Estimation or understanding your website maintenance cost is very crucial just like estimating your website hosting cost. Not only does it help you to choose the right Website maintenance package or services but also lets you come up with a proper budget.
However, the majority of individuals forget to consider Website maintenance costs after hosting and making a website. They forget the fact that, if you ignore the website maintenance to cut down your overall cost, initially you might not notice until too late that you have been losing your monthly traffic as well as revenues.
In the worst case, you might end up paying more money for expensive website repair services and if you calculate or estimate your overall budget you will find that website maintenance costs are always a cheaper option than typical expensive website repair services in the long run.
In this ultimate guide, we will explain all the essential elements that will be contributing to your website maintenance cost. How much do website maintenance costs vary for different types of websites? We will even mention the average website maintenance cost for different websites such as eCommerce, business websites, or small blogs.
We will also make a complete comparison of different leading website maintenance package providers, that help you to prepare your budget and will be able to choose the right service. In addition to that, we will also compare How much it would be feasible or suitable to do the Website maintenance by yourself or choose a website maintenance package and a lot more.
So, stay tuned and keep reading this guide to the end so that you will be able to make a budget for your website maintenance cost-efficiently. Let us get started!
The better you maintain your website, the more your website traffic will be, the better will be your SEO and the less will be maintenance cost in the long run.
What are the benefits of Website Maintenance?
A regular well-maintained website has its benefits such as
- The overall website performance will be smooth throughout the time,
- There will be a faster loading time,
- Pages will be well-optimized,
- your website SEO will be great and rank even better,
- User experience will be enhanced
- Security will be enhanced
- You will be able to make more sales
- You can save money on your storage and hosting costs, etc.
Therefore, it is not just important for your website’s health but it helps to save some money, prevent your website from expensive repair services, and generate revenues in the long run.
Now let us check out the comparison between various websites and See How much website maintenance costs for each type of website.
How Much Does Website Maintenance Cost?: An Average Cost for Website Maintenance of Different Websites
When considering the average cost for WordPress website maintenance, can vary from around $10 to $5000 per month or $100 to $60K per year, depending upon the type of website and its complexity. For example, maintaining a simple personal blog website can cost you around 0 to $5 per month, whereas maintaining high-traffic volume eCommerce websites such as Amazon, can cost you much more.
For your better understanding of the average cost estimation for WordPress website maintenance, let us break down the average website maintenance cost of the different types of websites on various factors and compare them with the Average website maintenance cost of websites hosted on a Fully Managed web host.
What does the Website Maintenance Cost include?
The website maintenance cost mainly includes three types of maintenance services:
- Essential Services: For any website to run continuously, its web hosting plans as well as domain registration need to be renewed at regular intervals of time.
- Crucial Services: To run any website smoothly and enhance the user experience, in the long run, website design, functionality, bug fixes, and tech support should be taken care of to drive more traffic.
- Optional Services: Some additional plugins or tools need to be used for specific websites such as eCommerce to enhance their features and functionality.
Now let us check out the elements that affect your overall Website Maintenance cost.
1. Domain Registration (Essential)
To run a website, it needs a permanent address at which visitors can easily reach and visit your webpage. But the catch is, you cannot buy a domain and register for your website permanently. It works on a subscription model, in which you have to renew your domain registration after a specific time by paying a nominal fee.
Generally, in the US, the average domain registration fee can cost you around $10- $100 per year. Even, some web hosting companies provide you with free domain registration included in their web hosting plans.
The Domain name is generally made up of two elements, one is the website name and the other is the domain extension. For example, in WPOven.com, the “WPOven” is the website name, and “.com” is the domain extension.
In addition to that, the domain registration fees largely depend upon the domain extension you choose and can also vary from one domain registrar to another. So, you need to choose a reliable domain registrar that has transparency about the domain registration fees and its policies. So that you cannot be caught in the scam and end up paying more money.
2. Web hosting (Essential)
Web hosting is a service in which your website gets hosted on a server for a certain duration. It is somewhat like renting an apartment or space in which you put all your things. Similarly, web hosting provides a physical server space on rent to store all website files and data for a specific time duration.
