Website Maintenance Cost in 2026: What’s Included and What You Pay
Updated October 2026 by the Cliffex team. Prices are in USD.
Short answer: website maintenance has two parts. The first is fixed running costs: a domain, hosting and any paid plugins or platform plans. For a simple site these may be under a few hundred dollars a year, for example a WordPress.com plan at $48 to $540 a year billed annually (October 2026). The second is labour for updates, backups, fixes and content changes, which is where most of the spread comes from. At Cliffex the first 30 days after launch are included, and after that maintenance is billed at $25 to $49 an hour, with an estimate before any work starts.
This guide separates the two, lists what maintenance should include, and shows how to work out a yearly budget for your own site.
What does website maintenance include?
Maintenance is the work that keeps a live site secure, working and accurate. The exact list depends on the platform, but a business site on WordPress or Shopify usually needs the following.
| Task | What it involves | Suggested rhythm |
|---|---|---|
| Software updates | WordPress core, theme and plugin updates, tested so a change does not break a page or form | When updates are released; security fixes as soon as practical |
| Backups | Automatic copies of files and database, stored away from the server, with a restore you have actually tested | Set the frequency by how much data you can afford to lose; busy stores may need much more frequent backups |
| Security monitoring | Malware scans, login protection, removing unused plugins and user accounts | Ongoing, with a monthly review |
| Uptime and forms | Checking the site is reachable and that contact, booking or checkout forms still deliver | Continuous monitoring, plus a manual form test after each update |
| Speed and SEO checks | Page speed on mobile, broken links, Search Console errors, redirects | Monthly or quarterly |
| Content changes | New pages, price or staff updates, blog posts, images | As your business needs them |
| Renewals | Domain, hosting, SSL and paid plugin licences | Track each provider’s renewal schedule; check automatic certificate renewal |
Shopify and hosted builders take care of server software and core updates for you, so their maintenance list is shorter: apps, theme changes, content and checkout testing. A self-hosted WordPress site puts all of the rows above on your side.
Fixed running costs: what you pay every year
These are paid to providers, not to a developer, and they arrive whether or not anything on the site changes. They are usually paid directly by the site owner, with the accounts registered in the owner’s name.
| Cost | Typical price | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Domain name (.com) | $11.08 advertised .com price; check renewal terms at checkout | Porkbun, October 2026 |
| SSL certificate | $0 with free certificate authorities; many hosts include setup and renewal | Let’s Encrypt |
| Hosting (WordPress.com example) | Personal $4, Premium $8, Business $25, Commerce $45 a month billed annually; $9, $18, $40 and $70 billed monthly; taxes extra | WordPress.com, October 2026 |
| Online store platform | A monthly Shopify plan plus payment processing fees; prices vary by plan and country | Shopify pricing |
| Premium plugins | Many plugins are free. Budget for paid licences separately; check the selected currency, taxes and renewal price on the provider’s current checkout | Yoast, October 2026 |
Add these up for your own site before you compare maintenance quotes. A brochure site on a mid-range hosting plan with one premium plugin has a very different floor from an online store paying a platform plan, several app subscriptions and card fees. Our WordPress website cost guide breaks the WordPress side down further, and cloud vs shared hosting explains when a cheaper host stops being enough.
How much should you pay someone to maintain your website?
Labour is priced in three common ways. Published ranges vary widely, and most of them come without a stated method, so treat them as context rather than benchmarks.
| Model | Published price range | Works best when |
|---|---|---|
| Do it yourself | Your time, plus the running costs above | The site is simple, on a hosted platform, and someone on your team is comfortable testing updates |
| Hourly, on demand | Freelancers $25 to $150 an hour (Hostinger, updated August 2026). Cliffex: $25 to $49 an hour | Changes come in bursts and you want to pay only for work done |
| Monthly retainer | Agency plans of $200 to $4,500 a month (Hostinger, updated August 2026) | You need an agreed response window, frequent content work or a store where downtime costs sales |
The Hostinger figures are from a hosting company’s guide that does not describe how they were collected. They are illustrative vendor estimates, not a measured market average or a Cliffex quote.
To turn an hourly rate into a budget, multiply it by the hours each task is estimated to take. For example, a batch of updates and content changes estimated at 3 hours would cost $75 to $147 at Cliffex’s rate. Ask any provider for an estimate per task before work starts, so you can compare quotes on the same work.
