sometimes a full rebuild is cheaper than recovery.

The businesses that say "we don't need maintenance" are the ones spending $3,000 to fix a hacked site two years later, rebuilding their email list from scratch, and explaining to customers why their data was exposed.

## Conclusion

Website maintenance is not optional. It is the cost of keeping a business asset running reliably. The question is not whether to maintain your site — it is how to structure that maintenance cost predictably.

Budget 10–15% of your build cost per year as a baseline. Understand exactly what your maintenance agreement covers. And do not defer maintenance until something breaks — the recovery cost almost always exceeds the prevention cost.

For a full cost estimate that includes ongoing maintenance in the projection, try the [website cost calculator](/tools/website-cost-calculator).