How Much Website Support Costs and What Should Be Included

Website support costs between ₴1,500 and ₴20,000 a month, and those figures cover very different things. In one case you are guaranteed that the site opens, in another that it will be fixed within two hours of breaking, in a third that it will keep developing.

Let us look at what each format includes, what you should not pay extra for, and how to tell whether you need support at all.

The short answer

Our terms are on the website support page.

What basic support should include

This is the minimum worth paying for. If an offer is missing any of it, ask why.

CMS and extension updates. The most important and most boring part. A vulnerability in a popular plugin is published, and within hours bots are testing every site in the world. Updates close that window.

Backups. Not “manually once a month” but automatically, stored separately and with restores verified. A copy sitting next to the site does not help: when the server is compromised, it goes too. We covered this in detail in our article on website backups.

Uptime monitoring. If the site goes down at two in the morning, you should hear it from a system, not from a customer the next day.

Domain and certificate renewal. The most mundane outage of all: SSL expires and browsers show a red warning page. You can check yours in a minute.

Small edits. Usually 1–3 hours a month: change some copy, add a product, update a phone number.

What you should not pay extra for

A few items that sometimes appear as separate charges although they belong in the base:

• “Availability checks”. That is monitoring — it is either there or it is not.
• “Database optimisation”. Runs automatically and is not worth a separate fee.
• “Virus protection” with no specifics. Ask what exactly is done: updates, a firewall, restricted admin access. A vague answer means a line in a price list, not work.
• Domain renewal with a markup. A domain costs ₴300–500 a year, and tripling that has no basis.

What it costs when the site breaks

Here is the main difference between a retainer and call-out work.

That last row is the real argument. Cleaning a hacked site costs as much as six months of support, and with no backup the site has to be rebuilt. You can check yours for infection signs with our malware scanner.

When you do not need support

Worth saying plainly, even though this is what we sell.

If the site is static and not on a CMS. A simple page with no admin panel has nothing to update. Hosting and a quarterly backup are enough.

If you are a developer yourself. You will fix it faster than a contractor answers an email.

If the site makes no money. A business card page opened twice a month does not justify a retainer. Pay by the hour when something happens.

But when the site is a source of enquiries, support becomes insurance. A day of downtime for a store costs more than a year of maintenance.

Support or SEO — which comes first

These get confused often, so it is worth separating them.

Support makes sure the site works: updates, backups, fast response to failures.

SEO promotion makes sure people arrive: copy, structure, links, rankings.

Different jobs, different budgets. We covered the second one in how much SEO costs.

The order is simple: first the site has to run reliably, then it makes sense to send traffic to it. Promoting a site that goes down weekly is money thrown away.

How to vet a contractor

1. Ask about response time. “Promptly” means nothing. There should be a number: two hours during business hours, a day at weekends.
2. Find out how many hours are included and what happens once you use them up.
3. Clarify where backups are stored. If they sit on the same server, they are not backups.
4. Ask for a report. A monthly list of what was done. Without it you are paying for something unknown.
5. Check that access stays with you. Hosting, domain and admin should be registered to you, not to the contractor.

What you can do yourself

Part of the work is genuinely doable without a contractor, and that is worth saying:

• SSL check — once a month, see how many days remain
• Speed audit — notice when the site starts slowing down
• Malware scanner — a basic check for malicious code
• Plugin updates in WordPress — a button in the admin, provided you have a fresh backup

That is ten minutes a month and covers the most common failures. The full set of checks is in our tools catalogue.

In short

A realistic support budget is ₴1,500 – 4,000 for a business card site and ₴5,000 – 12,000 for a store or a site that brings enquiries.

The real question is not “how much does it cost” but “what would a day of downtime cost”. If the answer is more than the monthly fee, support pays for itself in a single incident.

If you want to work out which format suits your site, get in touch — we will advise honestly, even if the conclusion is “hourly billing is enough for you”.