Guide · Maintenance

What is actually done
when a website is maintained.

A website is not a product you buy once and keep for ever — it is more like business premises. Somebody has to check that the door is unlocked, that the lights work and that the messages arrive.

Category: Maintenance · 8 min read · For small business owners · Updated 20 August 2026

This guide explains what maintenance concretely covers, what happens to a website nobody maintains, and how to pick the level you genuinely need.

Short answer

Maintenance is an agreement that somebody checks regularly and fixes things before they become a problem. Six levels, from plain monitoring to looking after an application. It is not compulsory — and if you do not need it, we will tell you so. The final monthly prices are on the website maintenance page.

01What website maintenance actually is

Once a site is live, things change quietly around it: certificates expire, software ages, forms stop sending messages after a change at the email provider, and security holes get found in components that were safe yesterday. Maintenance is an agreement that somebody checks that regularly and fixes it before it becomes a problem — rather than the fault being noticed only when a customer says “I couldn’t send you a message”.

In practice, maintenance covers four kinds of work:

01

Monitoring

Whether the site is up, whether the SSL certificate and the domain are valid, whether the contact form works.

02

Technical hygiene

Regular backups, updating the system and the plugins, malware checks, fixing broken links.

03

Content changes

New prices, opening hours, photographs, copy — an agreed number of hours a month.

04

Reporting

So that once a month you know what was done and how the site stands.

02What happens to a website nobody maintains

Nothing dramatic — and that is exactly the problem. A website does not “go down” at once; it decays quietly. A certificate expires, and the browser starts showing a warning about an insecure connection. A form stops working, and nobody notices for months. There is no copy of the site, so after a failure at the hosting provider you start from nothing.

None of these failures announces itself — which is why a regular check is the only way to catch them in time.

03Our six levels, and what goes into each

What separates the levels comes down to three things: how many hours of changes are included, how quickly we respond, and what else is monitored. The final monthly prices per level are in one place — on the website maintenance page, so they are always accurate and so they only ever change in one place.

LevelLevel
HoursHours of changes
ResponseResponse
Who it’s forWho it’s for
LevelMonitoring
Hours
Response3 working days
Who it’s fora site that rarely changes but has to work
LevelTechnical maintenance
Hours
Response3 working days
Who it’s formonitoring plus: backups, updates, security
LevelSite STANDARD
Hours2 h
Response2 working days
Who it’s fora business that changes its content regularly
LevelGrowth / SEO
Hours4 h
Response1 working day
Who it’s forgrowing local visibility, tracking positions
LevelShop maintenance
Hours4 h
Response1 working day
Who it’s foronline sales: a test purchase, payments
LevelApp maintenance
Hours6 h
Response8 working hours
Who it’s fora portal or an application with users
The prices are final, with no “from” and no hidden extras; VAT is not charged, as the provider is not registered for VAT. Minimum term: 3 months (Growth and App: 6 months), then month by month with 30 days’ notice. Prices and a full description of every level.

04Why the higher levels cost more

The lowest level (Monitoring) buys attention: somebody checks every month that everything works. Site STANDARD buys attention plus hands: two hours of changes, a report and a faster response. The higher levels (Growth, Shop, App) buy responsibility for a system that earns money — a shop where a monthly test purchase confirms that payment works, or an application where errors are watched before users report them.

The price does not rise because of a “premium label” — it rises because the work and the risk we take on rise.

05What maintenance is not

So there are no surprises, these are agreed separately:

  • New features and new pages — that is further development of the site, estimated separately.
  • A redesign — changing the look is not changing the content.
  • SEO campaigns on the lower levels — SEO work exists only at the Growth level.
  • Writing copy and taking photographs — we help fit them in, but producing them is a separate job.
ItemItem
How it is billedHow it is billed
ItemAn additional hour alongside a package
How it is billedbilled in half-hours, hours do not carry over — hourly rate
ItemAn emergency call-out
How it is billeda response within 4 working hours, minimum 1 h — hourly rate
ItemTaking over somebody else’s site
How it is billedan initial review by arrangement — scope and price up front
For sites without a package we agree call-out work case by case — there is no public hourly rate, because there is no guaranteed response time either. The same goes for taking over a site we did not build: first we look at the state it is in, then we say the scope and the price.

06How to pick a level

Your situationYour situation
LevelLevel
Your situationThe site almost never changes
LevelMonitoring or Technical — the difference is whether you also want backups and updates, or only a check that everything works
Your situationYou change prices, pictures or copy at least once a month
LevelSite STANDARD — two hours of changes covers a typical month for a small business
Your situationYou want more people to find you
LevelGrowth — the only level at which visibility is actively worked on
Your situationYou sell online
LevelShop — a monthly test purchase, a check on payments
Your situationYou have user accounts or an application
LevelApp — error monitoring and a recovery plan

Once you have picked a level, the final monthly price is listed against each of them.

If you want to see how the monthly figure comes together for your case, the maintenance calculator puts it together in a few questions — with no account and no obligation.

07Common questions

Can I cancel maintenance?+

Yes. The minimum term is 3 months (6 for Growth and App), and after that it continues month by month with 30 days’ notice. There is no annual tie-in.

What if I do not use the included hours?+

Hours do not carry over to the next month. The allowance exists so we can plan capacity — which is why the price is lower than charging for every hour separately.

Do you maintain a site somebody else built?+

Yes, but only after an initial review in which we establish what state it is in. We agree the scope and the price of that review in advance, according to what we find — there is no single price, because no two sites are the same.

Is VAT included in the price?+

The prices shown are the final prices of the service. VAT is not charged, as the provider is not registered for VAT.

What if my site goes down in the middle of the night?+

The monitoring reports the outage, and we respond within the response time of your level (from 8 working hours to 3 working days). For urgent cases there is an emergency call-out with a response within 4 working hours; its hourly rate is on the website maintenance page.

Do I even need maintenance?+

Not always. A site can run without us. Maintenance makes sense when the content is alive (you change prices, opening hours, work), when the site takes money, or when you have nobody to ask if something stops. If none of that applies — the lowest level, or nothing.

No annual tie-in

Want somebody looking
after your site regularly?

Six levels with final monthly prices, no hidden extras and no annual tie-in. Put your own monthly figure together in the calculator, or read the full description of the levels.