Short answer. Website maintenance costs about $25 to $28 a month if you only buy managed hosting on yearly billing, and $50 to $500 a month if you hand the updates, backups and fixes to a care plan. WP Engine's Essential plan starts at $28 a month billed annually, while published WordPress care plans start at $50 a month at InMotion Hosting, $69 at FixRunner and $89 at WP Buffs. For scale, two hours of a US web developer's median wage is about $89. We read every price below on the vendors' own pages on 10 November 2026.
Key numbers
| Item | Number |
|---|---|
| WP Engine Essential (billed annually, $336 a year) | from $28 a month |
| WordPress.com Business (first year on yearly billing; renews at $28) | $25 a month |
| InMotion Care (one-month term; Care Business $500) | $50 a month |
| FixRunner Premium (three-month minimum, 90 minutes of support) | $69 a month |
| WP Buffs Maintain (weekly updates, backups 4 times a day) | $89 a month |
| Median web developer wage (about $44.54 an hour, BLS May 2025) | $92,650 a year |
| New WordPress vulnerabilities, 2025 (up 42% on 2024, Patchstack) | 11,334 |
| Share found in plugins (9% in themes, 6 in core, Patchstack) | 91% |
| Standard domain, per year (Cloudflare Learning Center; renewals often rise) | as little as $10 or $12 |
Prices read on 10 November 2026 from the WP Engine, WordPress.com, InMotion Hosting, FixRunner, WP Buffs and Jetpack pricing pages; wage from the BLS Occupational Outlook Handbook (May 2025 median); vulnerability figures from Patchstack's State of WordPress Security in 2026 (updated 25 February 2026).
What website maintenance actually covers
Maintenance is the work that keeps a live site running after launch. The Bureau of Labor Statistics describes the job in one line: "Web developers create and maintain websites." In practice the recurring work falls into five buckets:
- Hosting and the server stack. Keeping PHP, the database and the server patched and online.
- Updates. The CMS core, plugins and themes, ideally tested before they go live.
- Backups and restores. Copies you can roll back to after a bad update or a hack.
- Security and monitoring. Malware scans, uptime checks and someone to call when the site is down.
- Small edits. New text, images, pages and fixes that are not a redesign.
Every price you will see is some bundle of those five. In the price lists we read, the cheaper options lean on automation and the dearer ones add human hours.
Website maintenance cost by option
These are list prices from each vendor's own page, read on 10 November 2026. The yearly column is our arithmetic (monthly price times 12) and excludes taxes.
| Option | Monthly price | Per year (our arithmetic) | What the page says is included |
|---|---|---|---|
| WP Engine Essential (managed hosting) | from $28, billed annually | $336 | Daily automated backups, WordPress, PHP and MySQL managed, free SSL |
| WordPress.com Business (hosted plan) | $25 first year on yearly billing, renews at $28 | $300, then $336 | Plugin installs; the page lists real-time backups and security across its plans |
| Jetpack Pro (tools only, hosting extra) | $29, billed $348 yearly | $348 | Real-time backups (50GB); the page lists malware scanning |
| InMotion Care | $50 | $600 | Weekly plugin and theme updates, daily backups, 1 edit task a month |
| FixRunner Premium | $69 as shown by default, three-month minimum | $828 | Core, plugin and theme updates, backups, uptime monitoring, 90 minutes of support |
| WP Buffs Maintain | $89 | $1,068 | Weekly updates, backups 4 times a day, uptime monitoring, emergency support |
| WP Buffs Protect | $179 | $2,148 | Adds unlimited website edits and security optimization |
| InMotion Care Business | $500 | $6,000 | Unlimited edits, five tasks at a time, real-time backups |
The table mixes three kinds of product, and that matters more than the headline price. Managed hosting runs the server and the platform. A tools subscription such as Jetpack automates backups and scans but still needs a host. A care plan sells people's time on top, and some care plan sellers, such as InMotion, are hosts too.
