Your website isn’t finished the day it goes live. WordPress, your theme and every plugin get updates every few weeks. Skip them for a year and the site starts breaking in small ways. It also becomes an easy way in for hackers.
This post covers what maintenance actually involves and what it costs if you hand it to someone in Groningen.
What WordPress maintenance actually is
A WordPress site is built from parts made by different people: WordPress itself, a theme, and usually 10 to 30 plugins. Each part gets updated on its own schedule, often to fix security holes.
Maintenance means someone keeps those parts up to date, makes sure they still work together after each update, and can put the site back if something goes wrong. In practice that’s:
- Updates for WordPress, the theme and plugins, checked on the live site afterwards
- Backups stored somewhere other than your hosting, so a broken server doesn’t take the backup with it
- Security checks for login attempts, outdated plugins and malware
- Small fixes, like a broken form, a menu item that disappeared or a photo that won’t load
What happens when nobody does it
Sites that go months without updates tend to run into the same problems:
- The contact form stops sending. Nobody notices until a client says they wrote three weeks ago.
- A plugin update breaks the layout. Someone clicks “update all” in a hurry and the homepage looks wrong on phones.
- The site gets slow. Old plugins, uncompressed images and no caching add up. Google notices, and so do people on a 4G connection.
- The site gets hacked. Outdated plugins are the most common way in. Cleaning up a hacked site usually takes days, and costs more than a year of maintenance.
None of this is dramatic on day one. It builds up quietly, and then it’s a weekend of fixing.
Can you do it yourself?
Yes, if you have the time and you know what to check. Updating is one click. The work is in what comes after: making a backup first, checking every page and form after the update, and knowing how to roll back when something breaks.
If you’d rather spend that hour on your business, that’s what a maintenance plan is for.
What WordPress maintenance costs in Groningen
Prices vary a lot, because plans cover very different things. Before you compare, ask what’s actually included: how often updates happen, where backups are kept, and whether small changes are included or billed separately.
Our plan starts at €49 a month. It covers:
- Updates every two weeks, always after a backup, with a check of the homepage, menus and forms afterwards. Serious security fixes go in within 48 hours.
- A daily backup, stored outside your hosting and kept for 30 days. If an update breaks something, putting it back is included.
- Malware scans and login protection, plus an alert if your site goes down.
- 30 minutes of small changes a month: opening hours, menu prices, a photo, a line of text.
- A short email every month with what was updated.
Anything bigger, like a new page or a redesign of a section, is quoted first at €60 an hour, so there are no surprises on the invoice.
Your domain, hosting and accounts stay in your name. If you ever stop, you keep everything.
Who it’s for
Independent businesses in Groningen with a WordPress site that matters to them: a restaurant taking bookings, or a shop selling online.
If the site breaking would cost you clients, it’s worth looking after.
It doesn’t matter who built the site. We also look after Shopify stores. Shopify handles updates and hosting itself, so those are quoted after a look at the store.
Talk to the person who does the work
You talk directly to the person who updates your site. No ticket system, no account manager in between.
If you want someone to look after your WordPress site, send us a message and tell us the address. We’ll take a look and tell you what state it’s in.
Let’s talk about your project.
Tell us a bit about what you’re building and we’ll get back to you within one business day. No obligation, no sales pitch, just a conversation.
