Published guides put WordPress maintenance for a small business site at roughly $600 to $6,000 a year, and for an online store at $3,600 a year or more (GoDaddy, April 2026). Where a quote lands in that range depends less on the size of the site than on what is actually done: whether updates are tested before they go live, whether backups are ever restored, and how fast someone answers when something breaks.
Most price guides quote a monthly figure and stop there. Below you will find the published ranges converted to a yearly total, what each level of maintenance really covers, the questions that separate a real plan from an automated one, and what our own WordPress maintenance includes for its yearly price.
In short
- Published estimates for a business site run from about $600 to $6,000 a year (GoDaddy, April 2026, linked below). None of the guides we checked cite a survey: they are each publisher’s own estimates.
- The same word, “maintenance”, covers anything from an automatic plugin update to tested updates, restored backups and a checked contact form. Compare what is done, not the price tag.
- Cleaning up a neglected site is a separate, one-off job. A fair quote prices it separately, upfront, instead of hiding it in the yearly fee.
- Some sites do not need paid maintenance at all. If that is you, you should hear it before you sign anything.
What published guides say WordPress maintenance costs
Here are the ranges from the guides that rank for this question, by type of site. Where a guide gives only a monthly figure, the yearly column is that figure multiplied by twelve. All amounts are in US dollars.
| Type of site | Published range | Per year | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| Personal site or blog | $0 to $30 a month | $0 to $360 | WPBeginner, 3 December 2025 |
| Personal site or blog | $5 to $75 a month | $60 to $900 | GoDaddy, 13 April 2026 |
| Business site | $100 to $300+ a month | $1,200 to $3,600+ | WPBeginner, 3 December 2025 |
| Small to medium business site | $50 to $500 a month | $600 to $6,000 | GoDaddy, 13 April 2026 |
| Small business site | $30 to $250 a month | $360 to $3,000 | WebsiteSetup, updated 2 March 2026 |
| Online store | $300 to $1,000+ a month | $3,600 to $12,000+ | WPBeginner, 3 December 2025 |
| Online store | $300 to $1,000 a month | $3,600 to $12,000 | GoDaddy, 13 April 2026 |
Two things are worth knowing before you use these numbers. First, none of these guides say where their ranges come from: there is no survey or dataset behind them, they are the publishers’ own estimates. Second, most of the publishers sell hosting or maintenance, or earn a commission when you buy it (WPBeginner discloses referral links in its guide). The ranges are a useful sanity check, not a market price.
What it costs depending on who does the work
The second way guides split the price is by who does the work. Codeable, a WordPress freelance marketplace that sells maintenance itself, gave these ranges in March 2026 (Codeable, 25 March 2026):
- Managed WordPress hosting with some support: about $25 to $100+ a month, so $300 to $1,200+ a year. The host keeps the server and often WordPress itself updated. Your plugins, your forms and your content are usually still your problem.
- Maintenance only care plans: about $39 to $359 a month, so roughly $470 to $4,300 a year. This is the typical “care plan” from a specialist company.
- Full service providers: about $435 to $2,190+ a month, so roughly $5,200 to $26,000+ a year, usually with development hours included.
Doing it yourself costs your time rather than money. Freelancers, by WPBeginner’s estimate, charge between $25 and $100+ an hour (WPBeginner, 3 December 2025).
Why two quotes for the same site can be ten times apart
Because “maintenance” is not one service. In practice, plans fall into three levels, and the price follows the level, not the number of pages.
Level 1: updates are clicked, nothing is checked
Plugins, theme and WordPress are updated, often automatically. Nobody looks at the site afterwards. This is the cheapest end of every range above, and for a small site that rarely changes it can be enough. The risk is the update that breaks something quietly: the site loads, but a form or the checkout no longer works.
Level 2: updates, backups and monitoring
Add backups, uptime monitoring and a security plugin. Better, but two questions stay open: has anyone ever restored one of those backups, and are they stored somewhere other than the server they are meant to protect? A backup on the same server is gone the day the server is.
Level 3: updates are tested, backups are restored, the things that earn money are checked
Updates go to a staging copy first and only then to the live site. Backups are kept off the host and restored on a test copy from time to time, so you know they work. The contact form, the tracking and the checkout are tested on a schedule. Someone answers within a response time written into the agreement. This is where most of the real work, and most of the price, sits.
Why it matters: Patchstack, a WordPress security company, counted 11,334 new vulnerabilities in the WordPress ecosystem in 2025, 91% of them in plugins. For 46% of them, the developer had not released a fix by the time the vulnerability was made public, and the weighted median time to the first exploit was 5 hours (Patchstack, State of WordPress Security in 2026, updated 25 February 2026). Updating quickly is not optional, and updating quickly without testing is how sites break.
