WordPress maintenance prices 2026: how much does it cost per month?

Updated: 20 August 2026 | WebPot DEV

The short answer: on the Hungarian market, maintaining a brochure or business WordPress site starts at €25 to €65 net a month, while a more complex site or a webshop runs around €60 to €110 net. These are mostly automated packages with 10 minutes to 1 hour of developer time a month. Restoring an infected or hacked site is a separate item, starting at €250 net on the market. So the decision is not whether you need maintenance, but whether you pay less for it up front or more for it afterwards.

LevelMarket monthly fee in 2026 (net)What it typically includes
Entry level, automated€25 to €45/monthUpdates, daily backups, uptime monitoring, 10 to 30 minutes of developer time a month
Mid level, business site€45 to €75/monthTested updates, weekly backups, 1 to 2 hours of content work a month, speed checks
Webshop, complex site€60 to €110/monthUpdates on a staging site, more frequent vulnerability scans, test purchases, reporting
One-off repair, damage controlfrom €250Restoring a hacked or infected site, a one-off fee

The bands come from European provider price lists of August 2026, as net values.

Our packages

PackageMonthly fee (net)Who it suits
Monitoring€59/monthBrochure and business sites, where the point is that they keep working and stay secure
Hosting€119/monthSites with regularly updated content, where changes are needed every month
Partner€199/monthWooCommerce shops or complex sites, where downtime costs money

We are not in the cheapest band, and that is a deliberate decision. Packages below €30 typically cover the fee of an automated update service, with no real developer capacity behind it. With us the sites run on our own managed Ubuntu VPS servers, and updates go through a staging environment first. The package also includes a monthly developer allowance. We always set out the exact contents in writing after the initial survey.

We have written about the full service on the WordPress website development page. The guide below is not about us, though: it is here so that whoever you ask for a quote, you know what to look for in it.

What decides the monthly fee?

Five factors drive the price, and they are the same with any provider.

  1. The type and size of the site. The difference between a five-page brochure site and an 800-product WooCommerce shop is not how they work but the risk. In a shop a botched update means lost revenue directly.
  2. The number and quality of the plugins. Every plugin is an external dependency with its own update cycle and its own vulnerabilities. Above fifteen plugins, updating is no longer a click but a job that needs testing.
  3. The response time promised. There can be a several-fold price difference between a five working day and a four hour response time, because the latter means reserved capacity.
  4. Whether it includes a developer allowance. This is the biggest hidden difference between two quotes. Ten minutes a month and two hours a month differ twelvefold, yet both are called maintenance.
  5. Where the site runs. On shared hosting the provider has no view of the server, so it cannot solve some speed problems at all. On an own or managed server, more fits into the same fee.

What a real maintenance package contains

If several of these are missing from the quote, you are not buying maintenance, you are buying an update notification.

  • Updating the WordPress core, the theme and the plugins, ideally run through a staging environment first
  • Automatic backups to external storage, with restores tested from time to time
  • Vulnerability monitoring and maintenance of the basic security settings
  • Uptime monitoring with alerts, so the client is not the one who reports that the site is down
  • Database maintenance and image optimisation
  • Speed measurement and Core Web Vitals checks
  • Keeping up with PHP and server-side versions
  • A monthly report on what happened and what to prepare for
  • A monthly developer allowance for smaller changes

Which level is enough for you

If the site is...This level is enough
A static brochure site that changes a few times a yearAn entry-level package
A business site that also runs a blog or newsA mid-level package with a developer allowance
A WooCommerce shop with real ordersThe webshop level, with a staging environment
A site extended with bespoke development, or integrationsA bespoke agreement with a fixed monthly allowance

What most quotes leave out

ItemOrder of magnitudeWhy it is left out
Hosting or server€6 to €90/monthThe maintenance fee often does not include it; it is invoiced separately
Premium plugin licences€50 to €450 a yearThey renew yearly, and an expired licence means no security updates
PHP version upgradea one-off €100 to €450Due every two years, and with old plugins it means code fixes
Damage control after a hackfrom €250Not a maintenance item but the cost of not having it
Content work beyond the allowancehourly rateA package typically has a fixed number of minutes; above that it is billed
Theme or page builder subscription€60 to €270 a yearPage builders and premium themes are mostly billed yearly

The most common mistake is not choosing an expensive package but choosing none at all. Restoring a WordPress site that has gone two years without updates costs more than the maintenance would have cost over the same period. The revenue lost during the downtime is not even counted in that.

Five questions worth asking when you request a quote

  1. How many minutes or hours of developer time are in the monthly fee? If there is no number for it, it is not in there.
  2. Where and how often are backups made, and has a restore ever been tested? A backup is only worth something if it can actually be restored.
  3. Are updates run in a staging environment? Updating a live webshop is a serious risk.
  4. What response time is promised in case of an outage? Ask for a number in writing, not a promise.
  5. What happens when the contract ends? Do you get a backup and access to everything, or does something stay with the provider?

When two quotes arrive and one is half the price, these five questions will almost certainly reveal where the difference is.

Frequently asked questions about WordPress maintenance

On the European market automated packages start at €25 net, while providers with a real developer allowance price between €60 and €210 net a month. Our three levels are €59, €119 and €199 net a month.
Because WordPress sites are built from dozens of external components that update independently. A known vulnerability in an outdated plugin sits in a public database, so it is automated bots that find it, not targeted attackers.
Nothing for a while, then everything at once. The typical scenario: malicious code gets onto the site, Google puts a warning page in front of it and the host suspends the account. At that point, besides restoring the site, the trust in search has to be won back, which takes weeks.
On the market it starts at €250 net, but it depends heavily on whether there is a clean backup. If there is, the job is a restore and hardening. If there is not, the infected files have to be cleaned by hand, which can take days.
With most providers it is not; it is a separate item. It is worth asking, because it changes how two quotes compare. With us, hosting on our own servers can be part of the package, which we clarify at the survey.
Yes, that is the more common case. A takeover starts with an assessment: what runs on the site, what state the plugins are in, whether there are backups and whether there is any trace of an earlier infection. That shows whether a one-off clean-up is needed before the monthly maintenance starts.
Would you like to know what state your site is in right now?
Request a free assessment and an itemised quote ›

Related pages: WordPress website development, managed VPS hosting, website development prices 2026, webshop development prices 2026.


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