"The site works, doesn't it — why maintain it?" We hear this sentence a lot, and our answer is always the same case: the site whose contact forms silently discarded every message for three years also "worked". The bill for neglect never arrives as an error screen; it arrives as lost customers, sliding rankings and a site that one day simply will not open. This article walks through the line items on that bill and what maintenance actually insures.
Four Things That Break Silently
- Software ages: PHP versions, the core, themes and plugins never stop being updated. An unupdated component first turns incompatible, then turns into a security hole. The vast majority of hacked sites are hacked not because they were targeted, but because they were not updated.
- Forms and email snap: a change on the server, provider or authentication (SPF) side can kill your forms silently. The visitor sees the "sent" message; you see nothing at all.
- Speed rots: every added image and every added plugin slows the site down. Google quietly demotes a site that is getting slower.
- The absence of a backup reveals itself on disaster day: having a backup is not enough; it has to be restorable. An untested backup is not a backup.
What Our Maintenance Package Does, Month by Month
Updates applied only after being tested, daily automated backups with restore drills, security scans, form and email delivery checks (yes, we fill in your form ourselves and try it), broken-link sweeps, speed measurement and a monthly summary report. In short: every month, someone audits the gap between your site "looking like it works" and it actually working.
The Hosting Side: the Site's Home
Maintenance's twin is hosting. On the sites we host, SSL, Cloudflare protection, daily backups and server hardening are standard; and when something goes wrong there is a single accountable party: us. The "hosting with one company, site with another, nobody takes responsibility" triangle is the most expensive org chart you can have on incident day.
Cost Logic
Maintenance is a subscription item, and its price is published openly in the calculator. The yardstick for comparison is this: the 20-item repair in our rescue case cost more than years of maintenance fees would have — maintenance is the repair bill paid in instalments, minus the disaster. Detailed package contents are on the maintenance page.
What Does Website Maintenance Cover? A Checklist
For those who want the explicit list, the monthly items are: core/theme/plugin updates tested on a copy first and only then rolled out to the live site, daily automated backups plus periodic restore rehearsals, security and malware scanning, form and email delivery testing, broken-link sweeps, speed measurement (PageSpeed) and a monthly summary report. Count how many of these items appear in any maintenance proposal you receive — a one-line "we do updates" offer is not maintenance, it is a button-pressing service.
What Determines the Price of Website Maintenance?
Three variables set the price: the site's platform (WordPress or custom, e-commerce or not), its criticality (a site taking payments is not on the same urgency level as a brochure site) and the scope (updates only, or content changes and support hours included). The range is wide; what matters is that the fee's coverage is stated in writing. Our package structure and the figures are in the calculator — no surprise items.
If you don't know when your site last had a health check, the answer is "never". And the case study in this article is the documentation of what "never" costs after three years.
