We want to put your mind at ease before you start your website-building projects by giving you an outline of expected website maintenance costs.
About this guide
Having a healthy budget requires knowing what goes into the upkeep of your website. Unfortunately, some users disregard the expense of website maintenance after creating one. This guide will highlight crucial components that go into maintaining your website.
The nature of your website will determine how much you will spend on upkeep. We’ll discuss the typical monthly maintenance costs of several website categories, from online stores to small company websites.
To assist you in selecting the best course of action, this article will also compare the costs of maintaining your website against hiring a professional. Finally, we’ll discuss how frequently you should update your website. You will be able to effectively and efficiently budget your website maintenance costs at the end of this article.
Website Maintenance Cost: Overview
Unless you’re utilizing a website builder, which incorporates most of those maintenance charges in the monthly fee, the cost of maintaining your website depends on hosting, domain renewal fees, content updates, and SEO enhancements.
However, the typical monthly prices for several categories of business websites are listed below:
- Small blog: $5 – $25
- Portfolio website: $5 – $30
- Small business website (excluding content): $91
- Small business website (plus outsourced copywriting): $721
- Small eCommerce store (excluding content) plus SEO and backup: $749
- Large eCommerce store: $1,950+
Or, for a cheaper option
Website builders are less expensive and offer a more straightforward approach to developing and maintaining your website, as was briefly discussed above.
When using a website builder platform like Squarespace or Wix, you must select a design template that looks professional, drag and drop your content into it, and presto—you have a website!
Additionally, website builders will include ongoing maintenance in your monthly subscription fee rather than charging an additional cost.
The Domain Name ($10- $20/year)
A domain name, which appears in the URL of your website, is unique to your company. Users cannot access your website without a domain name, so you must pay yearly to renew your domain name. If you don’t, another party might buy the name and compel your business to look for a new one.
Businesses often pay approximately between $1 and $2 per month (up to $25 per year) to renew their domain name.
SSL Certificates ($0- $49.99/year)
A Secure Sockets Layer, or SSL, certificate safeguards your business and website users. With this certificate, you can receive, send, and secure sensitive data that users or your company submit to your website.
In web browsers like Google Chrome, your website URL shows up with a padlock if you have an active SSL certificate. Additionally, for users, your URL changes from “http” to “https.” This site feature is essential since most customers check for the padlock before making a purchase. Having an SSL is also a must for SEO, as Google prefers secure sites over unsecured sites.
Although businesses can get an SSL certificate for free, most choose to pay for a license. For enterprises of any size, a purchased SSL certificate frequently comes with extra benefits like customer support and excellent encryption rates.
Website Hosting ($2 to $835 /mo)
Hosting your website is crucial, just like your domain name. People cannot view your website if you do not have a hosting provider. Your company’s budget for website maintenance needs to account for hosting expenses.
For website hosting, your company has a few choices to consider:
Shared host: Shared hosts range in price from $24 to $120 annually. Because it hosts your site on a server with multiple other websites, it’s the least expensive choice. A shared host service can be effective if your website receives little traffic.
Website builder: A hosting plan for website builders like Wix or WordPress.com costs $60 to $180 a year. This service option offers an excellent alternative for small businesses and expert bloggers.
Virtual private server (VPS): A VPS costs between $240 and $600 a year. Because the provider divides the server into numerous virtual servers, you have full access to your server’s resources, similar to shared hosting, even though you share it. A virtual private server (VPS) can be compared to an apartment complex, with the server acting as the building and the virtual servers as the flats.
Dedicated server: An yearly dedicated server cost ranges from $1200 to $24,000. Because it is the priciest website hosting option, most websites that use dedicated servers receive more than 100,000 visitors per month. You have total control over your server when you have a dedicated server.
It’s crucial for your team to pick the best internet hosting choice for your website, even when your company might wish to save money by going with a less expensive one. Your website may become slow if you choose a hosting plan that doesn’t accommodate the volume of traffic it now receives, and you risk losing good leads.
Most users today anticipate a website to load in two seconds or less. If not, they look elsewhere to learn more about a product, locate a service provider, or make a purchase. The speed of your pages and website must therefore be a top priority for your company.
