For a typical small or midsize business website, maintenance usually costs about $50 to $500 a month, or roughly $600 to $6,000 a year, according to GoDaddy's 2026 cost guide. Ecommerce stores commonly run $300 to $1,000 a month, and large custom or corporate sites can cost several thousand. Where you land depends on how the site is built, how often it changes, whether it takes payments or customer data, and how much hands-on help is included. The price on its own doesn't tell you much. Two $200-a-month plans can be completely different: one is hosting with automatic updates, the other is a team that monitors your site, patches it, tests the backups and fixes things when they break.
Typical website maintenance costs in 2026
These ranges come from GoDaddy's 2026 guide to website maintenance costs:
| Type of website | Typical monthly cost | Typical yearly cost |
|---|---|---|
| Personal site or blog | $5–$75 | $60–$900 |
| Small to medium business site | $50–$500 | $600–$6,000 |
| Ecommerce store | $300–$1,000 | $3,600–$12,000 |
| Large corporate or custom site | $1,000–$5,000+ | $12,000–$60,000+ |
| Enterprise website | $2,000–$25,000+ | $24,000–$300,000+ |
For a real-world agency example, WebFX publishes its WordPress maintenance plans at $350 a month for WordPress sites of 500 pages or fewer and $550 a month for larger WordPress and WooCommerce sites, with additional work billed at $150 an hour. Other providers price differently, but it's a useful reference point for what a professional plan with security scans, backups and support costs.
Keep in mind that most published ranges come from hosting companies and agencies that sell maintenance. Treat them as a rough guide, and compare quotes by what's included, not just the monthly number.
What you're actually paying for
Website maintenance is a bundle of separate costs. Some you pay directly; others are rolled into a plan. GoDaddy's guide breaks down the typical pieces:
| Cost | Typical range |
|---|---|
| Domain renewal | About $10–$20+ per year |
| Shared hosting | $5–$15 per month |
| Managed hosting | $20–$150+ per month |
| SSL certificate | Free, or $10–$300+ per year for paid certificates |
| Security tools and firewall | $5–$50+ per month |
| Automated backups | $0–$20+ per month |
| Uptime monitoring | $0–$30+ per month |
| Premium plugins, themes or CMS licenses | $0–$500 per year for standard tools |
| Developer time | About $50–$150+ per hour |
Source: GoDaddy.
The tools are cheap. What costs money is a person paying attention: applying updates and checking that nothing broke, responding when a scan finds something, restoring a backup when it's needed, and making the small changes every business needs during the year.
What a good maintenance plan includes
Whoever maintains your site, these are the basics you should be getting:
- Updates, tested. Core software, plugins, themes and code dependencies kept current, with the site checked afterward. Updates that are simply switched on and left alone are how sites break quietly.
- Security monitoring. Malware scanning, file-change detection and a firewall, with alerts that reach a person, not just an inbox nobody reads.
- A plan for urgent vulnerabilities. When a serious flaw in a popular plugin or framework is announced, how fast is your site patched? Ask for a number.
- Backups that are tested. Daily backups stored off the server, and an actual test restore from time to time. A backup nobody has restored is a hope, not a plan.
- Uptime monitoring. Someone finds out your site is down before your customers tell you.
- Hosting that fits the site. Managed hosting suited to your platform, ideally with accounts in your name.
- Time for small changes. Updating hours, adding a page, swapping photos, fixing a form. Know whether this is included and how much.
- A regular report. What was updated, what was found, what was fixed, and anything that needs a decision.
What's usually billed extra
Even good plans have limits. These are commonly billed on top of the monthly fee:
- New features and larger changes, like a new section of the site, a booking system or an integration
- Redesigns
- Content writing, design and photography
- SEO work beyond basic technical upkeep
- Major version upgrades, such as a big PHP or WordPress jump, or a framework upgrade that requires code changes. We handle PHP and WordPress upgrades as separate projects for exactly this reason.
- Hack cleanup on plans that only include monitoring, not remediation
- Ecommerce extras, like payment, shipping and tax tools, which usually have their own fees
None of this is a problem as long as you know it up front. Ask for the hourly rate on extra work and whether they'll confirm before going over.
Why costs vary so much
- Platform. A WordPress site with 30 plugins needs more update work than a static or headless site with few moving parts. Our WordPress vs. Next.js comparison explains the trade-offs.
- Ecommerce and customer data. Taking payments or storing customer accounts raises the stakes and the work.
- Custom code. Custom features and integrations need someone who understands them. Generic plans often exclude them.
- How often things change. A site that changes weekly needs more hours than one that changes twice a year.
- Response time. Same-day or 24-hour response costs more than "we'll get to it."
- AI-built or inherited code. Sites and apps built quickly with AI tools, or handed over by a previous developer, often need a review before anyone can maintain them responsibly. See why AI-built apps break in production.
DIY, freelancer or agency?
- Do it yourself. Lowest cost and fine for a simple site on a website builder, where hosting and updates are handled for you. Harder on WordPress or custom sites, where updates, security and backups are your job.
- Freelancer. Often cheaper than an agency and fine for simple sites. Ask what happens when they're on vacation or busy with a bigger client, and who has your logins.
- Agency or development firm. Costs more, but you get a team, defined response times and someone who can handle both maintenance and development. Best when the site takes payments, handles customer data, has custom features or generates real revenue.
Red flags in a maintenance plan
- Accounts in their name. Your domain, hosting and site should be in your name, with access for them, not the other way around.
- "Maintenance" that's really just hosting. If the plan can't tell you who applies updates and checks the site, it isn't maintenance.
- No response time for security problems.
- Backups stored on the same server as the site. If the server goes, so do the backups.
- No reporting. If you never hear what was done, you can't tell whether anything was done.
- A long contract with no exit terms. Know how to leave and what gets handed over when you do.
What it costs to skip maintenance
Skipping maintenance doesn't save money; it moves the cost to later, usually at a worse time. Outdated plugins and software are a common way in for attackers, and a hacked site means cleanup costs, lost leads, possible search engine warnings and, if customer data is involved, a much bigger problem. Expired domains and SSL certificates take sites offline. Broken forms quietly lose leads for months before anyone notices.
We've spent years cleaning up and hardening hacked and neglected sites, and the pattern is consistent: the fix almost always costs more than the maintenance would have. Our website cost guide for Kansas City businesses covers how to budget for both the build and the upkeep.
Questions to ask before you sign
- What exactly is included each month, and what's billed extra?
- How are updates tested before and after they're applied?
- How fast do you respond to a critical security vulnerability, and to the site being down?
- Where are backups stored, how long are they kept, and when did you last test a restore?
- Whose name are the domain, hosting and accounts in?
- How many hours of changes are included, and what's the rate after that?
- What reports will I get, and how often?
- What's the contract term, and what happens if I leave?
How Prodjex handles website maintenance
Prodjex is a Kansas City area web development company that has delivered more than 617 projects since 2017. Our care plans cover websites, online stores, apps and automations for a flat monthly fee:
- Managed hosting, with accounts in your name
- Security and malware monitoring, with critical vulnerabilities patched or mitigated within 24 hours at most, usually within a few hours during business hours
- Core, plugin and dependency updates, daily backups and uptime monitoring
- Support for fixes and small changes, with a named point of contact
- Higher tiers that add monthly development time, technical SEO and performance work, integration upkeep, monthly health reports and monitoring for AI automations
We also support sites we didn't build. We start with a short onboarding review to understand the setup, fix anything urgent and make sure backups are actually working.
Talk to us about a care plan and tell us what you're running today. We'll recommend the right level of care and flag anything urgent we spot along the way.