Ask five Los Angeles web professionals what website maintenance costs and you'll get five very different answers. Some will quote an hourly rate, some a monthly retainer, and some will tell you it depends. They're all partly right. The cost depends on what kind of site you have, how often it changes, and how much risk you're willing to carry yourself.
We run a website care service based in Beverly Hills, so we think about this question every day. In this guide we'll walk through the common pricing models, give general market ranges (estimates, not survey data), and explain what should be included at each level so you can compare quotes fairly.
What "website maintenance" actually covers
Before comparing prices, it helps to agree on what you're buying. Website maintenance usually includes some mix of:
- Monitoring: knowing quickly if your site goes down or starts throwing errors.
- Software updates: keeping your platform, themes and plugins current so they don't become security holes.
- Backups: regular copies of your site you can restore if something breaks.
- Security checks: scanning for malware and suspicious changes.
- Small edits: changing text, photos, hours, prices, team members and pages.
- Reporting: a plain summary of what was checked and changed.
Many quotes only include the first four. Those are important, but they keep your site alive, not current. A stale site costs you too: old prices, last year's photos and a team page full of people who left can turn customers away, even when nothing has been hacked.
Common pricing models
Hourly (pay as you go)
Freelancers and some agencies bill hourly for maintenance. Hourly rates vary widely between independent web professionals, and specialists and agencies often charge more. Hourly can be economical if your site rarely changes, but costs are hard to predict, and nobody is watching your site between requests.
Monthly retainers
Agencies often sell retainers: a fixed monthly fee for a set number of hours or tasks. For small business sites, retainers commonly run from a few hundred dollars to well over a thousand dollars per month, depending on the agency and the hours included. You usually get a dedicated contact and a process, but unused hours often don't roll over, and contracts can run six to twelve months.
Flat-rate care plans
A growing number of services, including ours, sell flat monthly plans with a defined list of what's included. Basic plans that cover updates, backups and monitoring are usually a modest monthly cost, while plans that include regular content changes, blog posts or SEO tend to cost more. The advantage is predictability. The thing to check is exactly how many edits and what kind of help are included.
DIY
Doing it yourself costs little in cash, perhaps some tool subscriptions, but it costs time and attention. If you enjoy it and have the time, it can work. Many owners start DIY and stop when the site falls behind during a busy season.
What drives the price up or down
- Platform: a simple static or hosted site needs less technical upkeep than a self-hosted CMS with many plugins.
- Frequency of change: a real estate agent or broker with weekly listing changes needs more hands-on help than an accountant whose site changes a few times a year.
- E-commerce: online stores carry more risk and more moving parts, from checkout and product updates to payment integrations.
- Response time: faster turnaround typically costs more.
- Content creation: writing blog posts or new pages is real work, and plans that include it cost more than plans that only update software.
How KeptWeb prices website maintenance
We designed our pricing to be easy to compare. All plans are month-to-month, and you can cancel anytime online or by email:
- Basic, $49/mo: SSL certificate checks, security and uptime checks, one small edit per month, and a monthly report.
- Growth, $99/mo: everything in Basic, up to four small edits, Google Business Profile updates, and one blog post per month.
- Pro, $149/mo: everything in Growth, up to 10 small edits per month, two blog posts per month, basic SEO and a same-business-day reply target (requests in by 2 pm PT, Mon–Fri).
We emphasize fresh content because a well-maintained site isn't only one that stays online. It's one that tells visitors the truth about your business today. You can see what each piece covers on our monitoring, updates and backups, security and small edits pages.
Questions to ask before you sign
- What exactly is included each month? Get it in writing: updates, backups, how many edits.
- Is there a contract? If so, how long, and what happens if you cancel early?
- Who owns the site? You should own your domain, your content and your website.
- How are bigger changes priced? New pages and redesigns are often extra. Know the rate up front.
- How will I know the work happened? A short monthly report is a reasonable expectation.
A simple way to budget
If your site rarely changes and you just want peace of mind, budget for a basic plan in the lower range. If your site is a real lead source and you update it often, budget for a plan with several small edits each month. That usually costs less than paying hourly for each change, and much less than a rebuild after years of neglect.
If you're not sure where you fall, start with a look at your current site. We offer a free website review: send us your URL and we'll tell you what we'd fix or freshen first, with no obligation. You can also compare our plans or, if your site needs a fresh start, see our website design pricing.