How much to charge for website maintenance in 2026 [Freelance rate table]

In 2026 a freelancer typically charges between €30 and €400 a month to maintain a website. A simple WordPress business site sits at €30–€60/month if the plan only covers updates, backups and security; it moves to €60–€120/month once you add a bank of hours for changes; an online store runs €100–€250/month, and a complex or business-critical site goes above €200/month. Work outside the plan is billed separately, usually at €40–€80 an hour.

Maintenance is the most underrated income stream for web freelancers: it's recurring, it almost sells itself at handover, and it turns a one-off project into a client that stays for years. This guide gives you the rate table, what to put in (and leave out of) each plan, how to calculate your monthly fee and how to present it in your quote.

Website maintenance rate table for freelancers (2026)

Plan	Monthly fee (excl. VAT)	What it usually includes
Basic Simple business site or blog	€30 – €60	CMS, theme and plugin updates, backups, uptime monitoring and basic security
Standard Site with blog, forms or bookings	€60 – €120	Everything in Basic + 1–2 hours a month of changes (copy, images, small tweaks) + monthly report
Online store WooCommerce, Shopify, PrestaShop	€100 – €250	More frequent backups, checkout and payment checks, tested updates, 2–3 hours of support
Advanced / custom Critical site, integrations, high traffic	€200 – €400+	Staging environment, guaranteed response time, more hours included, speed optimization and technical monitoring
No retainer (per incident)	€40 – €80 / hour	Only when the client asks. Emergencies carry a surcharge (commonly +50–100%)

Indicative ranges, excluding VAT, based on the rates website maintenance providers in Spain publish in 2026. Agencies tend to sit at the top of the range (or above it): a freelancer has less overhead and can compete on price without giving work away. Adjust to your own market.

What a website maintenance plan includes (and what it doesn't)

Most problems with maintenance clients don't come from the price — they come from one sentence: "I thought that was included". That's why what you leave out matters as much as what you put in. This is the split that works in practice:

Included in the fee	Quoted separately
CMS, theme and plugin updates	New pages or sections
Backups and restoring if something breaks	Redesigns or design changes
Uptime and security monitoring	New features and integrations
SSL certificate renewal	Copywriting and content creation
A bank of hours for small changes (if the plan has one)	Hours beyond the bank and emergencies
A short monthly report of what you did	Fixing inherited or hacked sites before you start

The monthly report looks like a detail, but it's what stops clients from cancelling. When everything works, maintenance is invisible — and invisible things look worthless. Three lines a month ("12 updates, 30 backups, 0 downtime, updated opening hours on the contact page") justify your fee better than any argument.

How to calculate your monthly maintenance fee

Don't copy someone else's fee. Calculate yours from three numbers:

1. Real hours per month the site takes you: updating, checking nothing broke, reviewing backups and alerts, plus the bank of changes you include.
2. Your hourly rate. The same one you use for projects, not a discounted "maintenance rate".
3. Direct costs: premium plugin licenses, backup or monitoring tools, split across the clients who use them.

Example: a WordPress business site with a blog. Updating and checking takes you 1 hour a month, reviewing backups and security half an hour, and you want to include 1 hour of changes. That's 2.5 hours at €40/h = €100. If your tools cost about €10 a month per client, the fee lands at €110/month. If that's more than the client can pay, don't cut your rate: drop the bank of hours and offer a basic plan.

A useful habit: for the first few months, log the real time you spend on each site. It's common to find that a "simple" site with lots of plugins eats twice what you estimated.

Monthly, annual or hour bank: which model to choose

Model	Upside	Risk
Monthly retainer	Recurring, predictable income. Easy for the client to say yes to	If you don't define what's included, it turns into "unlimited support"
Annual payment	Paid upfront, fewer cancellations. You can offer a discount (e.g. 2 months free)	Harder to sell to new clients who don't trust you yet
Hour bank	The client buys 5 or 10 hours and uses them up. Fair for sites with few changes	Doesn't cover basic security: the site can go months without updates

For most freelancers, the combination that works best is a small monthly fee covering the technical side (updates, backups, security) plus extra hours at your normal rate for everything else.

Hosting, domain and licenses: include them in the fee?

You have two options, and both work as long as the client knows which one you're using:

• The client buys them in their own name and you just manage them. It's the cleanest setup: if you ever stop working together, the site and domain stay theirs with no transfers.
• You buy them and pass the cost on, inside the fee or as a separate line. It's simpler for the client, but it makes you responsible if the server fails, and you need to update your fee when the provider raises prices.

Whatever you choose, the domain should always be registered to the client. It's their brand, and holding on to it is one of the most common sources of conflict when a working relationship ends.

When and how to offer maintenance

The best moment to sell maintenance isn't after the site is delivered — it's in the website quote itself. At that point the client is thinking about their project, not about cutting costs, and sees maintenance as a natural part of the service.

Add maintenance as a separate, optional line so it doesn't inflate the main price:

• Business website design and development: €3,500
• Maintenance plan (optional): €90/month — updates, backups, security and 1 hour of changes per month

If you're still not sure what to charge for the website itself, here's our 2026 website pricing table, and if you want a ready-made starting point, the web design quote template.

Presenting it this way also changes how it's perceived. An email saying "it's €3,500, and later I can maintain it if you want" sounds improvised. A proposal with scope, phases, the website price and the maintenance plan as an option shows you have a process. With ProposalForge you can build that proposal with a block editor, share it as a link and, on the Pro plan, see when the client opens it and let them accept it online. And if the client goes quiet after you send it, here's what to do when a client doesn't respond to your quote.

Terms you can't leave out of your maintenance plan

Put them in writing in the quote or a simple contract. They'll save you arguments:

• Hours included and whether they roll over. The usual rule is that unused hours don't carry into the next month.
• Response time. For example, 48 business hours for changes and same day for downtime.
• What counts as an emergency and what it costs outside business hours.
• Term and notice. No minimum term or a minimum number of months, plus a notice period to cancel (30 days is common).
• Price review. State that the fee may be updated once a year.
• Access and ownership. Who holds the passwords, whose name the hosting and domain are in, and what you hand over if the contract ends.
• Sites you didn't build. If you take over an inherited site, charge for an initial review to get it into good shape first — don't absorb its problems inside the fee.

FAQ

How much should I charge per month for website maintenance?

Between €30 and €400 a month in 2026, depending on the site. A simple business site sits at €30–€60/month, with hours for changes included it moves to €60–€120/month, an online store runs €100–€250/month and a complex site goes above €200/month.

How much to charge for WordPress maintenance?

For a WordPress business site, €30–€60/month is typical if the plan only covers updates, backups and security, and €60–€120/month if you add one or two hours of changes. With WooCommerce, the range rises to €100–€250/month.

What does website maintenance include?

At minimum: CMS and plugin updates, backups, uptime and security monitoring, and SSL renewal. Fuller plans add a bank of hours for changes and a monthly report. New pages, redesigns and new features are quoted separately.

Is it better to charge for maintenance hourly or with a fixed fee?

A fixed fee for the technical side (updates, backups, security) plus separate hours for changes is the most balanced option. Charging only by the hour leaves the site without preventive maintenance, and a fee with no limits ends up as unlimited support.

When should I offer maintenance to a client?

In the website quote, as a separate, optional line. At that point the client is thinking about their project and sees it as part of the service; offering it months later tends to feel like an extra cost.