WordPress Maintenance Plans & Pricing.
I advise service firms to be upfront about their fees. It would be odd if I wasn't upfront about mine. Here's exactly what a WordPress care plan costs and what you get for it.
Monthly WordPress Support — £125/month.
This is the foundation. From day one, your site is monitored, maintained, and protected. The audit and roadmap in months 1 and 2 are included — they're how every engagement starts.
What's included
Security & Updates
- WordPress core, plugin, and theme updates — tested in a staging environment before going live
- Daily malware scanning and firewall management via WP Umbrella
- Login protection and brute force prevention
- Security vulnerability monitoring — patches applied before they become problems
Backups & Uptime
- Automated daily backups stored offsite with a documented restore process
- Uptime monitoring — if your site goes down, I know before you do
Performance
- Regular Core Web Vitals monitoring
- Page speed checks — flagging issues before they affect rankings
Strategy
- Month 1: full site audit — analytics, SEO, performance, security, competitors
- Month 2: prioritised improvement roadmap with timescales and budget estimates
- Shared Kanban board — see what's in progress, what's next, what's done
- Quarterly strategy review — a call to discuss progress and adjust the plan
Support
- Direct access — no ticket systems, no waiting in a queue
- Priority support from the person who actually manages your site
6-month minimum, then month-to-month. 30 days' notice to cancel.
Improvement Work
Design updates, content improvements, SEO work, and development changes identified in your improvement roadmap. Scope agreed in advance — nothing starts without your approval.
Managed Hosting
Migration to Kinsta's managed WordPress hosting. Faster load times, better security, daily backups at server level, and one less thing on your plate.
Want to understand how the 3-phase journey works before looking at the numbers? See the full process.
What Typical WordPress Improvements Cost.
Improvement work is billed at £75/hour, scoped and approved before anything starts. Here's what common projects typically cost for professional services websites:
| Task | Typical hours | Cost range |
|---|---|---|
| Homepage redesign | 8–12 hours | £600 – £900 |
| Service page rewrite (content and design) | 3–5 hours | £225 – £375 |
| New practice area or service page | 4–6 hours | £300 – £450 |
| Speed optimisation (Core Web Vitals) | 4–8 hours | £300 – £600 |
| Local SEO overhaul | 6–10 hours | £450 – £750 |
| Google Business Profile optimisation | 2–3 hours | £150 – £225 |
| Schema markup implementation | 2–4 hours | £150 – £300 |
| Contact form rebuild and conversion optimisation | 2–4 hours | £150 – £300 |
| Blog setup with first 3 posts | 6–10 hours | £450 – £750 |
| Accessibility audit and fixes | 4–6 hours | £300 – £450 |
These are ballpark ranges based on typical professional services websites. The actual scope depends on your site's complexity, which is what the Month 1 audit establishes. Nothing starts without an agreed scope and your approval.
What Drives the Cost Up or Down.
Every WordPress site is different. Here's what typically affects how much improvement work your site needs:
Costs tend to be lower when:
- Your site uses a well-maintained theme (GeneratePress, Kadence, Astra)
- Content is mostly text-based, not heavily custom layouts
- Hosting is already decent (SiteGround, Cloudways, Kinsta)
- You have existing content that can be improved rather than written from scratch
- Analytics and Search Console are already connected
Costs tend to be higher when:
- The site uses a heavily customised or outdated theme
- There are multiple plugin conflicts or years of technical debt
- No analytics or tracking has been set up (starting from zero)
- The site needs significant design work, not just content changes
- Multiple practice areas each need dedicated landing pages
This is exactly why every engagement starts with an audit. I need to understand what you have before I can tell you what it will cost to improve it. No honest provider can skip that step.
What Different WordPress Maintenance Plans Get You.
Not all maintenance plans are the same. Here's how the market breaks down across the UK:
Automated Maintenance
- Auto-updates (no staging, no testing)
- Automated backups
- Basic uptime monitoring
- No human oversight
- No strategy or improvement plan
- No direct support — ticket system
- No analytics or SEO monitoring
Fine if your site just needs to stay online. Not enough if it needs to grow.
Strategic Maintenance
- Updates tested in staging before going live
- Security monitoring with WP Umbrella
- Automated offsite backups
- Full site audit in Month 1
- Strategic improvement roadmap
- Direct access — no ticket system
- Quarterly strategy reviews
- Improvement work available at £75/hr
For firms that want their website to actually generate enquiries.
Agency Retainer
- Dedicated account manager
- Larger team with broader capabilities
- Often includes design hours in retainer
- Higher monthly cost, sometimes with lock-in
- More layers between you and the work
- Can be slower — decisions go through more people
Justified for larger firms. Often overkill for a 1–5 person practice.
Questions about WordPress maintenance plans.
What's included in a WordPress maintenance contract?
The base plan at £125/month covers everything you need to keep a WordPress site secure and maintained: core, plugin, and theme updates tested in staging; daily malware scans and firewall management; automated offsite backups; uptime monitoring; performance checks; and direct priority support. On top of that, the first two months include a full site audit and a strategic improvement roadmap. Improvement work beyond the base plan is billed at £75/hour, scoped and approved before it starts.
Do I need a WordPress care plan if my site is working fine?
"Working" and "working hard for your business" are different things. Most sites I audit are technically online but underperforming — slow load times, dropping search rankings, outdated plugins with known vulnerabilities, no analytics tracking. The Month 1 audit shows you exactly where things stand. You might be surprised by what's quietly going wrong.
How long does a WordPress maintenance contract last?
There's a 6-month minimum commitment. The first month is a full audit, the second is planning, and real implementation starts in month 3. It takes at least 3–4 months of consistent work before you see measurable results in search rankings and site performance. After 6 months, it rolls to a monthly basis — no lock-in, 30 days' notice to cancel.
Can I cancel my WordPress support plan?
After the initial 6-month period, yes — 30 days' notice and you're free to go. No penalty, no awkward conversations. Most clients stay because by that point the improvement plan is producing results and there's always more to work on. But the choice is yours.
What's the difference between WordPress maintenance and WordPress support?
Maintenance is the proactive work — updates, security monitoring, backups, performance checks. Support is the reactive work — fixing things when they break, answering questions, making small changes. This service includes both, plus strategic planning. Most cheap maintenance plans only cover the first part and charge extra for everything else.
Do you offer one-off WordPress fixes?
Yes, but bear in mind that a site that needs emergency work usually has underlying issues that will keep causing problems. The monthly plan addresses the root causes so emergencies stop happening. Get in touch and let's see how I can help you.
Will you work with my existing hosting provider?
Yes. I work with whatever hosting you're on. If your hosting is a bottleneck — slow speeds, poor security, unreliable uptime — I'll recommend migrating to Kinsta as part of the improvement plan. That's the optional £30/month managed hosting add-on. But it's a recommendation, not a requirement.
Ready to talk about your WordPress site?
Tell me about your current setup and I'll give you an honest assessment of where things stand. No obligation, no jargon.
Get in touch