For a small or medium business website, maintenance usually costs $50–$500 a month, or $600–$6,000 a year (GoDaddy, April 2026). That’s a wide range, because “maintenance” can mean anything from plugin updates to a developer on call.
This guide breaks the number down. You’ll see what maintenance includes, the three ways to pay for it and the running costs every WordPress site has anyway. You’ll also see what my own plan costs and what it covers, so you can compare.
Key Takeaways
- Small business sites typically pay $50–$500 a month for maintenance (GoDaddy, April 2026).
- There are three ways to pay: do it yourself, pay a developer by the hour or choose a monthly plan.
- Every WordPress site has running costs on top: hosting, the domain and premium plugin licenses.
- Skipping maintenance isn’t free. In 2025, 91% of new WordPress vulnerabilities were in plugins (Patchstack, 2026).
- Compare what’s included, not just the monthly price: response times, backups, security fixes and plugin licenses.
What Website Maintenance Includes
Maintenance is the routine work that keeps a website secure, fast and working after launch. For a WordPress site, it usually covers:
- Updates to WordPress, the theme and plugins, with a backup first.
- Backups, stored somewhere other than your server.
- Security monitoring and fixes when a vulnerability is found.
- Uptime monitoring, so someone notices when the site goes down.
- Bug fixes when something breaks.
- Speed checks and small optimizations.
- Reports that show what was done.
- Small content changes, depending on the plan.
Here’s a longer explanation of everything WordPress maintenance includes.
Three Ways to Pay for Maintenance
| Do it yourself | Pay by the hour | Monthly maintenance plan | |
|---|---|---|---|
| What you pay | Tools and licenses, plus your time | $50–$150+ an hour | A fixed monthly fee |
| Who does the work | You | A developer, when you ask | A developer, every month |
| Monitoring | Only if you set it up | Usually none | Included in most plans |
| When problems are found | When you notice them | When you notice them | Often before you do |
| Best for | Simple sites and owners comfortable in WordPress | Rare, one-off fixes | Business sites that need to stay reliable |
Hourly rates from GoDaddy, April 2026.
Option 1: Do It Yourself
You can maintain a simple WordPress site yourself. Once you’re used to it, the routine takes about an hour a month. My free website maintenance checklist lists every step, week by week.
The cash cost is low: hosting, the domain, your plugin licenses and perhaps a backup or monitoring tool. The real cost is your time and the risk of missing something. An update that breaks your contact form can go unnoticed for weeks.
Option 2: Pay a Developer by the Hour
Developers typically charge $50–$150 or more an hour for maintenance work (GoDaddy, April 2026). In the 2025 Web Designer Pricing Survey, the median freelance rate was $92.75 an hour (Web Designer Academy, 2025).
Hourly help works for occasional fixes. The catch is that it’s reactive. Nobody watches the site in between, so problems are found by you or your visitors.
Option 3: A Monthly Maintenance Plan
A plan covers the routine work for a fixed fee. GoDaddy lists monthly retainers from $100 to $1,500 or more. It puts total maintenance for small and medium business sites at $50–$500 a month (GoDaddy, April 2026).
The difference between a cheap and an expensive plan is rarely the updates themselves. It’s everything around them: how often the site is checked, how fast problems are fixed and what’s included without extra charges.
The Running Costs Every WordPress Site Has
Whichever option you choose, your site has a few costs of its own. Some maintenance plans include them. Most don’t.
| Cost | Typical price | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Hosting | $5–$15 a month (shared hosting) | More for VPS or managed hosting |
| Domain | $10–$20+ a year | Renewal prices are often higher than the first year |
| Elementor Pro | From €60 a year | One site, Essential plan |
| WP Rocket (speed) | €49.95 a year | One site |
| Backups and monitoring | From €1.99 a month | For example WP Umbrella, per site |
| Booking, forms or other premium plugins | Varies | Each has its own yearly license |
Sources: GoDaddy, April 2026 (hosting and domain), Elementor pricing, October 2026, WP Rocket pricing, October 2026, WP Umbrella pricing, October 2026.
Premium licenses are easy to forget. When one expires, the plugin usually keeps working but stops getting updates, including security fixes. That’s how an unpaid license can turn into a security problem a year later.
What a Year of Maintenance Costs: Three Examples
Here’s how the three options compare over a year for a typical service business site on WordPress and Elementor. The running costs use the prices above.
| Do it yourself | Pay by the hour | My maintenance plan | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Hosting | $60–$180 | $60–$180 | $60–$180 |
| Domain | $10–$20+ | $10–$20+ | $10–$20+ |
| Elementor Pro and WP Rocket | About €110 | About €110 | Included |
| Backups and monitoring | About €24 (WP Umbrella) | Usually none | Included |
| The work itself | About 12 hours of your time | $600–$1,800 for 1 hour a month | €500 (paid yearly) |
Sources: GoDaddy, April 2026, Elementor pricing, October 2026, WP Rocket pricing, October 2026, WP Umbrella pricing, October 2026. Prices are shown in their own currency and aren’t converted.