The hosting tier: about $25 to $28 a month
If your site is simple and changes rarely, hosting that patches the platform for you may be most of the maintenance you need. WP Engine describes Essential as "a reliable foundation for your site, with updates, backups, and security handled for you", starting at $28 a month and "billed annually", which its page totals at $336. Its comparison table lists AI powered automatic plugin and theme updates as an optional add-on on Essential and as included on the higher tiers.
On WordPress.com, the Business plan, which lets you install plugins, shows $25 a month in the first year on yearly billing and "Auto-renews at $28 per month. Billed every 12 months, excl. taxes." That renewal step is worth noting: the first-year price is not the price you keep paying.
The hosting plans we read do not list hands-on checks of your own pages after an update, such as testing that a contact form still sends. That kind of human check is what care plans sell.
Care plans: $50 to $500 a month
We read the published price lists of three WordPress care plan providers. Their entry plans sit close together:
- InMotion Hosting lists Care at $50, Care Plus at $75, Care Pro at $125 and Care Business at $500 a month on its one-month term, with a 30-day money-back guarantee. All four list weekly plugin and theme updates. The cheapest includes one edit task a month.
- FixRunner showed Premium at $69 a month with a three-month minimum, Rocket at $99 and Advance at $169 a month by default. The plans include 90, 120 and 240 minutes of support. It also offers one-off support "without a monthly subscription for just $49."
- WP Buffs lists Maintain at $89, Protect at $179, Perform at $239 and Custom at $359 a month. Maintain covers weekly updates, cloud backups four times a day and uptime monitoring. Protect adds unlimited edits, and Custom adds "Safe Updates on Staging".
Read the units, not just the price. FixRunner sells a fixed number of support minutes. InMotion sells edit tasks. WP Buffs lists unlimited edits from its Protect tier. If you expect regular content changes, the plan with the most edits per dollar beats the plan with the lowest sticker price.
Care plan or developer hours?
The BLS reports that "the median annual wage for web developers was $92,650 in May 2025." Divided by 2,080 working hours, that is about $44.54 an hour in wages alone. That figure excludes overhead and profit, so billed rates are likely to be higher.
On that wage, WP Buffs' $89 Maintain plan buys about the same as two hours of a median developer's pay. InMotion's $50 plan is about 1.1 hours, and FixRunner's $69 plan about 1.5 hours. If your site needs less than an hour or two of skilled attention a month, a care plan is mostly buying availability: someone who will answer when the site breaks. If it needs more, compare plans by the hours or tasks they include.
A hypothetical example: a five-page brochure site that needs one developer hour a month would spend about $44.54 on that time at the median wage, before any markup. That sits just under InMotion's $50 entry plan and below FixRunner's $69 and WP Buffs' $89, all of which run on top of your hosting bill. So the choice turns less on price than on response time, how many tasks are included and who owns the work.
Why skipping updates costs more later
Most new vulnerabilities were found in plugins, not in WordPress itself. In its State of WordPress Security in 2026 report, covering 2025, Patchstack counted 11,334 new vulnerabilities in the WordPress ecosystem, a 42% increase on 2024. It found 91% in plugins and 9% in themes, with only 6 in WordPress core, "but these were low priority issues." Patchstack sells WordPress security, so it has a stake in these numbers.
Two more findings explain why weekly updates are a floor, not a guarantee. Patchstack reports that 46% of vulnerabilities were not fixed in time for public disclosure, and that the median time to mass exploitation for heavily exploited vulnerabilities was 5 hours. On our reading, a plan that only updates once a week can still leave a gap. Some plans list extra protection: FixRunner Premium lists a security scan, and WP Buffs adds security optimization on Protect and malware removal on Perform.
Old server software also matters. In October we covered the PHP2Shell flaws and the PHP versions that fix them, which is the kind of patch managed hosting applies for you.
