Did you Forget to Add Cost of Website Maintenance in your Budget?

WordPress is a showstopper for the world of CMS. It holds the reins as the most dominating content management system with more than thirty-five percent usage across the web world. That’s why, businesses are turning up to WordPress to create their websites due to ease of use, functionalities, and scalability.

But! Yes, there is a BUT!

Many would argue that building a website is costly and that not everyone can afford one. Those who can afford to build a website on WordPress, often forget to include a maintenance cost in their budget. Like with all things that are built require maintenance, in the same way, websites built on WordPress also require regular maintenance.

Those who are technical enough know this to be true. And for those who are not, it comes with a price later in the form of website breakdowns, website hacks, broken functionalities and so on. Everything on the Internet requires regular technical maintenance because of the changing algorithms, code structures, and most importantly security. These changes need to be constantly updated on the website as part of its maintenance.

So, now comes the question!

Cost of Website Maintenance – How Much is More/Less

There are many arguments on this question because it depends on a lot subjective as well as some objectives categories. The most common category after which other categories branch out is:

• Type of website

The type of WordPress website that you have adds a major cost to the overall maintenance budget. If you have a website that is like a small portfolio website, then the cost will be lower as compared to having a large eCommerce website.

To make it simple, we have given a small breakdown of what average maintenance cost of website might look like for different website categories.

Once you figure out where your website lies in the category, then you can move on to the next group of categories which will help in streamlining your website maintenance cost choices.

• Necessary

In this category we group together necessary items that are required for your WordPress website to function such as domain name, and web host.

• Important

Items of the website that improve the functionality of the WordPress website such as design, technology support, security are grouped in this category.

• Optional

Those items that can further enhance WordPress website functionality and UI experience are placed in this category such as plugins.

Now that you understand these things, let’s look at the items in each group more closely cost wise and how they will impact your overall WordPress maintenance cost budget.

Elements that can Make or Break your Cost of Website Maintenance

In this section, we will explore the categories defined above in a bit more detail so you can make an informed decision when creating a budget for maintaining your WordPress website. We will be discussing 7 elements starting with the cost analysis of domain name purchase.

1.  Domain Name Cost

Domain name is an easy-to-remember name associated with a website. No WordPress user can change a domain name once it’s been registered. You should be careful at the time of selecting domain names of your website. The cost of domain name is largely dependent on its extension. There are three main TLD (Top-Level Domain) categories:

• sTLD (sponsored Top-Level Domain). Examples: .edu (for educational institutes), .gov (for U.S governmental sites), .int (for international organizations).

• gTLD (generic Top-Level Domain). Examples: .com, .org, .net, .info, .news, .biz, .club

• ccTLD (country code Top-Level Domain). Examples: They are used for country-specific sites: .us (For United States), .fr (For France), .jp (For Japan)

Cost:

• $10 and above for registration depending on your extension as a onetime cost.
• $15 – $90 per year for renewal depending on your extension.

Category:

Necessary

2.    Web Hosting Cost

A web hosting service provider rents out a space for WordPress website owners so that they could store data and files. It is the platform where you publish your WordPress website.

The cost of web hosting is the sum of the web hosting provider and hosting plans. So, you should choose a hosting plan after a thorough review of hosting costs in the short and long term because the website maintenance cost can vary depending on your plan and its time-length. Many WordPress errors are also caused by hosting server that is why it is important to have a good hosting plan to avoid any errors.

You can choose from different type of web hosting plans that your fit your website need.

Cost:

• Average maintenance cost is $5 to $100 per month
• Average maintenance cost for dedicated server is $80 to $500 per month

Category:

Necessary

3.  SSL Certificate

SSL stands for Secure Sockets Layer. It is a data transfer protocol to ease up encrypted communication between a server and browser. Having an SSL certificate helps optimize performance of your WordPress site in following areas:

• Online Security
• Data Privacy
• Improved Search Engine Ranking
• Flawless protection of sensitive data of users i.e., credit card details and passwords

Cost:

• Average WordPress website SSL certificate cost is between $50 to $900 per year.

Category:

Important

4.  Tech Support

Operating a website comes with it own set of problems. WordPress even though is the most used website building platform, it has a high number of WordPress errors that can affect the performance of your website. Having access to a team that is there 24/7 to help you in all technology matters makes a huge difference. This tech support can be in the form of:

• Live chat
• Phone services
• Email Ticketing services

Many web hosting providers offer this service free of charge, which is good for personal websites, or small to medium business websites. But when it comes to large corporate websites or eCommerce websites, then going for paid tech support is important because you never know when a WordPress error might occur and need fixing.

Cost:

• Average WordPress website tech support cost is between $5 to $18 per month.

Category:

Important

5.  Website Design

We all want our websites to be aesthetically pleasing with great user experience. This is because it is one of the first elements that a consumer sees about a business or a brand. In terms of business revenue, it has a positive affect on the SEO efforts that can lead to higher traffic on the website.

There are two approaches that you can take when it comes to designing a website – either do it yourself or hire professionals.

Let’s take a closer look at both the approaches.