The cost of web hosting maintenance can vary depending on the type of web hosting plan and the duration of the service you choose. Various web hosts offer different web hosting plans as per the user’s requirements and convenience. You may even find that, due to high competition, different providers offer you different plans for the same type of web hosting but differ in services, features, and infrastructure.
In addition to that, many website platforms or website builders can also affect your website maintenance charges. They also provide web hosting services along with their services. For example, Wix, Squarespace, etc. These website builders also offer web hosting plans as well as website building tools.
But if you choose an open-source CMS such as WordPress, you will be free to choose any web hosting service of your choice. But whatever website platform or web hosting service you choose, you must estimate the long-term cost and then go for it.
Generally, long-term subscription plans are more cost-effective and cheaper than short-term plans. But if you would like to make your web hosting more reliable, it would be better to go for managed web hosting services.
If you choose a self-web hosting plan, on average you will be likely to spend around:
- Shared hosting- $2 to $15 per month
- VPS (Virtual Private Server)- $20 to $100 per month
- Dedicated Hosting- $80 to $500 per month
Read: 🚩 VPS hosting vs WordPress hosting
alone without any extra maintenance services, SEO features, and add-ons. Whereas, if you choose a Managed WordPress hosting such as WPOven, you will be provided with a complete website maintenance package as well as extra services in a single plan.
Single Managed WordPress hosting plan = Web hosting cost + Website Maintenance cost
At WPOven, you can avail yourself of all the Website maintenance benefits along with Premium web hosting services, which can help to reduce your overall effective website maintenance cost. You can check out the plans and the services as shown in the picture below:
- Hobby – $16.61 per month (Billed annually) or $19.95 per month
- Personal – $33.28 per month (Billed annually) or $39.95 per month
- Professional – $66.61 per month (Billed annually) or $79.95 per month
- Business – $124.95 per month (Billed annually) or $149.95 per month
- Agency – $249.95 per month (Billed annually) or $299.95 per month
What else could be better than choosing a Fully Managed web hosting plan that has a Premium WordPress maintenance package included rather than opting for a self-web hosting platform? Yes, you heard it right, WPOven is one of the best WordPress-managed hosting service providers that not only focuses on web hosting services but provides overall support along your online business journey. And you do not have to pay for
WPOven’s WordPress Maintenance Services include:
- Uptime website monitoring 24×7
- Free SSL Certificate
- Regular Theme, plugin, and core updates
- Optimization support
- Amazon S3-based offsite backup
- Complete Security Management
- Daily malware scanning and removal
- Free unlimited Migration
- Developer Friendly Environment
- Advanced Setup (PageSpeed, HHVM, Redis, MemCache, etc.)
- Anti- Hacking support
- Custom WordPress Dev Support
- Premium and Expert WordPress support services
- Whitelabel WordPress maintenance service
- Complete WordPress website management
- Content Management
- SEO services (Get Site Audit Reports and Technical SEO Support to Improve Organic Traffic)
For more details, you can check out WPOven’s dedicated page on WordPress maintenance Services.
3. SSL Certificate Renewal (Essential)
If you are running an online business or any website with sensitive information stored, you do not like it to be leaked into the public domain. To avoid such, SSL certificates need to be installed and renewed regularly.
SSL or Secure Socket Layers are special types of security protocols that are used to encrypt the communication between a server and a web browser. This security measure is so crucial that even Google has made it mandatory for websites to have it for better ranking.
The main reason for installing an SSL certificate is that it provides higher security, enhances website performance, and stronger data privacy. Due to this feature, it becomes very tough for hackers to leak sensitive information such as passwords, credit card information, etc. from the website.
The cost of SSL certificates can vary on the number of domains or subdomains it covers and the features you need. On average, the pricing of an SSL certificate can vary from $5 to $1000 per year.
- Single Domain SSL certificate: minimum of $5/year
- Wildcard SSL certificate: minimum of $30/year
- Multi-domain SSL certificate: minimum of $60/year
- Domain Validation: minimum of $70/year
- Organization Validation: minimum $150/year
- Extended Validation: minimum $200/year
But you can also save this cost by simply opting for a Managed WordPress hosting plan that comes with a Free SSL certificate. For example, WPOven provides a lifetime Free SSL certificate with all our plans.
