If you have a website in production, sooner or later the question comes up: “how much is it going to cost me to keep it up to date every month?” And the honest answer is: it depends on who maintains it, on what you consider “maintenance”, and on how realistic the quote is. In this article I tell you the real 2026 market ranges, what I charge, and why.
The short answer
As a starting point, this is what you pay in Spain for monthly maintenance of a small or medium website, no contract:
| Type of maintenance | Typical market range | What I charge |
|---|---|---|
| Basic plan (text, photos, tweaks) | EUR 80-150/mo (freelancer), EUR 200-500/mo (agency) | EUR 25/mo (Plan A, 2.5 h included) |
| Medium plan (changes that can be big) | EUR 150-300/mo (freelancer), EUR 400-800/mo (agency) | EUR 50/mo (Plan B, 5 h included) |
| One-off hour with a freelancer | EUR 40-80/h | EUR 20/h (only if you exceed Plan A hours) |
| One-off hour with an agency | EUR 80-150/h | I do not offer it, I quote it separately |
These prices are not aggressive to capture clients: they are the ones in my real quotes, the ones I charge clients who have been with me between 6 months and 3 years. And the plans have no contract: you leave whenever you want.
What is (and what is not) in a maintenance plan
What most providers include in a basic plan:
- Update the CMS or the code when there is a small change (a phone, an opening hour, a photo)
- Basic monitoring: that the site is online and responding
- Periodic backups in case something happens (hack, error, whatever)
- SSL up to date (the green padlock)
- Answering small tickets by email within 24-48 h
What is usually not included in a basic plan and they charge you separately:
- Redesigning a section or adding a new page
- Changing important features (a complex form, a price calculator, whatever)
- SEO or performance optimisation (that is another service)
- Writing new copy
- Running marketing campaigns
- Managing social media
And here comes the first trap: some providers pack “monthly SEO” or “security updates” into the basic plan and charge you as if it were an extra. Those EUR 200-500/mo you see at agencies usually include things your site does not need, under the excuse that “this way you do not have to worry about anything”. My take: if you do not understand it, do not pay for it.
Why my plans cost 3-10x less than the rest
Working with me on maintenance costs a fraction of what an agency charges for the same work. Why:
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I work sólo, no office or team to maintain. An agency has to pay the rent of their office, the salary of the project manager, the salesperson, the accountant, the intern who updates the sites… and all that gets split across clients.
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AI helps me where it actually adds value. It does not replace me (years of programming weigh more than any tool), but it saves me time on tedious things. I pass that saving to you.
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I do not sell smoke. My plans say exactly what they include: X hours of small changes, no hidden extras, no contract. If you exceed the hours, I tell you before doing them and you decide. If not, they roll over to next month.
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I do not have a salesperson charging commission on every change. This last one is the dirty secret of the industry: in many agencies, every time you request a change, the salesperson takes a 10-15% commission “for management”. And that goes into your bill.
Result: the same work costs you EUR 25-50/mo with me, EUR 80-150/mo with a normal freelancer, or EUR 200-500/mo with a small agency. No loss of quality (probably more, in fact, because it is me directly, not a junior).
When monthly maintenance does not make sense
For full honesty, there are cases where monthly maintenance is not the right fit:
- Your site is just a landing page for a temporary campaign and you are not going to touch it for 6 months. Better a one-off payment and forget about it.
- Your site is a personal project with no commercial goal and you can update it yourself with what you learned the day it was made.
- Your site is critical (you have 10k visits/month and sell online) and you need a 24/7 SLA with on-call staff. I do not offer that. In that case you need a managed hosting company or an agency with on-call.
- Your site is a WordPress with 47 outdated plugins and you are patching it every week. The problem is not maintenance, it is platform. Better migrate to Astro (or whatever fits) and start fresh.
In those cases I tell you in the first call, without trying to sell you something you do not need.
Plan A vs Plan B: when to pick each
| Plan A (EUR 25/mo) | Plan B (EUR 50/mo) | |
|---|---|---|
| Hours included | 2.5 hours | 5 hours |
| Effective cost per hour | EUR 10/h | EUR 10/h |
| Ideal for | Small sites, text and photo changes | Medium sites, occasional big changes |
| If you exceed | I tell you, we talk, EUR 20/h extra | I tell you, we talk, extra hour at EUR 20 |
| Contract | None, leave whenever you want | None, leave whenever you want |
My honest recommendation: if your site is the typical SME site with 4-6 pages and you only change a phone or a photo from time to time, Plan A is more than enough. If you have a site with an active blog, a restaurant menu that rotates every 15 days, or a portfolio you update often, Plan B is worth it.
What I would never do with your site (even if you paid me)
In case you were wondering: there are things I do not do even if someone pays me to do them, because they go against how I understand this work:
- I do not add “preventive” plugins or code that you do not need, even if you ask. If your site loads in 0.6 s and is fine, leave it alone.
- I do not bill you for changes I did not do. If I make a mistake and delete something, I fix it without charging you.
- I do not subscribe you to “premium monitoring” services worth EUR 200/mo that you do not need. Basic uptime from Cloudflare or Vercel is plenty.
- I do not lock you out of your own site. Your domain, your hosting, your site. Yours. I only maintain what you want me to maintain.
- I do not raise the price after 6 months without warning. If at some point I have to adjust rates, I tell you in advance and give you the option to leave.
Frequently asked questions
What if my site was built by someone else and I want you to maintain it?
Perfect, most of my maintenance clients come from other providers. What I do: a first review of 1-2 hours (billed separately) to see the state of the site, I send you a report of what I found, and if it makes sense to maintain it we go ahead. If not, I recommend migrating to something worth maintaining.
What if I need a very big change one month (redesign of a section, etc.)?
We talk. I send you a fixed quote for that specific change, separate from the plan. I do it, I bill it, and your plan stays the same. No “mandatory upgrade” every X months or nonsense like that.
Can I hire maintenance only for some months?
Yes. No contract. If a month you have no changes, you do not have to tell me: I just do not bill. If you go 3 months without activity, I write to you to see if you want to keep going or not, and if you do not answer, I stop. Simple as that.
What if my site breaks on a Sunday?
If it is critical (online shop, booking system), I look at it. If it is not, we look at it on Monday. Maintenance is not a 24/7 SLA and I do not want it to look like one. If you need that, you need something else.
Conclusión
Website maintenance does not have to be a mystery or a black hole in your budget. With my Plans A and B you have EUR 25-50 a month with everything clear: what is included, what is not, no contract, no hidden extras. And if your case does not fit a monthly plan, I tell you and propose something else.
If you want me to look at your specific case, write to me or by WhatsApp and I send you a fixed-price quote in writing within 24 hours. No commitment.
And if you want to see the plans with all the details, they are at Services and pricing.