Website Maintenance Costs: What UK Businesses Pay Each Month

How much does website maintenance cost in the UK?

Most UK small businesses pay about £30 to £150 a month for hosting, maintenance and support combined. That is the range we use in our own website cost calculator. A small brochure site with occasional changes sits at the lower end. Sites with e-commerce, bookings, memberships or frequent updates sit at the higher end. Extra work outside a plan, such as new pages or features, is usually quoted separately or charged by the hour.

What does website maintenance include?

A website maintenance plan should cover the jobs that keep the site working, secure and recoverable:

• Web hosting: the server space the site runs on, ideally with uptime monitoring
• Domain renewal: keeping the domain name registered, in your name
• SSL certificate: the padlock that encrypts visitor data
• Software and security updates: the content management system, plugins and themes kept patched
• Backups: regular copies of the site, and a tested way to restore them
• Security monitoring: malware scans and protection against attacks
• Performance checks: page speed, broken links and working contact forms
• Support time: a set number of small content changes or hours each month

Ask which of these are included and which cost extra. A low monthly price that leaves out backups or updates is a false economy.

Types of website maintenance plan

Maintenance is sold in five main ways, and the right one depends on how much you want to handle yourself.

• Hosting only: the cheapest option. You get server space, but updates, backups and fixes are your job.
• Managed hosting: hosting plus automatic software updates and backups, with limited hands-on help.
• Care plan or retainer: a fixed monthly fee for hosting, updates, monitoring and a set amount of support time.
• Pay as you go: no monthly fee for support. You pay for each job when you need it, plus hosting.
• Included in a pay monthly website: hosting, maintenance and support are part of one monthly fee alongside the build.

If you're on a pay monthly plan already, read what a pay monthly website should include before adding a separate care plan.

What affects the cost of maintaining a website?

The biggest factors are the platform, the size of the site and how much it changes.

• Platform: sites that rely on many plugins need more frequent updates and testing.
• Size: more pages and templates mean more to check after each update.
• E-commerce: online shops need payment, stock and order systems kept working, so they cost more to maintain.
• Integrations: bookings, CRMs and other connected systems add extra things that can break.
• Change frequency: regular content updates need more support time each month.
• Response times: guaranteed same-day fixes cost more than "when we can".

For full shop running costs, see our e-commerce website cost guide.

Technical upkeep, content updates and improvements

"Website maintenance" can mean three different things, and quotes often mix them up.

• Technical upkeep: hosting, updates, backups and security, which keep the site running.
• Content updates: changing text, prices, images and opening times, which keeps the site accurate.
• Ongoing improvement: SEO, new pages and conversion improvements, which help the site perform better over time.

Most care plans cover the first, include a little of the second, and price the third separately. Knowing which is which makes quotes easier to compare.

What happens if you don't maintain a website?

An unmaintained website gradually becomes slower, less secure and less reliable. Outdated software is one of the most common ways small business sites get hacked. Contact forms can stop sending without anyone noticing, so enquiries are lost. Out-of-date prices and information also make the business look neglected to visitors.

Maintenance costs vs build costs

Maintenance is the opposite side of a website budget from the build. The build is a one-off cost to create the site; maintenance is the ongoing cost to keep it working. Over a few years, running costs can add up to as much as the original build, so it helps to budget for both from the start. For up-front pricing, read how much a website costs in the UK. Some business owners maintain their own sites to save money, which works if you are comfortable with updates and backups and have the time to do them regularly.