Blog
Website Maintenance Cost: What Small Businesses Should Budget For
By Koprio Team
Blog
Website Maintenance Cost: What Small Businesses Should Budget For
By Koprio Team
A website is not a "build it and leave it" purchase. Left completely alone it slowly breaks: software goes out of date, security holes open up, forms stop sending, and the content drifts away from what the business actually does. Maintenance is what stops that. Here is what it costs and what it should cover.
Why a site needs maintenance
Security. Out of date software is the most common way small business sites get hacked
Updates. The platform, plugins and integrations all release updates that need applying and testing
Backups. So that if something breaks, you can roll back rather than rebuild
Broken things. Forms, links and features fail over time and someone needs to catch it
Content. Prices, hours, staff, services and photos all go stale
Performance. Pages slow down as content and images pile up
What maintenance actually includes
Software and security updates
Regular backups, stored somewhere separate
Uptime and security monitoring
Fixing things that break
Small content changes: text, images, new pages
Occasional performance and speed checks
A short report so you know what was done
The cost, by approach
Approach | What it looks like | Typical cost |
|---|---|---|
Do it yourself | You apply updates, take backups, fix issues | Free, plus your time and the risk |
Pay as you go | You call someone when something breaks | Often £50 to £90 an hour, unpredictable |
Monthly plan | Fixed fee covering updates, backups, monitoring and a set amount of changes | Commonly £30 to £150 a month for a small business |
Simple sites on a hosted platform sit at the lower end. Larger or self hosted sites with more moving parts cost more to keep healthy.
What a good plan covers
All updates and security patches
Backups you can actually restore from
A guaranteed response time if the site goes down
An included allowance of small edits each month
Hosting, or a clear statement that hosting is separate
Platform makes a difference
A self hosted site, for example one you manage yourself with separate hosting and add on plugins, needs more hands on upkeep because there are more parts that can fail or fall out of date. An all in one hosted platform bundles a lot of that in, so the maintenance job is smaller, though you have less control.
What happens if you skip it
The site gets hacked, defaced or used to send spam, and Google flags it
It goes down and you do not find out until a customer tells you
Forms silently stop working and you lose enquiries for weeks
It gradually slows down and slips in search results
Small fixes pile up into a job big enough to need a rebuild
Hosting and maintenance
The two are often bundled but they are different things. Hosting is where the site lives. Maintenance is keeping it working. Check which your plan includes so you are not paying twice or missing one.
What Koprio charges
Optional monthly plans start at £35 a month for a Starter site and £65 a month for a Growth site, covering hosting plus small edits each month, things like text changes, updates and picture swaps. Ecommerce plans are quoted individually. No minimum term, and you can decline the plan and host the site yourself. Details on the website design page.
The takeaway
Budget £30 to £150 a month for website maintenance as a small business, depending on the size and setup of your site. A monthly plan is usually better value and less stress than paying by the hour when something goes wrong. Skipping maintenance entirely is the expensive option in the long run.
Get in touch for a plan matched to your site, or read how much a website costs for the full picture.