How Much Does Website Maintenance Cost?

Justin Young

• cost
• service cost
• Website Maintenance

Know website maintenance costs upfront to avoid surprises and keep your website running smoothly.

Did you know that users take only 50 milliseconds (0.05 seconds!) to form an opinion about your website? Within this short period, they decide whether or not they want to stay. Keeping your website up-to-date is a critical way to show its quality.

The cost of maintaining a website pays off in the end because 47% of customers will visit a company's website before deciding whether or not to make a purchase. Therefore, it is essential to ensure everything looks fresh and runs smoothly!

What is the cost of website maintenance?

Website maintenance cost overview: The Cost of maintaining a website depends on its size and purpose. Even small websites should budget for at least $100 per year. Midsize websites may cost between $400 to $500 annually, while more significant business and ecommerce sites can easily exceed $1,000 annually.

Below are the eight essential costs to prepare you for what to expect.

Here's a breakdown of the costs associated with maintaining a website:

1. Domain name: typically costs between $10 to $20 per year.
2. SSL certificates can range from $0 to $50 per month.
3. Web hosting providers: prices vary from $2.75 to $15.00 monthly.
4. Email hosting costs $1 to $5 or more per month.
5. Tech support: can be free or cost up to $1,000 monthly.
6. Search engine optimization: can range from $0 to $800 per month.
7. Content updates: can be free or cost up to$3,000.
8. General updates: can be free or cost up to $200 monthly.

Understanding the Cost of Maintaining Different Types of Websites

Website maintenance cost overview: The monthly cost for website maintenance varies based on your website type. Below, we have outlined the essential monthly fees for each type of site.

Please note that the table displays the monthly cost of a domain name, but your website types annually, meaning you would typically pay

$10-$20

Upfront instead of in monthly installments.

Below is a table showing the monthly cost breakdown for different types of websites. The costs include the following:

• Domain name: This is the cost of registering and renewing a domain name. The price ranges from $1-2 per month.
• SSL certificate: This is the cost of securing your website with an SSL certificate. The price ranges from $0-49.99 per month, depending on the type of website you have.
• Web hosting: the cost of hosting your website on a server. The price is $2.75 per month for a small blog/portfolio or a significant blog/portfolio and ranges from $6.95 to $18.99 per month for a local or large business or a small or large ecommerce store.
• Email hosting: This is the cost of setting up and maintaining email accounts associated with your domain name. The price ranges from $1-5 per month.
• Tech support: This is the cost of technical support for your website. The price is $0 for a a small blog/portfolio or extensive blog/portfolio, $50 per month for a local business, $100 per month for a large company, and $100-500+ per month for a small or large ecommerce store.
• SEO: This is the cost of search engine optimization to improve your website's visibility on search engines. The price is $0 for a a small blog/portfolio or extensive blog/portfolio, $300 per month for a large business, and $600 for a small or large ecommerce store.
• Content updates: This is the cost of updating the content on your website. The price is $0 for a small blog/portfolio or extensive blog/portfolio, $200 per month for a large business, and $200 for a small ecommerce store.
• General updates: This is the cost of making available updates to your website, such as fixing bugs or adding new features. The price is $0 for a small blog/portfolio or extensive blog/portfolio, $100 per month for a local business, $200 for a large company, and $200 for a small or large ecommerce store.

Domain names

typically cost between $10 and $20 per year.

• Registrar | .com | .org | .us | .me
• NameCheap | $8.88/year | $11.98/year | $3.88/year | $3.88/year
• GoDaddy | 99¢/year | $10.17/year | $7.99/year | $3.49/year
• HostGator | $12.95/year | $12.95/year | $5.95/year | $15.00/year

It's worth noting that domain name registrars typically charge more after the first year. This means that the renewal price of your domain name will be higher than the introductory price of your first purchase. Generally, the cost of essential domain names for popular extensions like .com and .org ranges from $12 per year, while renewing a domain name can cost anywhere from $10 to $20 per year.

In case you're interested, we have an in-depth guide on how much a domain name should cost. Additionally, we have a five-step guide that teaches you how to transfer your domain name to a new host (Website maintenance cost overview).

SSL Certificates

SSL certificates are a crucial component of website security. Obtaining an SSL certificate typically ranges from $0 to $49.99 annually.

It automatically encrypts the information that passes through your website and ensures the safety of your visitors' data. Investing in website security is a valuable expense, regardless of the type of website you run. If visitors do not consider your website as trustworthy, it can affect user engagement. According to a survey, 75% of the respondents abandoned an online transaction if they felt the website was insecure. Even if you are not running an e-commerce site, having SSL on your website is essential as it gives Google a favorable impression of your website (Website maintenance cost overview).