In addition to that, if you would like to check or verify your website’s SSL certificate, you can also use our Free tool given below:
Fix the DNS_PROBE_FINISHED_NXDOMAIN error by choosing a reliable Web host: WPOven
You can eliminate all your WordPress error issues by hosting your website on WPOven’s fastest dedicated servers which are more reliable, secure, and affordable. WPOven provides you with,
- 24X7 WordPress Expert Support
- FREE WordPress Dev & Server Support,
- FREE SSD Storage
- FREE SSL Certificate
- FREE Business Email
- FREE premium themes and plugins,
- FREE Daily malware Scanning and offsite Backups,
4. Website Design Maintenance (Crucial)
Website Design is another essential task that one should consider on a regular basis. After all, the website is the only visual part that your visitors will be going to first interact with, it reflects your main objective, and it helps your visitors to know whether the content is suitable for them or not.
In addition to that, a well-structured, built, and designed Website also helps to boost your SEO to drive more traffic. The Web design maintenance cost can vary depending on the type of service you choose, whether you are doing it by yourself or hiring an expert.
4.1. Doing by yourself
If you are doing it by yourself, it can help you to minimize your website maintenance cost, and also it is a great option for small to medium size websites. Building a WordPress site or designing it for small or medium websites can be easily done with the help of free website builders and tools available. However, you can also choose premium tools but it won’t hamper your overall Website Maintenance cost.
For beginners, there are various free website builders available such as Wix, Squarespace, or Weebly. But if you like to use WordPress, you can use Elementor (free version) to build your website with its simple drag-and-drop feature.
The best thing about WordPress is that there are plenty of free tools, themes, and templates available, through which you can easily build any type of website. But, if you want to go premium, there are also plenty of WordPress premium themes available ranging from $10-$40 per month.
Some themes provide a lifetime license, whereas some of them may ask you to pay a monthly subscription fee. Whichever sounds like a great deal, you must go for it.
4.2. Hiring an Expert
If you own a large website and make certain changes, redesigning or alterations can be a more complex and difficult task. Therefore, in this case, it would be great if you hired a professional or expert in web designing.
These Experts are well-versed with the latest website trends, have great experience in handling all types of websites, and website coding, and can even make customizations as per your requirements. In addition to that, many web developers even provide extra services such as website maintenance, software updates, Expert support, and Website optimization as an add-on.
But all these benefits come with a higher price tag. Hiring an expert may not sound feasible for small or medium-sized websites but this option is the most suitable for large websites.
Average Website design cost (Expert): $6000 (depending upon the type and complexity of the website)
5. Marketing (Crucial)
To run a website successfully, there are some essential services you should also take care of, such as email services, marketing, and SEO. Without these essential services, your website won’t be visible on the internet and there will be no traffic.
5.1. Professional Email
Having a professional email for your website not only increases a website’s credibility but also helps businesses promote their brand, show professionalism, and increase trustfulness and B2B or B2C communication.
Professional email hosting lets website owners have their custom-built addresses with their domain names. For example, [email protected].
To have a custom build email address you can choose either Zohomail (Free) or GoogleWorkspace ($6/month/mailbox).
But if you choose a Managed WordPress hosting plan at WPOven, you do not need to pay extra or trust any third-party website for email hosting.
At WPOven, we provide Free business email hosting included in our all plans without any additional or hidden charges.
5.2. SEO and Marketing Services
To make your website visible on the internet and drive traffic to the website, SEO and paid marketing budget also need to be taken care of. Whether it is for off-page SEO or on-page SEO (blogs and articles publishing), Social media marketing, or YouTube videos, all these efforts are required to attract your target audiences.
Pushing Quality content on a regular basis not only helps to boost your SEO but also helps in brand awareness, promotion, and lead generation, and increases credibility.
Therefore, to boost SEO and marketing, there are certain things you need to consider in your overall Website maintenance cost:
- SEO tools: For building a better SEO strategy and tips, you can go for paid tools such as Semrush and Ahrefs which can cost you in the range of $100-$1000 per month. Therefore, these tools are most suitable for larger websites. However, for smaller websites, we have also free SEO tools available Ubersuggest and Moz.
