What It Really Costs to Own a Website (And Whether a Maintenance Service Is Worth It)

Let’s talk about what it actually costs to run a website. Not to build one… to run one, month after month, year after year.

And let me be clear right up front: if your site is a simple brochure page, or a little personal blog you tinker with on weekends, you can probably skip this one. There’s not much on the line, and handling the upkeep yourself is perfectly fine. Nobody’s losing sleep… or money… if a hobby blog blinks offline for an afternoon.

But that’s not most of the people I talk to.

I’ve been the “web guy” for a lot of solopreneurs and business owners over the years, and the folks I work with have websites that are actual tools. The site takes payments. Captures leads. Runs a membership or a course. Books appointments. It’s not decoration… it’s part of the machine that pays the bills.

And when your website is doing real work like that, two things become true that most owners never fully price in…

One, it carries ongoing costs that go well beyond hosting. Two, when it breaks, it costs you real money and real stress… which makes “who actually keeps this thing running?” a decision worth thinking about.

A website like that is a lot more like owning a car than buying a painting. It needs fuel. Oil changes. The occasional new set of tires. And every so often, something under the hood breaks and you’re standing in the garage at 11pm wondering what that noise is.

So let’s actually add it up. Let’s get real about the true cost of owning a website that actually does WORK for you.

The True Cost of Owning a Website

When most people budget for a website, they usually think of the cost of hosting and perhaps renewing their domain annually. That’s it.

But a real, working WordPress site… the kind that actually runs a business… has a whole stack of recurring costs humming away under the surface. Here’s what’s actually on the meter.

• Hosting. The good stuff isn’t the $4/month special you saw advertised. Decent managed WordPress hosting runs more like $20–50/month once you want speed, security, and support that doesn’t read from a script. Call it $300–600 a year.
• Premium plugins and licenses. This is the sneaky one. Forms, SEO, backups, security, a page builder, maybe a membership or e-commerce plugin… the licenses add up fast. Most business sites are quietly carrying $300–800/year in plugin renewals, and a lot of folks have no idea that’s what they’re spending because it dribbles out in little annual charges.
• Security. A premium firewall or malware service can cost $100-$200/year. More expensive web hosts often provide this baked in, but you’ll pay it one way or the other.
• Backups. Real, off-site, tested backups. Not “I think my host does that?” Another $50–100/year if you’re paying for a proper solution. Depending on your web host to be your only backup source is like keeping your only spare key locked inside the car.
• Performance and image optimization. Image compression, caching, maybe a CDN. Another $50–100/year.

Add just the hard costs up, and a typical solopreneur site is running somewhere around $800 – $1,800 a year… before anyone has lifted a finger to actually maintain it.

And here’s the part nobody puts on the spreadsheet.

“So Why Not Just Use Squarespace or Shopify?”

Fair question. If a self-hosted WordPress site carries all these costs and all this upkeep… why not grab something turnkey like Squarespace, Wix, or Shopify and be done with it?

For plenty of people, that’s a perfectly good call, and I won’t pretend otherwise. These platforms roll hosting, security, and routine maintenance into one flat fee (Squarespace runs about $16–99/month; Shopify starts around $39). You’re essentially paying the platform to be your maintenance person… and for the day-to-day upkeep, they genuinely are. On that specific point, they’ve actually got an edge over self-hosted WordPress, and I’d never talk a simpler site out of it.

Two things to go in with your eyes open about, though.

First, the price doesn’t always stay as simple as the sticker. Shopify especially adds transaction fees on every sale, plus the paid apps you bolt on for email, reviews, subscriptions, and the rest… which stack up a lot like WordPress plugins. A “simple $39 store” can quietly become a few hundred a month.

Second… and this is the one that matters here… their support only reaches so far. The built-in support on Squarespace or Shopify is genuinely solid for the platform: billing, standard features, “where’s this setting,” is-the-system-down. What it doesn’t cover is your specific build. The moment you need custom work, a tricky integration, or someone who actually understands what you’ve set up, the platform’s own help politely points you to “go hire an Expert.”

And that help isn’t pocket change. Both have expert marketplaces, and the work runs from a few hundred dollars for a small project up into the thousands… with ongoing Shopify retainers commonly $1,500–$5,000+/month for stores that want dedicated, knows-my-store help.

It is also VERY important to keep in mind that these are proprietary platforms. You’re basically RENTING your website… you don’t truly own it. And because it is so proprietary, there are limits on what you can do and they set the rules. It also makes your data not very portable if you wanted to switch things up in the future.

