Website Maintenance Cost: How to Estimate It

Are you planning to launch a website but don’t know how much you will need to pay for its maintenance? Don’t worry; we are here to help you. This post will disclose some tips and tricks that will help you estimate the overall website maintenance costs, ranging from domain name to hosting to designing to security. So without any further ado let’s get started.

Web Hosting:

Web hosting is an important and most expensive part of building a website that you should give priority while calculating your website maintenance costs. It is a service that lets individuals an organization post their website or webpage on the internet. It provides all the services, technologies a website is required to be viewed on the World Wide Web.

Remember that, a web hosting is an important component of a successful website that you can’t ignore at any cost. There is a wide range of web hosting options available in the market that you can choose according to your budget and requirement. In case, your site doesn’t need a ton of disk space and servers, cheap hosting options such as 1&1 Hosting, WordPress.com, Hostinger, 000webhost can be good options for you. Their basic shared web hosting plan should not cost you more than $2 to $5 for a month.

On the other hand, if you are a running eCommerce or any heavy-resource website, you will need more advanced infrastructure to support them. VPS and Dedicated hosting would be ideal options for such websites that would cost you around between $10 to $20/mo.

Website Architecture:

By architecture we mean the platform your site is built on. It plays an important role in the overall success of your site. So, do consider it while determining your website maintenance cost.

Nowadays, most of the sites are being built on content management systems (CMS) as it is easier to make changes on them and keep the website up to date.

WordPress, Magento, Drupal are some popular CMS platforms that are popular as well as free to use. However, you will need to pay for their premium themes and plugins. Speaking of WordPress, a typical custom theme should cost you between $100 to $500. If you are simply a hobbyist blogger a free WP theme and plugins will be sufficient for you.

The best thing about CMSs is they are user-friendly. A person with basic technical knowledge can be built a professional-looking website without hiring a web designer. However, If you want your business to appear reliable to your potential audience, we would recommend, don’t compromise on making it aesthetic and user-friendly.

A study reveals that the crowded web design is the biggest mistake that most newbies make when a designing a website. As it leads to confusion in visitors. So, if you are not sure about the designing part, it is better you hire a professional. If you want a logo and graphic design work, the expected cost would be between $400 to $1600.

Domain Names:

Domains are the least expensive part of building a website but it doesn’t mean you have to neglect it while calculating the maintenance cost for your website.

Nowadays, getting a particular name is quite challenging. Sometimes, you may have to alter your preferred domain name and pay a premium price for that.

To keep the domain name cost at a minimum we advise you try different combinations for your preferred domain name depending on your budget.  

Look for a hosting company offering a free domain name for the first year.  On an average, a top-level domain (TLD) name should cost between $10 to $15 annually.

Website Complexity:

It is another major factor on which your website’s maintenance cost depends. For example, if you are running an eCommerce website your cost will be higher than if you have a basic blog site as it is more complex.

Usually, when you bring any sort of payment option on your site and use some special features such as contact us page, discount code tools, email marketing tools, etc. , it costs you more.

Security on Website:

Security is a primary concern everywhere nowadays. Today, every business whether it is a small business or big do not want to compromise on web security.

Although security will contribute to your site maintenance costs you can’t ignore it. If your site receives customer information and online payments, obviously your security requirements are going to be higher.

Final Words

Every website needs maintenance time to time. If you don’t maintain your site it can be vulnerable to viruses and other possible attacks.

In this post, we talked about different factors your website maintenance cost depends on. We hope it will help you do a better calculation.