Building a website is a one-time cost. Keeping it online isn’t. Here are the ongoing website costs to budget for — domain, hosting, licences and maintenance — what each one is, roughly what it costs, and where you can save without putting your website at risk.
Typical yearly running costs
€100–700 a year
For a small business website, before paid maintenance. Your total depends mostly on your hosting and the paid tools your site uses.
Book a callOngoing website costs at a glance
The design and build is paid once, but every website also has some smaller recurring costs. These are typical ranges for a small business site; prices vary by provider and change over time.
- Domain name — roughly €10–20 a year
- Hosting — roughly €5–30 a month
- Licences for premium tools and plugins — €0 to a few hundred euros a year
- Updates and maintenance — your time if you do it yourself, or a monthly fee if someone does it for you
Domain name
Your domain is your address on the web, like yourbusiness.com. You pay for it every year, usually around €10–20 for common endings such as .com, and it renews automatically if you let it.
Two things to watch: many providers offer a cheap first year and charge more on renewal, and the domain should always be registered in your name. If it’s in your designer’s name, it isn’t really yours.
Hosting
Hosting is the server your website lives on. For a small business site it usually costs somewhere between €5 and €30 a month. Cheaper plans share a server with many other sites; better plans add speed, daily backups and helpful support.
The cheapest hosting can be a false saving. A slow website loses visitors before they read a word — one of the reasons I cover in why a website gets visitors but no enquiries.
Licences for premium tools and plugins
Many websites use paid tools: a page builder, an SEO plugin, a booking or forms tool, a speed plugin. Most charge a yearly licence, often somewhere between €50 and €300 each, and some sites need none at all.
If a licence expires, the tool often keeps working but stops getting updates — which slowly becomes a security risk. Ask your designer for a list of every paid tool your site uses and when each one renews.
Updates and maintenance
WordPress, its theme and its plugins release updates all the time. Skipping them is how websites get hacked or quietly break. Maintenance usually covers:
- Installing updates safely, with a way to undo them if something breaks
- Regular backups you can actually restore
- Checking that the site is online and the contact form works
- Small fixes and content changes
You can do this yourself — it costs time and some risk — or pay someone a monthly fee. I keep the websites I look after updated with Sitefar, a tool I designed and built to manage WordPress sites from one place (see the case study).
Costs people forget
- Business email on your own domain, usually paid per person per month
- Stock photos and fonts with licences that need renewing
- Content updates — new services, prices and photos as your business changes
- Marketing such as ads or ongoing SEO, if you want more visitors — see how much of your marketing budget should go to your website
What happens if you stop paying
Each cost keeps a different part of your website alive:
- Domain expires: your website and email stop working, and someone else can buy your address
- Hosting ends: the website goes offline
- Licences lapse: tools stop getting updates and security fixes
- Maintenance stops: nothing breaks straight away, but the risk grows every month
How to keep ongoing website costs down
- Keep the domain and hosting in your own name and accounts
- Pay yearly where it’s cheaper, and check renewal prices, not only the first year
- Avoid paid plugins your website doesn’t really need
- Review your tools and subscriptions once a year
- Don’t choose hosting on price alone — a slow site costs you customers
Frequently asked questions
How much does it cost to maintain a website per year?
For a small business website, the running costs — domain, hosting and licences — are typically somewhere around €100–700 a year. Paid maintenance comes on top if you don’t do the updates yourself.
Are ongoing costs included in the website price?
Usually not — the design and build is a one-time cost, and running costs are paid separately. Ask upfront which ones apply. My website price guide explains what the build itself includes.
Is website maintenance really necessary?
Yes, if your website runs on WordPress or similar software. Updates fix security holes and keep everything working. Whether you do them yourself or pay someone is up to you.
Should my domain and hosting be in my name or my designer’s?
Yours. Your designer can be given access when needed, but the website should always belong to you. It’s one of the questions to ask a web designer before you hire them.
Can I pay for hosting yearly instead of monthly?
Most hosting providers offer both, and yearly plans are often cheaper. Just check the renewal price, as the first year is frequently discounted.
Plan your website budget
Before we start a project, I’ll tell you which ongoing costs apply to your website and roughly what they’ll be, so there are no surprises after launch.