The small recurring costs: domain and SSL
Two smaller line items are worth budgeting for:
- Domain. Cloudflare's guide to domain prices says standard domains "can be leased for as little as $10 or $12 US per year", and warns that registrars often discount the first year and raise the renewal price. Cloudflare runs a registrar, so it has a stake. Check the renewal price, not the first-year price.
- SSL certificate. Let's Encrypt describes itself as "a free, automated, and open Certificate Authority." WP Engine lists free SSL on Essential. You should not need to pay for a basic certificate.
Backup and security tools you can add yourself
If you would rather keep the work in house, a tools subscription covers the automated part. Jetpack lists Pro at $29 a month, "billed $348.00 yearly", with 50GB of real-time backup storage, and Complete at $49 a month, billed $588 yearly, with 1TB of storage. Its pricing page lists malware scanning of core, themes and plugins. The plans we read list backups and scanning, not hands-on fixes, so you still need someone's time when something goes wrong.
How to budget for website maintenance
We suggest building the budget in three layers rather than picking a single number:
- Platform: about $300 to $340 a year for managed WordPress hosting at the entry tiers above, or the plan price of a hosted builder, which includes the platform upkeep. Our guide to website design cost lists the builder plan prices.
- Automation: backups and scanning, either included in the host or about $348 to $588 a year on Jetpack.
- Time: either a care plan from $600 a year (InMotion Care) or developer hours at a rate above the $44.54 median wage.
When you compare quotes, ask each provider four things in writing: how often updates run and whether they are tested on staging first, how often backups run and how long they are kept, how many edits or minutes are included, and who holds the logins if you leave.
How imisofts can help
Our web development page says our maintenance packages include security updates, performance monitoring, backups and technical support, and that there is no vendor lock-in: you can host anywhere and hire anyone to maintain it. If search visibility is part of your upkeep, see our AI search optimization page. We suggest asking us, and anyone else, to answer the four questions above before you sign.
Our guide to SEO pricing covers that side of the budget.
Prices in this guide were read on 10 November 2026 from the vendors' own pages, and the security figures are from Patchstack's report updated 25 February 2026. Check current prices before you buy. This is general information, not financial advice.
Frequently Asked Questions
On published price lists, about $28 a month for managed WordPress hosting that handles updates and backups (WP Engine Essential, billed annually), and $50 to $500 a month for care plans that add people's time: InMotion Care starts at $50, FixRunner Premium at $69 and WP Buffs Maintain at $89. Prices were read on 10 November 2026.
From our arithmetic on those prices: $336 a year for WP Engine Essential, $600 for InMotion Care, $828 for FixRunner Premium and $1,068 for WP Buffs Maintain. Add a domain: Cloudflare says a standard domain can be leased for as little as $10 or $12 a year, though renewal prices often rise after the first year.
InMotion Care lists weekly plugin and theme updates, daily backups and one edit task a month. WP Buffs Maintain lists weekly updates, backups four times a day and uptime monitoring. FixRunner Premium lists core, plugin and theme updates, backups, uptime monitoring and a security scan. Higher tiers add edits, security optimization, malware removal and, on WP Buffs Custom, updates tested on staging first. Check how many edits or support minutes each plan includes.
It depends on how much skilled time your site needs. WP Buffs' $89 plan is about the same as two hours of the US median web developer wage ($44.54 an hour in wages, BLS May 2025). If your site needs little attention, managed hosting plus occasional paid hours may cost less; if it changes often, a plan with included edits may be better value.
We suggest at least weekly for plugins and themes, which is what the InMotion and WP Buffs plans list. Patchstack's 2026 report found a median of 5 hours to mass exploitation for heavily exploited WordPress vulnerabilities, and that 46% were not fixed in time for public disclosure, so a security scan on top of updates is worth considering.
Yes, if you are comfortable updating and restoring a site. Hosted plans such as WordPress.com Business ($25 a month in the first year on yearly billing, renewing at $28) and tools such as Jetpack Pro ($29 a month, billed $348 yearly) automate backups and scans. You still need time, or someone to call, when an update breaks something.