Website maintenance is the line most businesses skip and most regret. It is also the line where you are least able to tell whether you are getting anything, because a well-maintained site and a neglected one look identical right up until the moment they do not.
What it costs
| Type of site | Monthly | Annual |
|---|---|---|
| Business site | ₹2,000 – ₹10,000 | ₹6,000 – ₹36,000 |
| E-commerce | ₹5,000 – ₹20,000 | Higher, and justifiably so |
Infrastructure sits on top of that and is usually billed by someone else:
| Item | Annual cost |
|---|---|
| Domain registration | ₹500 – ₹1,200 |
| Hosting | ₹1,800 – ₹42,000 depending on type |
What a real maintenance contract includes
- Platform, theme and plugin updates, applied and tested
- Backups taken and verified — a backup nobody has restored is a hypothesis
- Uptime monitoring with someone actually alerted
- Security patching
- Malware scanning
- SSL certificate renewal
Many contracts deliver none of this until something breaks. That is not maintenance, it is availability — and availability is worth something, but it is not what most people think they are buying.
The way to tell the difference is a monthly report: what was updated, whether the backup was verified, what the uptime was. Ask for it before you sign. A supplier doing the work will produce it without difficulty. A supplier who is not will explain why reports are unnecessary.
Why e-commerce costs more
The gap between ₹2,000 and ₹20,000 a month is not padding. An online store has:
- A payment gateway integration that breaks when the provider changes something
- Plugin conflicts that can silently break checkout — the one page that must never fail
- Inventory and order data that cannot simply be restored from last week's backup
- A materially larger security exposure, because there is money and customer data involved
A brochure site that goes down for six hours is embarrassing. A store that goes down for six hours during a sale has a number attached to it.
What is billed on top
Routine maintenance covers keeping things working. These are separate, and it is better to know that now than at invoice time:
- Major platform version upgrades
- Migrating to a different host
- Recovering from a breach — frequently more than a full year of maintenance
- Content changes and design modifications
That third one is worth dwelling on. The most common route to a compromised small business site in India is an outdated plugin. The annual maintenance fee is almost always smaller than a single clean-up, and the clean-up does not come with the reassurance that nothing was taken.
The question that matters most
Ask what happens when your main contact is unavailable.
A great many maintenance arrangements in India are effectively one person with the credentials. When that person is on leave, changes jobs or simply stops responding, you have no access, no backups you can reach, and no idea what state anything is in. Whether there is a documented handover, shared credentials in a company account and a second person who can act is worth considerably more than choosing the cheapest quote.
If you are unsure whether your current arrangement is doing anything, we will review your site's update status, backup state and security posture and tell you plainly — at no cost, and with no expectation that you switch.
Frequently asked questions
Does website maintenance include hosting and domain costs? +
No. Infrastructure sits on top of the maintenance fee and is usually billed by someone else, with domain registration at ₹500 to ₹1,200 a year and hosting at ₹1,800 to ₹42,000 a year depending on type. Budget for those separately from the ₹2,000 to ₹10,000 a month a business site costs to maintain.
Is recovering from a hacked website covered by a maintenance contract? +
No. Recovering from a breach is billed on top of routine maintenance and frequently costs more than a full year of it. The annual maintenance fee is almost always smaller than a single clean-up, and the clean-up does not come with the reassurance that nothing was taken.
How do I know whether my maintenance provider is actually doing anything? +
Ask for a monthly report covering what was updated, whether the backup was verified, and what the uptime was. Ask for it before you sign. A supplier doing the work will produce it without difficulty, and a supplier who is not will explain why reports are unnecessary.
What is the most common cause of a hacked small business website in India? +
An outdated plugin. That is why a real maintenance contract applies and tests platform, theme and plugin updates rather than waiting for something to break. Many contracts deliver none of this until something breaks, which is availability rather than maintenance.
Are content changes and design updates included in website maintenance? +
No. Content changes and design modifications are billed on top, as are major platform version upgrades and migrating to a different host. Routine maintenance covers keeping things working, and it is better to know where that line falls now than at invoice time.
What happens if my website maintenance contact becomes unavailable? +
Ask this before signing, because a great many maintenance arrangements in India are effectively one person with the credentials. When that person is on leave, changes jobs or simply stops responding, you have no access, no backups you can reach, and no idea what state anything is in. A documented handover, shared credentials in a company account and a second person who can act are worth considerably more than the cheapest quote.