For website hosting, businesses might spend anywhere from $2 to $835 per month or $24 to $10,000 annually. We have some additional information about Calgary website hosting if you want to find out more.
Email Hosting ($1- $5/month)
“Email hosting” refers to setting up a particular email server for your website that can accept @yourdomain.com email addresses and give it greater authority. Like SSL security, many hosting companies offer free basic email hosting, but many website owners elect to pay more for more services and capabilities.
As an illustration, Bluehost’s email hosting costs $2.99/month for the first year (renewing at $4.99/month) and offers the following features:
- Emails and calendars
- Outlook web access
- 15 GB email storage
A business can choose to pay for email hosting because having email addresses stored on your domain increases the professionalism of your website and business. Email hosting is an excellent bonus if you have additional money to invest and manage a personal website. If not, don’t worry about it, as it’s not a showstopper.
Search Engine Optimization ($0- $800/month)
SEO includes all the minor things you can do to improve your website’s ranks in Google search results. The best news is that you can significantly boost SEO without investing a dollar by doing anything that makes it simpler for search engine crawlers to reach your site. Here are some fundamental actions you can take:
Write snappy page titles and descriptions: Your page’s Google preview comprises the title and description. People will be likelier to click on your site if the titles and descriptions are brief and informative.
Incorporate relevant keywords: The search terms for which you want your page to rank are known as keywords. For instance, if you offer handmade jewelry, you might want your product page to appear when customers search for “craft bracelets.” As a result, you should mention “craft bracelets” on your page.
Tag images: When you upload a photo to your website, you can specify “alt text” that will appear if there are loading problems instead of the image. This text serves as a hint for web crawlers working to understand the content of your page.
It’s crucial to remember that specific platforms have better capabilities than others if you decide to do your SEO yourself.
Content Update Costs ($0- $3,000/month)
Even if your company offers the best goods or services available, outdated information and poorly written pages can turn off potential clients. You can outsource the quality control of your content to a copywriting company or freelancer.
The kind and length of the material determine the fees. However, as a general rule of thumb, you should budget $210 for every 1,000 words of text for your website. A professional photographer will charge about $100 per product photo for their services.
Tech Support ($0- $1,000+/month)
Websites and hosting companies offer internal customer support teams to assist with technical issues. However, you might outsource and pay for a website maintenance service if you want more specialized care. Tiered packages of website maintenance services are available, allowing you to select a plan (and, more crucially, a price) based on the requirements of your website.
For instance, an outsourced web maintenance plan for a personal blog will run you about $80 per month and include frequent changes to your site’s theme and plugins. You may spend about $100 monthly for more options and get dedicated SEO support and regular upgrades. More significant eCommerce sites can spend between $500 and $1,000 per month to add development help, which includes developing new layouts and features for your website.
We think that website maintenance services are crucial in order to make sure that your website runs effectively and it stays safe and secure.
Website Builders ($10- $30/month)
Because website builders take a distinct approach to maintenance, we have excluded them from our list of critical website maintenance fees. If you utilize a website builder, you’ll receive an all-in-one solution that’s inexpensive and simple to budget for, so you won’t have to figure out your website upkeep fees separately.
What then is the catch? Although website builders are readily available and reasonably priced, they provide slightly less capability and scalability than a DIY website, where hosting would be an additional cost. Website builders might not be the best option for very large or high-traffic websites, but they’re a quick fix for most small businesses.
When you pay $10–30/month for a website builder, many maintenance-related expenses are already covered that you would otherwise have to consider on your own. Typically, you’ll receive hosting, a domain name, bare-bones SSL protection, and tech support. After the first year, you may occasionally have to pay to renew your domain name. This is a quick and easy solution if you are looking to limit your website maintenance costs or if you are just getting started.
Website Maintenance Costs – Conclusion
Knowing the regular expenses associated with website maintenance will help you create an efficient budget. Keep in mind that your costs may vary based on the kind of website you’re running. For instance, an eCommerce store accepting payments on-site will require a higher investment than a personal blog. Additionally, if you want to use a website builder, your subscription will include many fundamental charges.
If you need help with maintenance or have questions regarding website maintenance costs, give us a shout. We offer flexible monthly maintenance plans that you can cancel at any time.