So, what do people look for to ensure your site is secure? The address bar's padlock icon and "https://" indicate that you have an SSL (secure sockets layer) certificate. You can check the appearance of these features below:

Most web hosting providers offer a basic version of SSL protection for free through the non-profit Let's Encrypt. However, if you want to upgrade to a more substantial level of SSL protection (we'd recommend this for e-commerce sites, as visitors will be sharing their payment information), the next step would be to purchase SiteLock security, which you can buy through your hosting provider for approximately $2 per month. This is not too expensive, considering we expect to spend about $10 trillion globally on cybersecurity by 2028!

SiteLock's extra features include daily malware scans, automated malware removal, and Google blocklist monitoring.

If you want to pay only what you have to, you can opt for the basic version of SSL protection that most web hosting providers offer for free. However, if you are running an e-commerce site, it is recommended that you upgrade your SSL protection to ensure the safety of your visitors' payment information.

Web Hosting

Usually, they charge between $2.75 and $15.00 per month for their services.

When creating a website, web hosting is an additional expense to consider. If you are using a website builder, hosting is usually included. However, you must be a web hosting provider using a content management system like WordPress. Your web hosting provider is responsible for powering your site and determining how quickly your pages load and any files you can store. Therefore, hosting is an essential part of maintaining a website.

Since hosting is a recurring payment, you'll need to budget for it to keep your website running consistently. Your hosting provider also affects factors like your website's uptime. The cost of hosting varies depending on the provider and type of hosting. Shared hosting is the most common and cheapest type, which can still meet the needs of most small to medium-sized websites.

Here is the cost of purchasing a shared plan from three of the top shared hosting providers:

1. HostGator: $2.75/month, 99.99% uptime, unmetered storage
2. InMotion: $2.49/month, 99.97% uptime, 10 GB storage
3. Bluehost: $2.95/month, 99.98% uptime, 50 GB storage

If you want more options, check out our ranking of hosting providers. You can also find more pricing information in our breakdown of How Much Website Hosting Should Cost.

For most websites, shared hosting is a good option. However, if you are running a large blog or a medium to large-sized ecommerce store, consider VPS hosting. With shared hosting, you share a server's resources with other websites, while VPS hosting allocates more server resources to your site. VPS plans are more powerful and expensive than shared hosting, as shown in the table below: Hosting Provider Price Bandwidth Storage

1. InMotion: $17.99/month, 4 TB, 75 GB
2. HostGator: $19.95/month, Unmetered, 120 GB
3. Bluehost $18.99/month, 1 TB, 30 GB

For very extensive websites, it is recommended that they consider upgrading to a dedicated hosting plan. This type of hosting usually costs between $80-300/month. By choosing this option, a server and its resources are dedicated solely to your website. This ensures that your website won't be affected by fluctuations in traffic or files from other websites.

Heads up, when choosing a web hosting plan and provider, keep in mind that the cost of your web hosting will increase significantly after the first year, regardless of which plan you choose. This is an unavoidable expense, which you should be aware of. For instance, the InMotion VPS plan initially costs $2initially 2.99/month at $64.99/month after the first year.

If you are still determining the hosting your website will require, you can take our web hosting quiz, which will provide personalized recommendations. Additionally, if you are stuck between a few differences, you can consult our web hosting comparison chart to make an informed decision.

Email hosting services

They are typically available at 5 per month.

Email hosting allows you to have a customized email server for your website. This service will enable you to email addresses such as @yourdomain.com and give your website a more professional look. While basic email hosting is available to many providers, some website owners pay for more features and capabilities.

For instance, Bluehost offers email hosting as an add-on to their regular hosting plan. It costs $2.99/month for the first year and renews at $4.99/month. This service includes emails and calendars, Outlook web access, and 15 GB of email storage.

Email hosting is a necessary expense for a business website because having email addresses hosted @ your domain boosts your site's professionalism. On the other hand, if you're running a personal website, email hosting is an excellent addition if you have some extra budget to spend – but if not, don't sweat it!

Tech Support

Are you in need of tech support? The cost of tech support services usually ranges between $0 to $1,000 or more, depending on your required services.

Both website builders and web hosting providers have customer support teams to help you with technical difficulties at no extra cost. If you need more personalized support services, offer different packages to choose the one that fits your website's needs and budget (Website maintenance cost overview).

