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How website maintenance is sold today
WordPress maintenance is usually sold in one of two ways. One is the hosting that “includes it”, which in practice means automatic updates, and the other is the agency plan with a monthly fee that often doesn’t make clear what was done each month. In between there are business WordPress sites left without real maintenance until something fails: the site is down one morning, an old plugin opens the door to a hack, or the form stopped sending three weeks ago and nobody noticed.
In my own research on 25,399 Chilean WordPress sites I detected two active malware campaigns and notified the owners affected, who didn’t know they were infected.
What the WordPress maintenance service includes
- Tested updates: core, plugins and theme kept up to date, applied with a backup beforehand and checking afterwards that nothing broke.
- Backups that restore: periodic, verified backups.
- Monitoring: if the site goes down or something stops working, I find out before your customer does.
- Baseline security: hardening and ongoing review. If the site already comes with an incident, the cleanup belongs to that service.
- Fixes and small changes: text, photos, adjustments, the day-to-day work that doesn’t justify quoting a project.
- Ongoing technical judgment: which plugin makes sense, when it’s better to wait before updating and when the site needs more than maintenance (speed or a redesign).
What it doesn’t include
Redesigns, large new features and ongoing SEO are quoted separately, and I tell you that before doing the work.
Isn’t what my hosting includes enough?
Good hosting providers update WordPress automatically, and that’s better than nothing. They don’t test that the update didn’t break your contact form, they don’t verify that the backup actually restores, they don’t look into why the site got slow and they don’t answer you when you need to change something.
Three clients with ongoing WordPress maintenance
PetShop MG is now in its seventh year on the same store, and in that time online payments, a rebrand and a veterinary pharmacy with prescriptions were added, all running without starting from scratch each time.
Comercial Moya has had 8 years of continuous work with me, including the rescue and documented cleanup of a hack in 2022, and today the work leans more toward prevention, so that it doesn’t happen again.
Grupo AIMIV has three sites in production, with hosting and ongoing maintenance since 2020.
How I do it
- 01
Review
I start by reviewing the real state the site is in: versions, plugins, backups and risks.
- 02
Routine
Tested updates, verified backups and monitoring, in a monthly routine that doesn't depend on you remembering.
- 03
Response
A direct channel for fixes and small changes, handled by a person who knows your site.
What you get
- Your WordPress updated and backed up, with every update tested before it's applied.
- Monitoring and baseline security, so problems are caught before your customer notices them.
- A direct channel with the person who maintains your site, instead of a ticket that keeps bouncing around.
- Clarity on what the plan includes and what's quoted separately, all before you sign up.
How much does website maintenance cost?
In Chile you'll find a bit of everything, from hosting that 'includes' maintenance to agencies with published monthly plans. I don't have a list price myself; I quote the plan based on how many sites you have, how much they change and how critical it is that they stay up. In the free diagnosis I review your site and propose a plan detailing exactly what it includes, so you can compare like with like.
My site works fine, do I really need maintenance?
Yes, in my opinion you need it anyway. An outdated WordPress or plugin is one of the ways into a site, and the fact that it works fine today doesn't tell you whether something is already inside. When the site goes down or one morning turns up full of spam, the fix ends up costing quite a lot more than the plan.
Can you be the webmaster for my company?
Yes, in practice a maintenance plan is exactly that, a person who knows your site, keeps it healthy and answers you when you need something. Compared with the classic webmaster, the difference is that you don't have to hire someone full time: you pay for a defined plan and know exactly what it covers.
Can you take over a site that someone else built?
Yes, I don't need to have built the site myself to take charge of it. If the initial review turns up problems at the foundation, I show them to you with evidence and you decide whether we fix them first.