And on WordPress specifically, the person handling that upkeep is usually… you. Which brings us to the most expensive line item nobody puts on the spreadsheet.

Your Time Isn’t Free (Even If You Pretend It Is)

This is where most solopreneurs fool themselves.

When you spend three hours on a Saturday figuring out why an update took down your contact form, you tell yourself it cost you nothing. You act like it is “free” when you spend 5 hours trying to figure out how to do something you think should be simple. No money left the account, after all.

But that’s not how cost works.

I don’t even want to assume what your time is worth, because frankly, most solopreneurs badly undervalue their own hours. So let’s lowball it. Hard.

Minimum wage. Here in Florida, a 16-year-old can go flip burgers for about $14 an hour.

Is your time worth at least that much?

Because when you blow three or four hours debugging why your site broke… at burger-flipping wages, that one afternoon just cost you fifty bucks. Do that a couple times a month, throw in the routine “update everything and pray” sessions, and you’re easily at $100+ a month in time alone. At minimum wage.

And it’s never just the updates. It’s “why can’t this customer log in?”… and “why does this page look broken on mobile?”… and “why is my site suddenly throwing an error?” Hours and hours, spent spinning your wheels on stuff that isn’t the actual work of your business… all because you’ve quietly decided your time is free.

It isn’t. And if it really were… well, then the pimply teenager at the drive-thru is out-earning you. 😜

What Even Is a WordPress Maintenance Service?

If you’ve never heard of a “WordPress maintenance service,” you’re not alone. A lot of business owners have no idea this is even a category… they just quietly assume keeping the site running is on them, forever.

So here’s the plain version.

A WordPress maintenance service is a company (or a person) you pay a monthly fee to handle the ongoing upkeep of your site, so you don’t have to. The typical menu looks like this:

• Running your plugin, theme, and core updates (safely… ideally tested on a staging copy first, not live on a Friday)
• Keeping real, regular backups
• Watching for downtime
• Security scanning and malware cleanup
• A monthly report so you actually know it all happened

You’ll see these called all sorts of things… “maintenance plans,” “care plans,” “WordPress support,” “website management.” The label honestly doesn’t matter much. The idea is the same: someone else keeps the lights on so you can go run your business.

At the low-end, these kinds of maintenance plans usually start around $50/month. The cost goes up from there depending on the plan add-ons and the amount of support included.

One thing worth knowing up front, though: most of these services do not include your hosting. So that $50-to-$150 a month is usually on top of what you’re already paying to host the site. (Hold that thought… it matters in a minute.)

“But Doesn’t My Host Already Handle This?”

This is the objection I hear most, and it’s a fair one: “I pay for good managed WordPress hosting… Rocket.net, WP Engine, Kinsta, whoever. Don’t they already do all of this?”

Partly. And it’s really worth understanding exactly where the line sits.

A good managed host takes care of the infrastructure. The servers. Uptime. Server-level security and caching. Often automatic core updates and daily backups. That’s real, and it’s valuable… a cheap $5/month host won’t do any of it, and I’d never talk you out of good hosting.

When you have a truly managed WordPress host (which usually begins at $30/month for a single site), you usually get better, more responsive support. You may have to jump through an AI layer first, but you can usually get a real person. Via live chat or email ticket. Most don’t offer phone support.

But, how far will they go?

In most cases, their support is mainly about their platform. If there are any issues with the hosting itself, they’re on it. But, once the issue gets deeper into your specific site, then you get varying levels of depth. Basic stuff, they’ll often help you out. But, once it gets more granular or would take more research time, you begin to hit the limits.

The really good hosts (like Rocket.net) do a good job, but you’re still one of many thousands of their customers. They don’t KNOW your site. They’ll often try to “fix” things with a very broad brush (like recommending you disable all your plugins to find a plugin conflict). Every time you get a person on the live chat, they’re coming into your site with blank eyes because they do not have any context about your site and how it’s put together.

Not only that, while their hosting is often quite good, it isn’t designed specifically to YOUR needs. Even the really good hosts design for certain kinds of sites. Because hosting is a numbers game. Depending on the nature of your site, your hosting needs may be different… and these big platforms can’t change it just for you.

So, Is It Actually Worth It?

Here’s how I’d think about it.

Add up what you’re already spending on the scattered pieces… hosting, plugin licenses, security, backups, optimization. Then add even a few hours a month of your own time, at any honest hourly value.

