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Guide

What does website maintenance actually cost a small trade business?

The running costs nobody quotes for: hosting, domain, SSL, backups, security updates and the small changes you will actually want. Itemised, with what is safe to skip.

Last updated 12 September 2026

The short answer

Running a small trade website costs roughly £100–£300 a year if you handle it yourself — a domain at £10–£20, hosting at £60–£150, and an SSL certificate that should be free — or £30–£100 a month bundled into a managed plan that also covers backups, security updates, uptime monitoring and changes. The cost that catches people out is not any of those: it is the £50–£150 a freelancer charges each time you want a phone number, a price or a photograph changed.

Website quotes are for the build. What almost nobody itemises is the running cost — the bills that arrive every year afterwards, and the ones that arrive only when you want to change something. Here is the whole list, with honest numbers.

The unavoidable costs

  • Domain name — £10 to £20 a year. A .co.uk is usually cheaper than a .com. Watch for first-year offers that renew at four times the price, and set it to auto-renew: a lapsed domain is the single worst avoidable thing that can happen to a small business online.
  • Hosting — £60 to £150 a year for a small trade site on decent shared hosting. Cheaper exists and is generally slower and further away. Much more expensive exists and a five-page trade site does not need it.
  • SSL certificate — free. Let’s Encrypt made paid certificates unnecessary for an ordinary business site years ago. If this is a line item on your renewal, ask why.

Doing it all yourself, that is roughly £100 to £200 a year. That part is not negotiable.

The costs that are negotiable

  • Backups. Some hosts include them, many charge, and a fair number "include" something that turns out to be a seven-day rolling copy. Ask how far back it goes and how a restore actually happens.
  • Security updates. The real reason a WordPress site costs more to run than a static one: plugins need patching, and an unpatched plugin is how small business sites get defaced. A simpler site genuinely needs less of this, which is a good argument for a simpler site.
  • Uptime monitoring. A few pounds a month, or free at the basic tier. Worth it only because the alternative is a customer telling you.
  • Email. If you want you@yourbusiness.co.uk rather than a Gmail address, budget a few pounds per mailbox per month. It is not part of the website, and it is commonly assumed to be.

The cost nobody warns you about

Changes. A new mobile number, a price update, a photograph of last week’s job, a service you have stopped offering. On a freelance build these are typically £50 to £150 each, or an hourly rate with a one-hour minimum — so a five-minute edit costs an hour.

This is what quietly kills trade websites. Not the hosting bill: the fact that a small change costs enough to put off, so it gets put off, and eighteen months later the site lists a number you no longer answer. A site that is wrong is worse than no site at all, and it got that way one deferred £75 at a time.

What to ask before you commit

  1. What is the total annual cost, every line, including hosting and the domain?
  2. What does one small change cost, and how long does it take?
  3. Are backups included, how far back do they go, and how is a restore done?
  4. Who is the domain registered to? (You. Always you.)
  5. What happens if you stop trading, and what do I keep?

Five questions, best asked before money changes hands. If you would rather not have this conversation at all, our plans include hosting, SSL, backups, security updates and changes — and you can see the work before deciding anything by asking for a free homepage rebuild. Everything we charge is on the services page, in full.

Common questions

Do I have to pay for website maintenance?
You have to pay for hosting and a domain, and someone has to apply security updates. Everything else is negotiable. A simple, static trade site needs far less maintenance than a WordPress site with a dozen plugins, which is a good reason not to have one.
How much does it cost to change something on my website?
On a freelance build, typically £50–£150 per change or an hourly rate with a minimum. On a managed plan, small changes are usually included. Ask before you sign: the cost of changing a phone number tells you more about a provider than their portfolio does.
Can I run a trade website on free hosting?
Rarely. Free tiers usually mean a subdomain rather than your own name, adverts you do not control, no support when it goes down, and slow loading from the far side of the world. The domain is the part you should never economise on.

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