How much does it cost to maintain a website each year?

What you pay every year

Take a physiotherapist who works alone and has a five-section website. To keep that site up she pays for two fixed things, the domain and the hosting. Everything else depends on how the page was built and how often the owner wants to change it.

• The domain, the address like yoursalon.es, renewed every year.
• The hosting, the server where the page is stored, usually yearly as well.
• The SSL certificate, which puts the padlock in the browser and is almost always included free.
• Email on your domain, which can cost nothing or quite a lot depending on what you choose.
• Maintenance and changes, the item that varies most from one site to another.

Many quotes roll all of this into one monthly fee. Then there's no way to know what you're paying for, so here each item is taken separately.

Domain: cheap, but check the renewal

A .es or .com usually costs roughly 10 to 20 euros a year at renewal. It's the cheapest item and the one people forget, because the reminder arrives once a year at an inbox you may no longer check.

The first year is almost always discounted, sometimes to one euro. The renewal isn't. Before registering, look up the renewal price in the price table, since that's what you'll pay in the years after.

A very common case: the IT person registered the domain with his own email, changed jobs, and nobody got the reminder. One Monday the site and the email stop working. The domain has to be in your name, with your email as the contact.

Hosting: where prices vary most

For a few pages with photos and a WhatsApp button, shared hosting is plenty. It usually costs roughly 30 to 120 euros a year. You don't need a dedicated server or the "professional" plan with resources you'll never use.

The renewal trap is stronger here than with domains. A very low price is often advertised if you pay two or three years upfront, and the renewal then costs double or triple. It isn't hidden, but it is in the small print. Always compare what renewal costs.

If your site isn't a shop with hundreds of products, ask whether it can be published as a static site. It needs very few resources, loads fast and offers little to attack. The downside is that it doesn't come with a panel to edit anything you like, so find out beforehand how you'll change prices and opening hours.

SSL certificate: you shouldn't be paying for it

Almost every hosting provider now includes a free certificate that renews itself. It's what makes your site start with https and stops the browser warning that it's "not secure".

For a site showing services, prices and a phone number, that free certificate works just as well as a paid one. Paid certificates with company validation make sense for a bank or a large shop, not for a garage. If someone charges it as a yearly extra, ask why.

Business email: from nothing to quite a lot

Many hosting plans include a few email accounts on your domain at no extra cost. They work, though with little storage and a more basic screen. If that's enough, email costs you nothing.

The well-known email suites, with a calendar and good phone apps, are charged per user per month: roughly 3 to 8 euros per address. With two people that's 70 to 200 euros a year. A common mistake is opening one account per employee when a shared address like bookings@ would have done.

Maintenance and changes

This depends heavily on how the site was built. A site on a content management system with lots of plugins needs frequent updates: left alone it's exposed, and updated carelessly something breaks. That's where agency maintenance plans come from, usually roughly 20 to 100 euros a month. Over a year, 240 to 1,200 euros.

A simple static page needs almost no technical maintenance. What you will need is content changes: the price of a colour treatment going up in January, August opening hours, a new photo. That's where the real cost is.

• If you have to call and pay someone every time you change a price, the site is expensive even when the fee is low. Ideally you make small changes yourself.
• Bigger changes, like a new section, are charged by the hour or by the job. Ask for the price before work starts.

Three example yearly budgets

1. The minimum: roughly 50–150 euros a year

   Domain, basic shared hosting, the free SSL and whatever email comes with the hosting. You make small changes yourself. This is what most businesses with a simple page need.

2. With paid email: roughly 150–350 euros a year

   The above plus an email suite for one or two people. Worth it if you send quotes and invoices every day and want email properly set up on your phone and calendar.

3. With an agency maintenance plan: roughly 300–1,500 euros a year

   All of the above plus a monthly fee for updates, backups and changes. For an online shop it can be worth it. For a five-section site you're almost always paying for more than you use.

The traps that make a website expensive

• Promotional domain and hosting that double or triple at renewal. Check the renewal rate before signing up.
• 12, 24 or 36-month contracts with a penalty for leaving early. If you're asked for a minimum term to maintain a simple page, ask exactly what happens if you want to leave.
• The fee that blends everything. "A website for 40 euros a month" sounds small, but over three years it's 1,440 euros, and you can't tell which part is domain, which is hosting and which is margin.
• Contracts where the site belongs to the agency: stop paying and it disappears, and sometimes the domain was in their name too. Before signing, ask whether you take the files and the domain with you when you leave.

Compared with a Wix-style subscription

Subscription website builders bundle domain, hosting, SSL and the editor into one fee. It's convenient, and if you're going to build the site yourself it makes sense. Business plans usually cost roughly 150 to 450 euros a year.

The catch is that the site only exists while you pay. If you cancel, you can't move it elsewhere as it is. When you compare, add up three or four years of fees rather than looking at one month.