Scope
What's included,
in plain terms.
Website maintenance is the ongoing service of keeping a live website updated, backed up, monitored and secure — usually billed monthly rather than sold as a one-time project. "Maintenance" still means something different at every agency, though. Here's exactly what our website maintenance services cover — and what triggers a separate quote instead.
Not included in the base scope: content edits, new pages, and hack recovery on the entry-level plan are quoted separately, before any work starts — never added to an invoice afterward. Compare exactly what's in each plan →
The checklist
A website maintenance checklist,
by how often it should run.
Whoever maintains your site, these are the tasks that should be happening and how often. If you can't say who is doing each one, nobody is.
Platforms
Built for how your
site is actually built.
The update process, the risks, and what "tested" means are different on every stack. We maintain the platform you actually have, not a generic checklist.
The monthly report
What you get every month,
whether anything broke or not.
A plain-English summary you can read in two minutes. This is an illustrative example of the format, not a real client's report.
Why this, not a typical retainer
The terms are the difference.
Most maintenance pages read the same: "proactive monitoring," "peace of mind." Ours is built around four things most competitors don't publish.
Your options
Maintenance company, freelancer,
or doing it yourself?
All three can work. The difference is who is accountable when something goes wrong at an inconvenient time. For what each option typically costs, see the website maintenance cost guide.
| Do it yourself | Freelancer | Large agency | PixelGravitas | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Updates tested before going live | Rarely; usually auto-update | Depends on the person | Usually | Always, on a staging copy |
| Off-site backups, restore tested | If you set it up | Sometimes | Usually | Daily, with restores tested |
| Someone watching uptime | You, when a customer tells you | Varies | Yes | Continuously |
| Who answers when it breaks | You | One person, when available | An account manager first | The engineer who does the work |
| Pricing | Tools and your time | Usually hourly | Often "contact us" | Published, per site per month |
| Best for | Simple sites and technical owners | Small, low-risk sites | Large, multi-team organisations | Businesses that want one accountable owner |
When to hire
Signs you need a website
maintenance company.
If two or more of these sound familiar, the site is already costing you more unmaintained than it would maintained. Running a small business without in-house IT? See small business website management.
Process
Three steps.
No mystery.
The most common reason people don't enquire with a website maintenance company is not knowing what happens after they do. So here it is.
You send the URL
One form, three fields. No discovery call required to get started, no sales sequence.
We send a written scope
Which tier fits, why, and what — if anything — needs fixing first. In writing, not on a sales call.
We maintain it, and tell you
Updates, backups and monitoring run continuously; you get a plain-English report every month.
Pricing
Three plans.
One public rate card.
No "contact us for a quote." Every rate for our website maintenance services is published on the pricing page — from a single small-business site up, tiered by number of sites, with agencies paying the same rates at volume as everyone else.
Care
For a stable site that just needs someone responsible for it.
- Core, plugin & theme updates
- Daily offsite backups
- Uptime & SSL monitoring
- Monthly report
Care + Secure
Everything in Care, plus active hardening and a fixed monthly support allowance.
- Everything in Care
- Hardening & malware scanning
- Support hours included
- Emergency response
Agency
Same service, white-labelled, priced for portfolios of five sites and up.
- Everything in Care + Secure
- Your branding on all reports
- Direct escalation channel
Who you're dealing with
A name and a face,
not a contact form.
You're handing someone the keys to your website. You should know who they are.
Naveen Kumar
Founder & lead engineer · Based in Chennai, India, working with clients across the US, UK, Europe and Australia
I built and ran WordPress, WooCommerce and custom-coded sites for clients directly for years before starting PixelGravitas — writing the code, managing the servers, staying on call when something broke. If your site goes down, you're talking to the person who fixes it, not a support queue. More about how I work →
Questions, answered
Website maintenance services:
common questions.
What exactly counts as "website maintenance"?
Core software updates, security monitoring, daily backups, uptime checks and a monthly written report, as listed in the scope section above. It does not include new design work, content writing or marketing; those are quoted separately as projects or growth retainers, never bundled into a maintenance rate to inflate it.
What does a website maintenance company actually do each month?
It keeps the site updated, backed up, monitored and secure, and tells you what it did. In practice that means testing and applying updates, confirming backups ran and can be restored, watching uptime and SSL, scanning for malware, checking performance, fixing what breaks and sending a written report.
How often should a website be maintained?
Backups and uptime checks should run daily or continuously. Updates should be reviewed at least weekly, since security patches for popular plugins are released constantly. Performance, broken links and a test restore are worth checking monthly, with a fuller review of plugins, access and hosting each quarter.
Is website maintenance the same as website management?
They overlap. Website maintenance is the technical upkeep: updates, backups, security and uptime. Website management is broader and can also include content changes, SEO and reporting. Our plans cover maintenance; content and growth work is available as ad-hoc hours or a growth retainer.
Do you only work on WordPress?
No. WordPress and WooCommerce are the largest share of what we maintain, but Webflow, static HTML sites and custom-coded stacks in React, Laravel and Next.js are covered too. See the platform section above for what changes by platform.
Can you take over a site another developer built?
Yes. Taking over a site someone else built is a normal starting point. The free assessment checks the current state of the site first: platform, update backlog, backups and any security issues, so you know what needs fixing before regular maintenance begins.
Do you offer website maintenance for small businesses?
Yes. The entry plan is priced for a single small-business site, with no minimum term. You don't need an agency-sized budget or a multi-site portfolio.
What happens if my site goes down outside business hours?
Sites on Care + Secure get an emergency response with a stated target time, not a "best effort" promise: 2 hours in business hours, 4 hours outside them. See the terms above for the rest, and the agency page for the full incident SLA if you manage a portfolio.
Will I lose access to my own site or hosting?
No. You keep ownership of your domain, hosting and admin access at all times; we work inside your accounts, not ours. If you ever want to leave, every credential is handed back within 48 hours, with no exit fee.
Where are you based? Do you offer website maintenance near me?
We're based in Chennai, India, and maintain sites remotely for clients across the US, UK, Europe and Australia. Maintenance doesn't need an in-person visit, so what matters is the response time you're promised, which is stated in hours above.
How is this different from hiring a freelancer or a big agency retainer?
A freelancer tends to disappear when they get busy; a large agency retainer routes you through account managers before you reach anyone technical. Here, the person who does the work is the person who answers your email. The comparison table above sets the options side by side.