Seven questions that tell you what a maintenance price really includes
Ask these before you compare two quotes. A vague answer usually means the work is not being done.
| Ask | A clear answer | A vague answer |
|---|---|---|
| Where are updates tested before they go live? | “On a staging copy, then live.” | “We keep everything up to date.” |
| Where are backups stored, and when were they last restored? | “Off the host. Last restore check on a test copy was in (month).” | “Daily backups are included.” |
| Who checks that the contact form and tracking still work? | “We test them every month and it is in the report.” | “We monitor uptime.” |
| What is the response time, in writing? | A number of hours, in the agreement. | “Priority support.” |
| What will I see each month? | A short list of what was done, in plain language. | Nothing, unless you ask. |
| Whose name are the hosting, domain and admin accounts in? | “Yours, from day one.” | “We handle all of that for you.” |
| What happens if my site is already in a bad state? | “We audit it first and quote the clean up separately, upfront.” | “It is all included.” |
The account question deserves its own read: who actually owns your website explains how to check the domain, hosting and admin access in ten minutes.
What our WordPress maintenance includes, and what it costs
Our WordPress maintenance starts at €990 a year, paid for twelve months in advance. This is what is in that price, as it stands on our website maintenance page:
| What is done | How |
|---|---|
| Updates | On a staging copy first, and only then on the live site. |
| Backups | Stored off the host, and restored on a staging copy from time to time to make sure they work. |
| Checks of what makes money | A monthly check of the contact form, the tracking, the speed and the certificate. |
| Report | Once a month, on a single page, with no technical jargon. |
| Response | Usually within a few hours, at the latest within 24 hours. No promise of round the clock cover. |
| Work log | Everything done is logged in our client portal, with the date and time spent, at no extra cost. |
| Your accounts | Hosting, domain and admin in your name from day one. Cancel with no notice period, and you get the latest backup and the access list when you leave. |
Not included in the yearly price: paying off the backlog of a neglected site. If a site has been left alone for a while, that is sorted out once, first, with the price agreed upfront before anything begins. Most of the sites we maintain were not built by us, so this step comes up often, and it is always quoted separately.
What moves the price
Up: a neglected state to pay off first, many plugins that step on each other, a store with checkout and courier integration, several people editing the site daily, a site not on WordPress, a shorter response time than the standard one.
Down: a site we built, few plugins and tidy hosting, a site that rarely changes, an existing staging copy and working backups, one person editing the site.
All our starting prices, in EUR and USD, are on the price list.
Costs that sit outside any maintenance plan
A maintenance quote rarely includes everything a site costs to run. Hosting, the domain and premium plugin or theme licences are usually billed separately, and so is new work such as a new page or feature. Cleaning up a hacked site is often extra too: Codeable, for example, lists malware cleanup and restoration from $590 in its own pricing (Codeable, 25 March 2026).
For the full picture of what a site costs per year, domain, hosting, licences and small edits included, read what a website really costs per year.
When you do not need to pay for maintenance
Not every site needs a maintenance plan, and a fair provider says so before quoting.
- The site is small, rarely touched, and you can manage it yourself. If you have a staging copy and a backup you have actually tried to restore, updating it yourself is perfectly fine.
- The site is so neglected that a new build is cheaper. Technology that is no longer maintained and plugins with no replacement are not worth paying to maintain.
- You need one clean up, then quiet. Sometimes a site calls for one honest clean up, done once, rather than a subscription.
You do need it when the enquiries or orders you live on come through the site, when several people edit it, when you are not sure who has access, and when two days of downtime would do real damage.
Not sure which group you are in? Our free written site check looks at your form, how Google sees the site, how outdated WordPress and the plugins are, and who holds the accounts. Within three working days you get the findings by email, with no call and no offer you did not ask for.
Common questions
How much does WordPress maintenance cost per year?
For a small business site, published estimates run from about $600 to $6,000 a year, and for an online store from about $3,600 a year upward (GoDaddy, April 2026). Our own WordPress maintenance starts at €990 a year.
What does a cheap maintenance plan usually leave out?
Usually three things: testing updates on a staging copy before they go live, restoring backups to prove they work, and checking that the contact form and tracking still do their job. Ask about each one directly.
Does a WooCommerce store cost more to maintain than a regular site?
Yes. Every guide in the table above puts online stores at the top of the range, because a broken checkout or payment integration costs sales immediately. A store with checkout and courier integration also raises our own price.
Can I maintain WordPress myself?
Yes, if the site is small and you have a staging copy and a backup you have tested. The risk is not the update button, it is the occasional update where two plugins clash and you need to know how to roll back.
Do you offer WordPress maintenance for agencies?
If you run an agency and want WordPress work done under your own brand, see our white label page.
Next step
If you want to know what maintenance your site actually needs, tell us what kind of site you have and where it is hosted. We come back with a diagnosis and an estimate, and if your site needs one clean up rather than a yearly plan, we will tell you that.