For most solopreneurs, that number lands well north of what a good bundled service costs. The DIY route only looks cheaper because the biggest line item… your time… is invisible.

So “is it worth it?” really comes down to two questions:

1. What is your time actually worth, doing work that isn’t growing your business?
2. What is it worth to not have to sit there in frustration while you try to figure out technical stuff you know isn’t your skill set?

If your honest answer to both is “more than fifty bucks a month”… you have your answer.

Where Concierge Fits

I’ll be upfront: I run a service called Concierge, so I’ve obviously got a horse in this race. But I built it because I lived this exact problem with my own clients, so let me just show you my thinking.

Honestly, I don’t even like calling Concierge a “maintenance service.” Maintenance makes it sound like an oil change. It’s closer to having a webmaster on retainer… a technical partner who actually knows your site and picks up when something’s wrong.

Because here’s the trap with a lot of the cheaper maintenance plans: they run your updates, fire off a report, and call it a day. That’s fine… right up until something actually breaks and you need a human who knows your setup. That gap is exactly what I built Concierge around. It bundles:

• The hosting
• The premium plugin licenses you’d otherwise be buying yourself
• Image optimization
• Monitoring, security, the firewall, the backups
• And… the part that actually matters when things go sideways… a real human who knows your site and can jump in when something’s wrong

And unlike most maintenance plans, Concierge includes your hosting. Not general all-purpose hosting… but hosting I tailored and manage specifically for my clients (who usually run memberships and stores). I’ve moved clients out of premium-priced hosting…. to Concierge Cloud… and without fail their site performs better.

I also compiled the Concierge Toolkit… which contains premium licensed plugins I’ve reviewed and use often to cover all of the usual solopreneur needs. Online stores, memberships, content protection, online courses, booking calendars, video players, email marketing, marketing automation…. I’ve got it all handled, ready to install and help manage for my clients. Without any additional license costs.

That last piece… the human who knows your site… is the whole game. Because the difference between “a service that runs my updates” and “someone who actually knows my site” is the difference between a monthly report and an actual night’s sleep. My clients are on a first-name basis with me.

And here’s the kicker on price. That “knows-my-site” support is exactly what Concierge is built around. Plans start at $49/month for Concierge Essentials and $99/month for Concierge Core. (You can see the plans here.)

So go back and add up your own numbers… the hosting, the licenses, the tools you’re already paying for… plus a few hours of your time at any honest rate. For most people, Concierge Core comes out cheaper than doing it all themselves… and a fraction of what the equivalent help costs on a hosted platform. Before you even count the peace of mind.

That’s not a sales pitch. That’s just solopreneur arithmetic.

So, Is Your Time Worth More Than Minimum Wage?

A website requires time. It requires some hands-on attention to keep things humming along. And time is EXACTLY the thing way too many solopreneurs give away for free.

Above, we hypothetically valued your time at minimum wage. I would certainly think the reality is that your time is valued higher than that. At least it should be. And that’s truly the kicker here…. because if your ACTIONS are treating your time as basically free, then it carries over into the other decisions you make in your business.

When it comes to your website, you’re likely paying most of the costs of Concierge already. It is just scattered among different bills and it doesn’t feel like it, but the truth remains the same. But, you’re throwing on there the fact that you’re valuing your time very poorly.

That’s the real mistake. Not the money. The time.

So the move isn’t to grind harder, or to feel bad about it. It’s to reevaluate. Decide your time is actually worth something… and then protect it for the things that move the needle.

And here’s the part I’d gently add…

When you hand the technical weight to someone like me, you’re not only buying back hours. This site is called Blog Marketing Academy for a reason. I spent YEARS teaching people how to start online businesses. I’ve been an entrepreneur myself for over 30 years. I’ve consulted, I’ve spoken at conferences, I’ve talked to countless others. Point is…. I’m not just a “web guy”, but I’m a guy with business experience as well. And, many times, I do have real strategic conversations with my Concierge clients. This isn’t just about pushing website updates. 😜

Owning a website costs more than you think… in dollars, and in hours. The only real question is whether you keep paying in the most expensive currency you’ve got… your own time and attention… or put someone on your team to take that weight off your plate, so you can spend your hours on the things that actually make your time worth far more than zero.

Not sure whether a service like this even makes sense for your site?

That’s exactly what a Roadmap Call is for. It’s free, there’s no pressure, and we’ll look at your site and your situation together… and I’ll tell you straight whether Concierge is a fit or not.