· 5 min read
How much does website maintenance cost in the UK?
Short answer: most UK small businesses pay £30–150 a month to have their website looked after, or roughly £350–1,200 a year. Online shops usually pay more, typically £150–300 a month. Some simple modern sites need very little at all.
Below is what maintenance actually covers, what each level of plan costs, when you can safely skip it, and what tends to happen to sites nobody looks after.
What website maintenance actually means
“Maintenance” covers the jobs that keep a site safe, working and up to date after launch. Depending on how your site is built, that usually means:
- Updates: keeping the software, theme and plugins current, so known security holes get closed.
- Backups: regular copies of the site stored somewhere else, so it can be restored if something breaks.
- Monitoring: an alert if the site goes down, the security certificate expires or a form stops sending.
- Security checks: scanning for malware and suspicious changes.
- Speed: keeping pages quick to load as images and content pile up.
- Small changes: new opening hours, a price update, a fresh photo, a new team member.
- Support: someone to ask when something looks wrong.
Website maintenance prices in the UK
Typical monthly prices in 2026, pulled together from several UK guides:
| Level | Typical price | What you usually get |
|---|---|---|
| Basic, mostly automated | £20–75 a month | automatic updates, scheduled backups, uptime monitoring, basic security scans |
| Standard, managed | £75–200 a month | updates checked by a person, monthly reports, broken link checks, a little time each month for changes |
| Premium | £200–500+ a month | more developer time, priority support, regular reviews and often SEO checks |
| Online shop | £150–300 a month | everything above, plus closer watching of checkout, payments and stock tools |
If you don’t have a plan, one-off help is usually charged by the hour, typically £50–150 an hour, and emergency fixes without a contract can cost £150–500 per incident.
The other running costs
Maintenance is only one line. A full monthly picture for a small business site usually looks like this:
| Cost | Basic site | Business site | Online shop |
|---|---|---|---|
| Hosting | £10–20 | £20–50 | £30–100+ |
| Domain | about £1 | about £1 | about £2 |
| Maintenance | £0–50 | £50–150 | £100–300 |
| Business email | £5–10 | £10–30 | £10–30 |
Some care plans include hosting, others don’t. When you compare plans, check which of these lines each one covers.
What changes the price
- How the site is built. Sites on WordPress with lots of plugins need regular updates. A simple static site, or one on a builder like Squarespace, needs far fewer.
- Whether it sells. Shops handle payments and customer data, so they need closer watching.
- How often things change. A menu that changes weekly needs more hours than a site that stays the same for months.
- Response time. A reply the same day costs more than a reply within a few working days.
- Reports. Monthly reports on visits and enquiries take time to put together.
Do you need a maintenance plan?
Not always. A good rule of thumb:
- You probably need one if your site runs on WordPress with plugins, takes payments or bookings, collects customer data, or you’d rather not think about it.
- You might not if it’s a simple site on a builder that updates itself, or a static site with few moving parts, and you’re comfortable making small changes yourself.
Even then, someone should keep an eye on the domain renewal, the security certificate and the contact form. A form that quietly stops sending can cost you weeks of enquiries before anyone notices.
What happens if nobody maintains a site
- It gets hacked. Out-of-date plugins are the most common way into small business sites. Cleaning up a hacked site typically costs £500–3,000, many times more than a year of basic care.
- It slowly breaks. A plugin stops working, a layout falls apart on new phones, a form stops sending emails.
- It goes offline. An expired domain or security certificate takes the site down, sometimes with a scary browser warning.
- It drops in Google. Slow, broken or out-of-date pages lose rankings over time.
- It looks abandoned. Old prices and opening hours make visitors wonder whether you’re still trading.
Can you maintain it yourself?
You can. Proper maintenance usually takes two to five hours a month for a typical small business site. If your own time is worth £50 an hour, that’s £100–250 a month in time, so a plan often costs less than doing it yourself. If you do take it on:
- Turn on automatic backups and check you can actually restore one.
- Update plugins and themes once a month, after a backup.
- Set a free uptime monitor to email you if the site goes down.
- Put domain and certificate renewal dates in your calendar.
- Send yourself a test message through every form each month.
What to look for in a care plan
| Question | Why it matters |
|---|---|
| Are updates checked by a person? | Automatic updates can break a site; someone should check it afterwards. |
| Where are backups kept, and how often? | Backups on the same server can disappear with it. |
| How much time for changes is included? | “Small edits” can mean ten minutes or two hours. |
| How fast do they reply? | Matters most for shops and booking sites. |
| Is hosting included? | Otherwise it’s a separate bill. |
| How do you cancel? | A month or so of notice is common; long lock-ins are a warning sign. |
| Do you keep everything if you leave? | Your domain, content and files should stay yours. |
I offer care plans for the sites I build, with hosting, updates, backups and small changes included. You can see what each one covers in the services section on my site.
Common questions
How much does website maintenance cost per year in the UK?
For a small business site, roughly £350–1,200 a year. Small online shops typically spend £1,200–3,000 a year.
Is hosting the same as maintenance?
No. Hosting is where the site lives; maintenance is someone looking after it. Some plans bundle both.
Does a Wix or Squarespace site need maintenance?
Much less than WordPress, because the platform updates itself. You still need to keep content current, check forms and renew your domain.
Can I cancel a maintenance plan?
Usually, with notice. Check the contract for the notice period and make sure you get your files and logins when you leave.
Planning a new site? Running costs are covered alongside build prices in how much a small business website costs.
Tatiana · UX/UI, web & product designer in the UK with 10+ years across B2B and B2C. I design and build websites for small businesses, and design products and apps for startups and established teams.