Three things stand out:
- Doing it yourself is cheapest in cash. It costs you about an hour a month and the responsibility when something goes wrong.
- Hourly help adds up. One hour a month at typical rates costs $600–$1,800 a year. It pays for the work, but not for monitoring.
- A plan makes the cost predictable. You know the yearly price in advance, including fixes and licenses.
What Changes the Price
Two maintenance quotes can differ a lot. These are the usual reasons:
- The size of the site. More pages and more plugins mean more to update and test.
- Online payments and bookings. A checkout or booking system needs careful testing after every update.
- How often content changes. Regular edits by the developer cost more than a site you update yourself.
- Response times. A fix within hours costs more than a fix within days.
- What’s included. Premium plugin licenses, hack recovery and reports may be included or billed separately.
- Who built the site. Taking over a site someone else built usually starts with a check of what’s there.
The Cost of Skipping Maintenance
No maintenance looks like the cheapest option. Often it isn’t.
The risk comes mostly from plugins. In 2025, 91% of newly found WordPress vulnerabilities were in plugins. For heavily exploited vulnerabilities, the median time to the first attack was 5 hours (Patchstack, 2026).
A hacked site costs more than the cleanup. It can mean browser warnings, lost inquiries, emails landing in spam and time spent on recovery instead of clients. Here’s what to do if your WordPress site is hacked.
Smaller problems add up too. A contact form stops sending, a booking page breaks after an update or the site gets slower month by month.
What My Maintenance Plan Costs
My plan costs €50 a month, with no contract. If you pay yearly, you get 2 months free. It includes:
- Monthly updates on the live site, always with a backup first. I check the live site afterwards.
- Daily monitoring, with critical security updates applied right away, not at the next monthly round.
- Backups in several places, through independent systems.
- Bug fixes. I reply within 1 business day and fix most problems in 1–3 days.
- Malware removal and hack recovery, not billed as an emergency extra.
- A monthly report with traffic, uptime, speed, updates, security checks and backups.
- Premium plugins, with no separate license cost: Elementor Pro, WP Rocket, JetEngine, Amelia and WooCommerce add-ons.
- New pages and sections in your site’s existing style.
Elementor Pro and WP Rocket alone cost about €110 a year for one site at their list prices. That’s part of what the plan covers.
The plan is also available for Elementor sites someone else built. Every takeover starts with a health check, which is included. Sites I maintain include TheBlex and Miamor, which takes court bookings and card payments online.
What it doesn’t include: a full redesign. If the whole look or message needs to change, that’s a new website project.
How to Compare Maintenance Plans
Before you pay for any plan, ask these questions:
- ☐ How often are updates done? Is there a backup before each one?
- ☐ Where are backups stored? At least one copy should be off your server.
- ☐ How fast do you reply? How fast do you fix?
- ☐ Is hack recovery included, or billed separately?
- ☐ Are premium plugin licenses included?
- ☐ Do I get a report of what was done?
- ☐ Is there a contract? How do I cancel?
- ☐ Who owns the site and the logins? You should.
Frequently Asked Questions
How much does website maintenance cost per month?
For a small or medium business site, usually $50–$500 a month, according to GoDaddy’s 2026 guide. Simple sites with few plugins sit at the lower end. Online stores and complex sites cost more. My plan is €50 a month.
How much does WordPress maintenance cost per year?
GoDaddy puts small and medium business sites at $600–$6,000 a year. Add hosting, the domain and premium plugin licenses if your plan doesn’t include them.
Can I maintain my website myself?
Yes, if you’re comfortable in the WordPress dashboard. It takes about an hour a month once you know the routine. Use a checklist, always back up first and update one thing at a time.
Do I need maintenance if nothing is broken?
Yes. Most maintenance prevents problems rather than fixing them. Security updates matter most when nothing seems wrong, because that’s when vulnerabilities get exploited.
What’s the difference between hosting and maintenance?
Hosting is the server space where your website lives. Maintenance is the work of keeping the website itself updated, backed up and secure. Some hosts offer automatic updates, but they rarely test your site afterwards or fix what breaks.
Is a cheap maintenance plan worth it?
It depends on what’s included. A low price that only covers automatic updates can cost you more later. Check whether backups, security fixes, hack recovery and response times are part of the price.
What happens if I stop paying for maintenance?
The site keeps working, but updates, monitoring and backups stop. Over time, plugins fall behind and the risk of security problems grows. Make sure you have your own logins and a recent backup before you cancel any plan.
Your Next Step
Want your WordPress site updated, backed up and secure for €50 a month, with no contract? It’s also available for Elementor sites someone else built. Every takeover starts with a health check. Tell me about your website. I’ll reply within 1 business day.
Tamas Pocs is a freelance web designer and WordPress developer based in Hungary. For 5+ years he has written, designed and built websites for service businesses (more than 50 so far) and looked after them once they’re live. See his work or connect on LinkedIn.
