Scope
What our website maintenance services
include, 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.
How changes are handled: every plan includes monthly support hours for your changes: 2 on Care, 4 on Care + Secure, 6 on Store Care. Work beyond those hours, technical work on Care, and hack recovery on Care 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.
Frequencies reflect how we run maintenance on client sites. The monthly report below is an illustrative example of the format.
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.
Recent work
Recent maintenance and security work.
Two hacked sites we cleaned up. The full write-ups show what was found, how it was fixed and what stops it happening again.
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 many maintenance pages leave out.
Your options
Website maintenance agency, 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 lead engineer |
| 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, it's likely costing you more unmaintained than a plan would. 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.
Everything in one place
Website maintenance services,
page by page.
Each part of website maintenance has its own page with the detail: what's included, what it costs, response times and how it works for your kind of site.
Pricing
Website maintenance service plans:
one public rate card.
No "contact us for a quote." Every rate for our website maintenance services is published on the pricing page, with one plan for each kind of site: a simple site, a business site or an online store.
Care
Up to 10 pages and a contact form, with no bookings, logins or payments.
- Updates installed safely, tested first
- Backed up every day, stored off-site
- Watched around the clock
- A plain-English report every month
- 2 hours of content changes every month
Care + Secure
More than 10 pages, or bookings, memberships and integrations. Everything in Care, plus:
- Security protection and malware scans
- 4 hours of changes or fixes every month
- Hacked? We clean it up, once a year included
- Site down? We start within 2 hours (4 at night and weekends)
Store Care
Any site that takes payments. Everything in Care + Secure, plus:
- A test purchase after every update
- Payments and stock checked
- 6 hours of changes or fixes every month
Agencies: white-label maintenance for portfolios of five or more sites has its own terms and pricing. Agency pricing →
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 9am–6pm US Eastern 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 extra hours on a plan 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 and Store Care get an emergency response with a stated target time, not a "best effort" promise: 2 hours in business hours (9am–6pm ET, Monday to Friday), 4 hours at night and weekends. The full terms are in our maintenance agreement, 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.
How much do website maintenance services cost?
Market rates run from about $50 to $750 per site per month, depending on the site and how much hands-on time is included (market range, checked September 2026). Our three plans are priced per site, per month, with nothing hidden behind a quote. The exact figures, what each plan includes and how they compare with the market are on the website maintenance cost page.
What are the types of website maintenance?
There are four. Preventive maintenance keeps problems from starting: updates, backups, uptime and security monitoring. Corrective maintenance fixes something after it breaks. Adaptive maintenance keeps the site working as its surroundings change, such as a host retiring a PHP version. Improvement work makes the site better, such as speed or accessibility. The checklist above is mostly preventive; plans with support hours cover the corrective and adaptive work too.
What should a website maintenance proposal include?
The scope in plain terms, what is excluded and how extra work is quoted, the first-response and emergency response times, the notice period, who owns the domain, hosting and logins, and how everything is handed back if you leave. Our maintenance agreement page lists each of these clauses and what we commit to.
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: a first response within 1 business day, and 2 hours (4 outside business hours) for emergencies on Care + Secure and Store Care.
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 lead engineer answers your email, and senior developers do the work under his review. The comparison table above sets the options side by side.