- Content marketing: Blogs and articles need to be published regularly to increase organic traffic, and user engagement, and generate leads. You can either hire a full-time in-house content writer or outsource your content work to freelancers or digital marketing agencies. Freelancers charge you an average of about $1pw (per word) for a single post or article. Whereas, for the complete project, the agencies can charge you around $300-$600 per month.
- Email Marketing (optional): Keep your leads always informed about the promotional offers, discounts, achievements, or your business activities via newsletters or email marketing. There are various Free SMTP servers or email marketing tools available such as Mailchimp and Sendinblue, through which you can conduct email marketing campaigns successfully. These tools can cost you around $0 to $1000(pro) per month.
- Social media marketing: social media is a great platform for brand awareness and targeting a broader audience. But simply sharing posts on social media won’t help unless you do pay promotion via Facebook ads. On average, a company spends in the range of $6000 to $10k per month on social media marketing, (including paid promotions, social media marketing tools, and post-creation)
6. Plugins and Tools (Optional)
Plugins or tools can do wonders for your website, they can either increase your website functionality or add some extra features to it. Therefore, it completely varies from one website to another and is not as important as other elements.
If your website is built on WordPress, you will have plenty of free WordPress plugins and tools (60000+) available that cannot affect your overall Website maintenance cost but in case you go for premium tools, then it can cost you up to a max of $600 per month.
In case you are using eCommerce plugins or tools for payment gateways, inventory management, membership, etc… The website maintenance cost can go further, and for the eCommerce feature itself, it will cost around $20-$1000 per month.
7. Technical Expert Support (Crucial)
If you are running a website, it is obvious that at some point your website will encounter some serious issues, errors, or even cyber-attacks. To run your website smoothly, without affecting its traffic all the time with minimum downtime, you will be required to have tech or expert support no matter whether you are a beginner or a pro to get things right as soon as possible.
Expert support or Assistance can be provided through various channels, such as ticket generation, phone calls, live chat, and guidelines or documented resources.
You will also find all these services are provided by a majority of the web hosts and the level of support can vary depending on the web hosting plan you choose. However, these supports provided with the web hosting plans are great for personal blogs or small eCommerce websites.
But if you are running a large eCommerce business or an enterprise, you will be required to have reliable and top-notch customer support that is available 24X7 and has a high response time. So, any issue cannot hamper your website traffic significantly. The average cost for technical Expert support may be around $5 to $500 per month.
However, if you choose premium Managed web hosting there would be no need to pay extra for Support services. At WPOven, we provide you with the best in the industry WordPress Expert support 24×7, all-inclusive in our plans.
Average Monthly Website Maintenance Cost for Different Types of Websites
Considering all the various factors such as Hosting costs, Tools costs, Marketing costs, and personal costs we come up with the Average monthly website maintenance cost for the different types of websites we have:
Website Maintenance Cost for Small/Personal Blog Websites
- Domain Registration: $1-$2 per month ($10-$20 per year)
- Web hosting: min $20/month
- SSL certificate renewal: $0 (if provided by web host or $10 per month)
- Website Design: $0 (Free themes are sufficient)
- Marketing: $0 (max tools are available free for small websites)
- Plugins and Tools: $0
- Support: $0 (Basic support provided by all web hosts)
The overall cost of website maintenance for a small personal blog/ website is $20-25 per month.
Website Maintenance Cost for Medium Personal/Blog Websites
- Domain Registration: $1-$2 per month ($10-$20 per year)
- Web hosting: min $20/month
- SSL certificate renewal: $0 (if provided by web host or $10 per month)
- Website Design: $0 (Free themes are sufficient)
- Marketing: $0 (max tools are available free for small-medium websites but for off-page SEO $10-$20)
- Plugins and Tools: $10
- Support: $0 (Basic support provided by all web hosts)
The overall cost of website maintenance for a Medium personal blog/ website is $40-$150 per month.
