What does website maintenance actually cost?
Maintenance plans range from hosting with a nicer name to genuine monitoring and updates, at similar prices, which is why the number alone tells you nothing.
What should a maintenance plan include?
Hosting and SSL, security and platform updates, uptime monitoring, performance checks, small text and image changes, and proof the contact forms still deliver.
That last one is the item most often missing and the most expensive to be without, because a silently broken form produces no error and no complaint.
What do we charge?
Site Care is $195 a month standalone, and it is included in the retainer on sites we built. For a business that already has a site there is a $450 audit first, credited in full toward a rebuild within 90 days.
The audit exists partly so we can decline. We will not put a care plan on a site we cannot maintain, and saying so is a valid outcome you keep the findings from.
Is maintenance worth paying for at all?
If somebody in the business will genuinely check the site monthly, no. Almost nobody does, which is why sites break silently and stay broken for months.