How much does it cost to maintain a website per year?

"The website is up, and now what?" That's the question almost nobody asks before buying and the one that brings the most surprises afterwards. A website isn't a piece of furniture: you don't buy it and forget about it. It needs regular maintenance, like a car or a boiler.

The good news is that maintaining a website is much cheaper and simpler than it looks. The bad news: some people charge for it as if it were a premium service. Here's what it really costs, what it should include and how to know if what they're offering you is reasonable.

What maintenance actually includes

When a professional talks about "website maintenance", this is what should be inside:

• Security updates. The software your website runs on is updated every few weeks. If it isn't, your website ends up being an open door for attacks, and a security problem can take a business down on any given Monday.
• Backups. If something breaks or someone deletes a page by accident, the backup gives you your website back in minutes. Without it, the work has to be redone.
• Monitoring and fixing errors. Links that stop working, forms that stop sending, texts that look wrong on mobile. It gets detected and fixed, rather than waiting for the customer to complain.
• Small content changes. Changing a price, updating opening hours, uploading a new photo, changing a phone number. That's the most-used part of all maintenance: in a business, the details change every few months.
• Domain and email renewal. Your domain and professional email renew every year. Good maintenance makes sure they never expire, because an expired domain takes down the website and the email, and recovering it is a headache.
• Performance review. That the website loads fast, that it's properly indexed in Google, that the pages open without errors.

What it usually doesn't include

It's just as important to know this: a lot of billing problems come from not having asked what's outside the maintenance.

• Changing the design or structure of a page (that's a redesign project).
• Professional photos or new photo shoots.
• Writing copy, for example for a new section.
• Advertising or Google campaigns.
• New features: a booking system, a shop, a catalogue.

None of these is a trick: they're different jobs. But ask before, not when the invoice arrives.

How much it costs per year

Market ranges are wide because the price depends on your website: a five-page website isn't the same as a catalogue with hundreds of products. As a guide, basic maintenance for a "presentation"-style business website usually runs in the tens of euros per month (annual plans ranging from the equivalent of a couple of coffees a week to a somewhat larger figure for websites with more features). Some plans are paid upfront for the year, others monthly.

What matters isn't the number: it's that you know what you're paying for. Before signing, ask these five things:

1. How many content changes does it include per month? (and are extra changes billed separately)
2. Who answers if the website goes down on a Saturday? How long does it take?
3. Are the domain and email included, or billed separately at cost?
4. Is there a lock-in, or can you switch providers whenever you want?
5. Do you get any report of what was done?

A serious provider answers all five without getting nervous.

Signs that the maintenance is expensive or useless

• Charging you extra for renewing the domain. Domains and hosting have a market cost: on the invoice they should appear at cost, with a transparent margin, not hidden.
• Billing by the hour for any trivial change. Changing a phone number can't be half an hour of billing: that's the maintenance part.
• Doing nothing and still charging. If in a year there's been no update and no report, what are you paying for?
• Not giving you access to anything. Your website is yours: domain, email and the editing panel. If the day you switch providers you can't recover anything, something is wrong.

What if your website is years old and you've never touched it?

The typical website built in 2016 with the text "updated: 2019" on the home page. Google's eyes and your customers' eyes notice. Those websites aren't just outdated: they're usually slow, don't look good on mobile, and sometimes they're off Google without you even knowing.

Here you don't always need to pay for maintenance: sometimes the smart move is to migrate from an old website to a modern one and, from there, yes, maintain it. It's almost always cheaper than living for years with a website that brings in no customers.

How to choose who takes care of it

• The same studio that built your website is usually the most convenient: they already know your project.
• Ask for the detail in writing, with the points from the list above.
• Value a provider who also adds value: a review of how you appear on Google every few months is worth the plan's cost, as we saw in how much a website for a business costs and in the importance of having your business listing well set up.

The honest recommendation

Maintenance isn't an expense: it's the policy that stops your website from breaking, going out of date or disappearing from Google at the worst possible moment. For a local business, having a live, well-cared-for website is what separates the ones that get calls from the ones that just have it "for decoration".

At pedroaren.com websites are delivered with aftercare included, and if your website already exists, they also explain the real cost of maintenance before you sign anything. If you want to know the exact number for your case, you can request a free design proposal with no obligation and ask about the maintenance plan: they'll lay it out in writing before you pay a single euro.