Costs
Website maintenance cost in the UK
What website maintenance should cost a UK small business, what a fair monthly plan includes, and the signs you are paying for nothing. From £30 a month.
Website maintenance for a UK small business usually sits somewhere between a token monthly fee that covers very little and an agency retainer that covers far more than you need. The right figure depends on one question: what has to happen each month for the site to keep earning enquiries?
For most local businesses that is a check of the main journeys, a handful of content edits and a short record of what was done. That is a modest monthly cost, and it should be written down.
Key takeaways
- Maintenance is a monthly check plus agreed content edits, not unlimited development.
- Pay for outcomes you can see: a tested form, updated prices, a short summary.
- Hosting, domains and platform fees are separate and should stay in your name.
- If nothing has changed on your site in six months, you are probably paying for nothing.
- Plans from £30 a month cover most one-location businesses.
1. What maintenance actually covers
A useful plan covers three things. A monthly check of the homepage and the contact or booking journey, so a broken form is caught before customers find it. An agreed number of content updates: new prices, changed hours, a seasonal banner, a staff change. And a summary so you know what was done.
What it does not cover is a redesign, new features or technical repairs to the platform. Those are project work and should be quoted separately.
2. What a fair monthly price looks like
For a one-location business with a handful of pages, a sensible range is roughly a weekly takeaway to a modest phone contract per month. Below that, nobody is really checking anything. Far above it, you are paying for capacity you will not use.
The price should scale with how often your content changes, not with how important your business feels. A café that changes its menu weekly needs more edits than an accountant whose pages change twice a year.
3. The costs that are not maintenance
Hosting keeps the site online. The domain is your address. Platform fees pay for Squarespace, Shopify or whichever system the site runs on. Paid plugins and tools add to that. None of these is maintenance, and all of them should be in accounts you own.
Bundling them into one fee is convenient until you want to leave. Then you discover the domain renews through someone else's card and the hosting is in their name.
4. Signs you are paying for nothing
The homepage still shows last year's offer. The contact form went to an inbox nobody checks. You cannot remember the last time you received a note about work done. These are not maintenance problems; they are signs there is no maintenance.
Another tell is a plan described as unlimited. Unlimited usually means slow, because the person offering it has to ration their time somewhere.
5. Keeping the scope honest
Good maintenance is boring. The site stays accurate, the journeys work, and you get a short note each month. When you need something bigger, it is quoted as a project so the monthly plan stays predictable.
That clarity cuts both ways. Unused updates do not roll over, and new pages or redesigns are not squeezed into a £30 plan. It keeps the price low because the scope is small.
Frequently asked questions
Do I need maintenance if my site is on Squarespace or Wix?
The platform keeps the software running, but it does not update your prices, test your form or notice that your opening hours are wrong. That is still someone's job. I look after sites on those platforms through a contributor invite, so the account stays yours.
Can I just fix things when they break?
You can, and a £50 fix covers one agreed fault. The catch is that forms break quietly, so you only find out after you have lost enquiries. A monthly check exists to catch that first.
Is there a minimum contract?
No. Plans are rolling monthly with no minimum term, and you can cancel future renewals from the client area.
Where to start
Run a free website check to see how your site stands today, then explore monthly website care and send your address with the changes you need. I will confirm it is a good fit before you pay anything.