Why skipping updates costs more later
In Patchstack’s dataset, most newly disclosed WordPress vulnerabilities were in plugins and themes. This measures reported vulnerabilities, not the causes of every website breach. Patchstack’s State of WordPress Security in 2026 report counted 11,334 new vulnerabilities in the WordPress ecosystem in 2025, 42% more than in 2024. It attributed 91% to plugins, 9% to themes, and only 6 to WordPress core.
Two practical points follow. Every plugin you install is something that must be updated and checked, so a short plugin list is cheaper to maintain. And a site left without updates for a year tends to need a larger, riskier catch-up job, because several major versions have to be tested together. Our post on WordPress security covers the protective steps in more detail.
What moves a maintenance bill up or down
- Number of plugins and apps. Each one adds updates, possible conflicts and sometimes a licence fee.
- Ecommerce. Checkout, payment, tax and shipping settings need testing after changes, and store downtime loses orders.
- Custom code. A custom theme or feature has to be checked against new platform versions by someone who can read the code. Documented code makes this cheaper.
- Integrations. CRMs, booking tools, MLS feeds and email platforms change their APIs, and the connection on your site must follow.
- How often content changes. A site updated weekly needs more hours than one that changes twice a year.
- Hosting quality. Managed hosting with automatic backups and server updates removes work that would otherwise be billed.
Retainer or pay as you go?
A retainer makes sense when you need a response time committed to in the contract, when changes are frequent enough to use the hours each month, or when the site takes orders or bookings around the clock. Check what happens to unused hours and whether emergency work is billed on top.
Pay as you go can suit small business sites with occasional changes: updates and checks on a schedule you agree, plus content changes when you need them. You avoid paying for idle hours, but you should still agree who applies security updates, so that this does not wait for the next content request. This is how Cliffex works after the included 30 days: you tell us what you need, we send an estimate, and work starts after you approve it.
When maintenance stops being worth it
If every small change takes hours because the theme is outdated, plugins no longer receive updates, or the site cannot run on a current PHP version, you are paying to keep an old build alive. At that point compare a year of maintenance with the price of rebuilding. Our website redesign cost guide covers redesign prices and how to plan redirects and manage search risks during the move, and the website redesign service explains how we handle it.
How to budget for your own site
- List every recurring provider cost: domain, hosting, platform plan, plugins, apps and email. Note renewal dates.
- List the maintenance tasks from the table above that apply to your platform, and decide which ones your team will handle.
- Ask for an estimate per task, or per month, for the rest. Compare quotes on the same task list.
- Add a buffer for unplanned work, such as a plugin that is discontinued or an integration that changes.
- If you are building a new site, ask what support is included after launch and how changes are priced after that.
Planning a new site? The website cost calculator gives a build estimate in a few minutes, and our pricing page lists what is included. Every website from our website design and development service includes 30 days of post-launch support. For maintenance on an existing site, send us a request with the site address and what you need.
Frequently asked questions
Do you need money to maintain a website?
For a business site with its own domain, budget for domain renewal and hosting or a platform plan. Free hosted subdomains exist, but they come with platform limits. Labour can be your own time, but security updates and backups still need to happen.
What does website maintenance include?
Software updates, backups, security monitoring, uptime and form checks, speed and SEO checks, content changes and renewals. Hosted platforms such as Shopify handle server and core updates for you.
How much does it cost to set up and maintain a website?
At Cliffex, business websites start at $1,400 and Shopify stores at about $4,500. After the included 30 days of support, maintenance is $25 to $49 an hour with an estimate first. Hosting, domain and plugin fees are paid to the providers on top.
How much should I pay someone to maintain my website?
Published hourly rates run from about $25 to $150, and agency retainers from a few hundred to several thousand dollars a month. Compare providers on a written list of tasks and response times rather than on the headline rate.
Is maintenance included in the price of a new website?
It depends on the provider, so ask before you sign. Cliffex includes 30 days of post-launch support for fixes. Maintenance after that is quoted separately.
Can ChatGPT build and maintain a website?
AI tools can generate pages and code quickly. Someone still has to host the site, apply updates, test forms and fix problems when they appear. If you built a site or app with an AI tool and need it ready for real users, see our AI-built app service.