For instance, a web maintenance plan for a personal blog costs around $50 per month, which includes regular updates to your site's theme and plugins. If you have a commercial website, you can pay around $100 monthly for dedicated SEO support on top of regular updates. For more significant ecommerce sites, you can pay between $500 and $1,000 per month to add development support, such as creating new templates and functionalities for your site.

Regarding maintenance costs, tech support can be either cheap or expensive, depending on your requirements. We suggest starting with the in-house support provided by website builders and hosting providers, which is included in the Price. From there, you can determine if you need additional help and decide accordingly.

Search Engine Optimization, aka SEO

The average cost of cost service ranges from $0 to $1,200 per month.

Improving your website's rankings in Google search results can be achieved through SEO. It involves small changes that can make your website easily discoverable by search engine crawlers. You don't need to spend money to improve your SEO, as you can do it yourself. Here are some basic steps you can take:

1. Write page titles and descriptions that are short, informative, and snappy. They appear on Google as a preview of your site and can encourage people to click through.
2. Use relevant keywords that you would like your page to rank for. For instance, if you're selling homemade jewelry, you want your product page to appear when people search for "craft bracelets." To achieve this, include "craft bracelets" on your page wherever applicable.
3. Tag images with "alt text" that will show up in place of the image if it fails to load. This text also helps search engine crawlers understand what your page is all about.

Outsourcing SEO

Content Updates

Typical cost: $0- $3,000

DIY Content

Having a visually appealing website is essential, but only some of it. The quality of the content you publish on your website is equally important. Your website's content includes blog posts, "About Us" sections, team bios, and anything else that can be read, watched, or viewed on your site. Good content is crucial for engaging your audience and keeping them interested in your website.

If you enjoy being creative and managing a website, you likely enjoy planning and creating content. However, making the content itself will be the bulk of the work. It's also essential to stick to a consistent schedule when posting content. Nothing is worse than visiting a blog page that has not been updated in years (Website maintenance cost overview).

Outsourcing Content

If you prefer to hire a freelance copywriter or a creative agency to take care of your web copy, the costs can vary significantly based on the tasks you need to get done. For instance, if you require new blog posts to be written multiple times a week, you can expect to pay anywhere between 10 cents to $1 per word. On the other hand, if you need a landing page once, you can expect to pay around $500-1,000 for the whole page (Website maintenance cost overview).

General Updates

Typical cost: $0- $200/month

You will need routine maintenance, known as "general updates," to ensure your website remains up-to-date. This involves regularly updating your plugins, themes, and CMS, especially if you are WordPress. While you can monitor these updates, it may be time-consuming and technically challenging. Alternatively, you can outsource this task to a professional who can update your themes and plugins and ensure that everything is compatible with the latest version of WordPress.

Website Builders?

Average cost: $10- $30/month

It is essential to consider website maintenance costs when running a website. However, if you use a website builder, you won't have to worry about calculating maintenance costs separately. Website builders provide an all-in-one solution that is affordable and easy to budget.

While website builders are accessible and affordable, they may offer a different level of power and scalability than a DIY website. This means they may need to be more suitable for extremely large or high-traffic websites. However, for most of us, website builders are a simple solution (Website maintenance cost overview).

You get several elements included when you pay $10-30/month for a website builder. This includes hosting, a domain name, basic SSL security, and tech support. You may have to pay to renew your domain name after the first year. To compare their websites to the monthly prices and features of top website builders like Wix, Squarespace, and Weebly, check the Price (billed yearly) of the Hosting SSL certificate Domain name.

• Wix: Combo plan – $16/month, Included, Included, Included free for one year
• Squarespace: Personal plan – $16/month, Included, Included, Included free for one year
• Weebly: Pro plan – $12/month, Included, Included, Included

Website Maintenance Cost: Recap

Knowing the typical expenses of maintaining a website can help you plan an adequate budget. However, consider that costs can vary depending on your website type. For instance, an ecommerce store that accepts payments on-site will need to spend more on SSL security than a personal blog will. Using a website builder will include many basic costs in your plan (Website maintenance cost overview).

• Domain name: $10-$20 per year.
• SSL certificates: $0-$50 per month.
• Web hosting providers: $2.75-$15.00 per month.
• Email hosting: $1-$5 per month.
• Tech support: $0-$1,000 per month.
• Search engine optimization: $0-$800 per month.
• Content updates: $0-$3,000 total.
• General updates: $0-$200 per month.

Considering these costs, you can keep your website running smoothly (Website maintenance cost overview).

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