1. Do it Yourself Approach

If you are a building a simple personal or hobby-based website, then the do-it-yourself approach is the best way to go. WordPress offers many tools that you can use to design your website. The easiest approach is to use the fastest WordPress themes that either comes free of charge or at a premium price. These themes usually require less maintenance and therefore can reduce your overall cost.

Cost:

• Average WordPress maintenance cost is $5 to $20 per month.

Category:

Important

• Hire Professionals

When we talk about professionals, it means building your website based on current design trends and in line with your brand. This approach is mostly used by small to medium and large business owners as well as eCommerce stores. When professionals design your website, you can be assured that it will be based on your vision and will not include any bad custom theme ideas that can cause a wrongful depiction of your business online.

Even though the cost may be high, but you will get what you want without any compromise. Once the design is made, maintaining that design is important.

Cost:

• Average WordPress maintenance cost is $1,000 to $1,500 per year.

Category:

Important

6.  Plugins

A WordPress plugin is an extension. This piece of software optimizes features and functionalities of the WordPress site. There are more than 59,557 free plugins for WordPress for variety of functions, such as:

• Membership plugins
• Contact form plugins
• Booking plugins

And so on!!

We recommend installing free plugins for WordPress sites. It will help minimize the maintenance cost. For example, using a free plugin for caching such as W3 Total Cache can save you money but premium plugins such as WP-Optimize and Elementor contain upgraded features and enhanced functionalities that will cost you money.

Cost:

• Average WordPress website plugin cost is between $5 to $400 per month.

Category:

Optional

7.  Cost of eCommerce Features

eCommerce websites are the most complex form of WordPress websites. This goes without saying that with such websites, the cost of maintenance are high dues to usage of features like payment gateways plugins, inventory managements plugins, and so on.

The cost of maintenance of an eCommerce website depends on what kind of features are added in it. The more features you add, the cost of website maintenance will rise.

Cost:

• Average cost of maintenance of having eCommerce features $20 to $1200 per month.

Category:

Optional

Maintaining a Website – Do it Myself or Hire Professional – Cost Analysis

Now that we have covered the elements that make up the cost of website maintenance, the question that comes in is who should be in-charge of maintaining it?

The answer comes down to the type of your website. More complex your website, the complexity of maintenance adds more work into entire website maintenance cost. Whether you opt to do it yourself or hire professional – each has its own advantages and disadvantages.

1.  Maintain a Website on your Own

When you are running a personal blog, or a small information-based WordPress website that does not require much functionality or features usage, then maintaining a website on your own is the best and affordable solution.

Many tutorials are available on how you can update your websites if WordPress brings them out, or how to take backup of WordPress website. This option is not only pocket friendly, but you also get to learn a lot about WordPress as well.

Cost:

• Average monthly website maintenance cost on your own is less than $100.

2.   Hire a Professional

When it comes to small to medium business websites, large websites, or even eCommerce websites, maintaining a website technically can become overwhelming. Having such websites means that you need to be constantly aware of the updates that WordPress rolls out or keep an eye on any security updates that plugins offer. Not to mention, installing those updates and then making sure that the website is operating at optimal performance can add to the difficulty of website maintenance.

In such cases, hiring a professional is a better option. WordPress maintenance companies offer complete teams that are available to help 24 hours a day, 365 days a year in any solving any WordPress errors. Such services do come with a cost, but then you can sleep easy knowing that someone is there to take care of your website maintenance.

Cost:

• Average cost of website maintenance by professional is $100 to $500 per month.

Adding all the Cost of Website Maintenance Together

When you add all the costs together, your average website maintenance cost for a WordPress website ranges from $20 to $2,000 per month. According to our experts, this is not that bad of a deal if you are already investing in having a business presence online. Our motto is simple:

Regular Maintenance = Best Performing Website

This cost might not look that high when you include it as part of your business budget because if you have a smooth-running website without any WordPress errors, it will keep on adding revenue to the business.

FAQs

What Is The Average Yearly Cost to Maintain a Website?

The average yearly cost of website maintenance is $240 to $24,000. With WP-Bridge, the average yearly WordPress maintenance cost is between $1,200 to $6,000. For agencies looking for white label solutions, special packages are offered. 

How Much Does It Cost to Maintain a WordPress Website Monthly?

The average yearly cost of website maintenance is $240 to $24,000. With WP-Bridge, the average monthly maintenance cost is between $100 to $500. For agencies looking for white label solutions, special packages are offered. 

What Does The Monthly Website Maintenance Fees Include?

Different companies offer different WordPress maintenance packages. At WP-Bridge, our WordPress maintenance package includes the following:

• Tech support
• Scheduled backups
• Periodic updates
• Performance tests
• Malware removal
• ADA compliance check
• Web hosting and domain name advice
• Website design and development

• How long does maintenance take on a website?

Maintaining a website is an on-going process. Time duration depends on what kind of WordPress maintenance you are doing and if you are having any WordPress errors that need to be fixed with it. For instance, a simple backup might take 2 to 3 hours whereas updating the website might take 2 days.