The PDF was one page, $149 a month. How much does website maintenance cost a business? Theirs listed hosting, backups, plugin updates, a security scan, and two edits. The contact form had been sending mail to nobody for three weeks.
I treat this as business websites. A product someone logs into is who owns the product after launch. A site that is not up yet is how much a custom website costs.
How much website maintenance costs
Dollars a month, from briefs where the site was already up. The last row is a different invoice. I don't put it on this one.
| What they sent | What it costs | What the month covers |
|---|---|---|
| A care plan | $30 to $99 | The host login, backups, and the update button. The $149 PDF was this row. They had put a margin on a panel the client already paid for. |
| A capped month | $600 to $1,500 | One site, one person, a cap written on the invoice. I spend it on whatever is actually down, then I stop. There is no second bucket called extra. |
| The site changes every week | $1,500 to $3,200 | A shop, or more than one site. The cap is bigger because the pages change. If the line says "whatever comes up," I ask for the list before I quote. |
| A product, or a new site sold as support | The other receipt | People log in and run the work through it: who owns the product after launch. New templates on the live URLs: how much a website redesign costs. |
Four of the five lines were the host. The fifth was the phone number in the footer. I would have left them on the host they already paid and billed the form as its own hour. The plan never had a line for it.
What a website care plan actually includes
Same PDF. I went down the checkboxes. Most of them are a second bill for a panel you already have.
Daily backups are already in the host
I download yesterday's copy and try to open it. A green tick in their panel is not a file you can restore. If the zip needs their login, it isn't yours, and I don't charge a month to leave the tick where it was.
Plugin updates are a button
On WordPress the button is in that same panel. I press it on a copy, then I look at the homepage. If the theme breaks, the job is keep WordPress, or rebuild. The button is not the month.
A security scan is a PDF
Theirs was a list of old plugins. It flagged the form plugin and said nothing about the mail going nowhere. I open the plugin the scan is yelling about. Often it still works, and the scan wants it replaced anyway. I don't send that PDF back and call it the month.
What two content edits cover
An edit is a line of text, or a photo you already have. Theirs was the footer. A new service page is a different fee, and I say so before anyone spends the two edits on a phone number.
What a website change costs outside maintenance
Past the cap, the change gets its own price. Fixed price or hourlywaits until I can name the change. I don't hang an open hourly tab off the care plan.
Those two edits expired on the 1st. They had already used them on the footer, so the form had nowhere to go. If you don't send me anything in a month, the next invoice shrinks, or it stops. I don't roll unused hours into a balance you can't see.
When a new page stays in the month
If it uses the template you already have, and the words fit in the cap, it stays here. A new layout is how much a website redesign costs. I say which before I open the file.
A broken form can still be the month
A form I can fix inside the cap is this invoice. A theme that breaks every time someone presses update is WordPress, or a rebuild. If the complaint is the wait, a slow website is a product problem, and another month of the same theme will not touch it.
When I won't sell website maintenance
I send some of these back. The number on the PDF can be real and still be the wrong site.
People already log in
Staff run the day through it. Customers come back to an order. That month is who owns the product after launch. I don't put a five-line care plan on a login.
Nothing on the website is broken
I ask what changed in the last three months. If the list is empty and the form sends, the bill is the host. A few of the live sites are in selected work. If you want the plan marked, send it.