Website Maintenance Costs for Large Blog Websites
- Domain Registration: $1-$2 per month ($10-$20 per year)
- Web hosting: min $30-$80/month
- SSL certificate renewal: $0 (if provided by web host or $10 per month)
- Website Design: $0-$150 per month
- Marketing: $200 (max tools are available free for small-medium websites)
- Plugins and Tools: $10-$50 per month
- Support: $50 per month
The overall cost of website maintenance for a large personal blog/ website is $200-$500 per month.
Website Maintenance Costs for Large Enterprise Websites
- Domain Registration: $1-$2 per month ($10-$20 per year)
- Web hosting: min $80-$150/month
- SSL certificate renewal: $0 (if provided by web host or $10 per month)
- Website Design: $500-$1000 per month
- Marketing: $20-$200 (max tools are available free for small-medium websites)
- Plugins and Tools: $50-$100 per month
- Support: $50-$100 per month
The overall cost of website maintenance for a small personal blog/ website is $1000-$5000 per month.
Website Maintenance Costs for Medium Entertainment, Multimedia, or eCommerce Websites
- Domain Registration: $1-$2 per month ($10-$20 per year)
- Web hosting: $150-$300/month
- SSL certificate renewal: $0 (if provided by web host or $10 per month)
- Website Design: $500-$500 per month
- Marketing: $100-$200 (max tools are available free for small-medium websites)
- Plugins and Tools: $50-$100 per month
- Support: $50-$100 per month
The overall cost of website maintenance for a small personal blog/ website is $500-$3000 per month.
Website Maintenance Costs for Large eCommerce Websites
- Domain Registration: $1-$2 per month ($10-$20 per year)
- Web hosting: $300-$500/month
- SSL certificate renewal: $0 (if provided by web host or $10 per month)
- Website Design: $500-$2000 per month
- Marketing: $200-$500 (max tools are available free for small-medium websites)
- Plugins and Tools: $50-$200 per month
- Support: $100-$300 per month
The overall cost of website maintenance for a small personal blog/ website is $2000-$4000 per month.
Should You Hire A Developer to Do Website Maintenance?
Website maintenance for small websites or personal blogs is not much of a difficult task. Anyone with basic knowledge can do it by themselves. But for larger websites such as eCommerce, multimedia, or enterprise, it can be very difficult for an individual to do all the website maintenance tasks regularly by himself.
The pros of doing website maintenance by yourself can save your website maintenance cost a very significant amount but it has its problems.
On the other hand, if you hire an expert or professional, it can be a very difficult decision for your website. Not only will you save your time and effort but also you will be able to focus on your business growth.
The average website maintenance cost under self-maintenance will cost you around $100 per month.
But hiring an Expert can cost you in the range of $200 to $5000 per month.
Conclusion
The cost of WordPress website maintenance can vary from one website to another and it depends upon the type and size of the website. Therefore, it is impossible to figure out the exact Website maintenance cost for any individual.
But generally, you will find the average Website Maintenance cost is around $10 to $5k per month. In this post, we tried to explore all the possible aspects that affect Website maintenance costs in a very comprehensive way. So that, you will get an idea of how much it will cost you to maintain a particular type of website.
If you find anything we missed mentioning in this post or would like to share your own opinions regarding the post, please feel free to write in the comment section below.
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Frequently Asked Questions
How much should you charge to maintain a website?
The charge to maintain a website varies from one website to another and largely depends upon the type and size of the website. But on average, it is likely to be between $10 to $5000 per month.
The cost of maintaining a website can go even further, especially for websites such as Amazon, Netflix, or Disney Hotstar.
How much does it cost to maintain a small website?
For maintaining small websites, it can cost you around up to $25 per month. However, it can get even lower up to $10 per month if you choose a shared hosting plan.
What is included in website maintenance?
The elements that are included in website maintenance are:
1. Domain Registration
2. Web hosting renewal
3. Website Design/tweaks
4. SEO and Marketing
5. Plugin and Tools
6. SSL certificate and Security
6. Technical Expert Support
Rahul Kumar is a web enthusiast, and content strategist specializing in WordPress & web hosting. With years of experience and a commitment to staying up-to-date with industry trends, he creates effective online strategies that drive traffic, boosts engagement, and increase conversions. Rahul’s attention to detail and ability to craft compelling content makes him a valuable asset to any brand looking to improve its online presence.
