Answer five questions and get an honest monthly number for your site, including what doing it yourself really costs once your own hours are priced in.
Free, no email required Runs in your browser, nothing is stored Takes about a minute
Website maintenance costs roughly $20 to $500 a month for most sites in 2026, and $500 to $3,000 for stores and high-traffic sites. The biggest driver is not the provider you pick, it is how complex your site is, especially the plugin count and whether it takes payments. Doing it yourself is only cheaper when your own hours are genuinely worth less than the plan.
These are estimates for planning, not a quote. Every number the calculator uses is listed in how the numbers are worked out below, so you can check the assumptions against your own site.
For most websites, $20 to $500 a month. Stores and high-traffic sites run from $500 to $3,000 and up. Where you land inside that band depends far more on your site than on your provider, which is why a single headline price is always misleading.
Here is the honest spread by type of site.
| Type of site | Typical monthly cost | DIY hours a month |
|---|---|---|
| Personal or brochure site | $20–$60 | 1.5 hrs |
| Small business site (leads and forms) | $60–$300 | 3 hrs |
| Blog or content site | $60–$300 | 3.5 hrs |
| WooCommerce store | $300–$1000 | 6 hrs |
| High-traffic or SaaS site | $500–$3000 | 8 hrs |
The jump from a business site to a store is the one that surprises people. It is not that a store needs more updates. It is that every update has to be tested against a live checkout before it ships, and that testing is the work.
Three things, in order: plugin count, whether money changes hands, and traffic. Plugin count is the one most owners underestimate. Under 10 plugins is a quick weekly job, but past 35 the updates start conflicting with each other and each one needs checking on staging first.
The other two are about stakes rather than effort. A broken contact form loses a lead you never knew about. A broken checkout loses money you can count.
Only if your hours are genuinely worth less than the plan. DIY maintenance is not free, it is unpriced. A typical small business site takes about three hours a month once you include testing, and you still pay for the tools.
Price those hours and the picture changes fast.
| Your hourly rate | 3 hrs of your time | Plus tools | True DIY cost |
|---|---|---|---|
| $25/hr | $75 | $15 | $90/mo |
| $50/hr | $150 | $15 | $165/mo |
| $100/hr | $300 | $15 | $315/mo |
And that is before the risk. One untested update that breaks the site on a busy Friday costs hours of panic plus a paid emergency fix, which is the cost nobody budgets for.
No black box. The calculator adds three things: the hours your type of site needs, an adjustment for plugin count and payments, and the tool subscriptions you pay either way. Your hourly rate turns the hours into money.
These are the exact figures behind it.
| Input | What it adds |
|---|---|
| Personal or brochure site | 1.5 base hours, $5 in tools |
| Small business site (leads and forms) | 3 base hours, $15 in tools |
| Blog or content site | 3.5 base hours, $20 in tools |
| WooCommerce store | 6 base hours, $35 in tools |
| High-traffic or SaaS site | 8 base hours, $50 in tools |
| Under 10 plugins | +0 hours a month (a lean site) |
| 10 to 20 plugins | +0.5 hours a month (typical) |
| 20 to 35 plugins | +1.5 hours a month (getting heavy) |
| 35 or more plugins | +3 hours a month (the main cost driver) |
| Takes payments | +1.5 hours a month for checkout and gateway testing |
| Annual billing | −15% on the plan price, paid up front |
The market ranges come from our own 2026 maintenance pricing guide, and the plan prices are the real ones from the plans page, not made-up figures.
When the site earns nothing and you enjoy the work. A personal blog with eight plugins and no payments is roughly ninety minutes a month, and if your own time is not billable, a plan is hard to justify.
That is a real answer, and the calculator will give it to you. If it says DIY wins for your site, take it at face value. The free maintenance checklist covers the routine so you can run it yourself properly.
A plan starts making sense the moment downtime costs you something, or the moment you stop actually doing the checklist.
Send the URL and we will look at the plugin count, the update backlog and the backup setup, then tell you what it actually needs. Free, no obligation.
For most sites, $20 to $500 a month in 2026. A brochure site sits at the bottom of that band, a small business site usually lands between $60 and $300, and a WooCommerce store starts around $300. Stores and high-traffic sites run higher because the stakes and the testing are higher.
It depends on what the site earns. If downtime or a broken checkout costs you money, a plan is cheaper than the hours and the risk. For a personal site that earns nothing, doing it yourself is a perfectly sensible answer, and this calculator will tell you so.
Every plugin is more code to update, test and patch. Under 10 plugins is a quick weekly job. Past 35, updates start conflicting with each other and each one needs checking on staging first, which is where the hours go.
Around 1.5 hours for a small brochure site and 6 or more for a busy store. The work is updates, backups, a malware scan, testing forms and checkout, and checking speed. Most of the time goes on testing, not on clicking update.
No. Everything runs in your browser and nothing is sent anywhere or saved. There is no form to submit, no email gate and no tracking of your answers. Reload the page and it resets.
Usually by 10 to 20 percent, paid for a year up front. The trade is flexibility: monthly can be cancelled any time, annual locks the price in. If you are new to a provider, start monthly and switch once they have proved themselves.