// WORDPRESS MAINTENANCE
WordPress website maintenance plans, from $170 a month
WordPress maintenance in Australia costs $50 to $150 a month for updates and backups, or $150 to $400 a month for a fuller plan with security monitoring and malware cover. Web Blend's plans start at $170 a month, in that fuller band, on your site whether we built it or not. Send us the site and we'll scope it, then confirm the exact number before anything starts.
// THE REAL WORK
What WordPress website maintenance actually involves
"Maintenance" undersells it. A properly maintained WordPress site needs ongoing attention across five separate fronts, and skipping any one of them tends to catch up with the other four.
Core, theme & plugin updates
WordPress ships core security patches regularly, and every theme and plugin has its own separate update cycle. Miss enough of them and you are running known, publicly documented vulnerabilities.
Security patching & hardening
Firewall rules, login lockdowns, file permission checks and vulnerability scanning, layered on top of the update cycle because updates alone do not stop a determined bot.
Malware cleanup & recovery
When (not if, for an unmaintained site) something gets in, someone has to find the injected code, remove it, and check nothing else was left behind.
Backups, tested and restorable
A backup that has never been test-restored is a guess, not a safety net. Proper maintenance means backups run automatically and someone actually checks they work.
Uptime & performance monitoring
Something watching the site 24/7 so a plugin conflict or a maxed-out host gets caught in minutes, not when a customer tells you the site is down.
// WHAT IT COSTS
What WordPress maintenance costs, month to month
Prices vary by agency and by how thorough the plan is, but here is a realistic Australian range for a small business site.
Add it up over a few years and a maintained WordPress site typically costs another $600 to $4,800+ on top of whatever the build itself cost, before a single malware incident. Skip maintenance to save that money and the risk shifts from a monthly bill to an unplanned one, usually at the worst possible time.
Ours starts at $170 a month, which sits in the fuller band rather than the cheap one: updates, security patching, tested backups and monitoring together, not updates alone. The exact number depends on the site, so we scope it first. A five-plugin brochure site and a WooCommerce store are not the same job, and we would rather quote the real one than advertise a low number and revise it later.
// SAME THING, DIFFERENT NAME
WordPress care plans, support plans and maintenance plans
A WordPress care plan is the same product as a WordPress maintenance plan: a recurring monthly service covering core, theme and plugin updates, security monitoring, tested backups and support. Australian agencies price care plans between $100 and $500 a month. Some call it a care plan, some a support plan, some a maintenance package. The name changes, the work does not.
What genuinely varies is scope: whether backups are tested or merely taken, whether anyone reads the uptime alerts, and whether malware cleanup is included or billed separately when it happens. Those three are worth checking on any care plan quote, ours included. Ours is scoped before we quote, so you can see which of them you are actually paying for.
// WHY IT MATTERS
Why WordPress sites genuinely need this
This is not scare-mongering. WordPress powers a huge share of the web, which makes it the single biggest target for automated attacks that scan for out-of-date plugins and unpatched core versions. Out-of-date plugins are consistently one of the most common ways small business sites get compromised. If your site runs on WordPress, a maintenance plan is not optional overhead, it is the cost of running that platform responsibly.
That is a fair trade for a business that publishes constantly and needs WordPress's plugin ecosystem to do it. It is a much harder trade to justify for a small business site that exists to bring in calls and quote requests, not to run a blog.
// KEEP IT MAINTAINED
Get your WordPress site maintained
We'll take the whole list off your hands from $170 a month: updates, security patching, tested backups and monitoring, on your site whether we built it or not. Send us the site and we'll scope it and confirm the number, or read how we run it on website maintenance in Darwin.
The three jobs inside the plan have their own guides: WordPress security on what actually gets sites hacked and what to harden first, WordPress backups on the restore half everyone skips, and WordPress malware removal if the site is already compromised.
If you would rather not pay for patching indefinitely, we also build sites that have nothing to patch.
// WHERE WE DO THIS
Where this work gets delivered
We are based in Darwin and work across Darwin, Palmerston and Katherine, with the rest of Australia handled online. The local page covers travel, timing and what changes when the job is in the Territory.
// QUESTIONS
Straight answers before you ask
Still working out whether to keep paying for WordPress maintenance or move off it? Ask us directly and we'll give you a straight answer, no jargon, no pressure.
Get in touchWhat does WordPress website maintenance actually include?
Core, theme and plugin updates, security hardening (firewall rules, login protection, file permission checks), backups that are actually tested, uptime and performance monitoring, and malware cleanup if the site gets compromised. Miss any of these for long enough and the others usually catch up with you.
How much does WordPress maintenance cost per month?
A basic plan covering updates and backups typically runs $50 to $150 a month. A fuller plan with security monitoring and malware protection is usually $150 to $400 a month. Ours starts at $170 a month, in that fuller band, scoped to the site before we quote. Skip maintenance entirely and a malware cleanup after a hack commonly costs $150 to $600 or more, plus the time the site is down or flagged by Google.
What happens if a WordPress site is not maintained?
Out-of-date plugins and themes are one of the most common ways small business sites get hacked. Left unmaintained, a WordPress site typically accumulates unpatched vulnerabilities, slows down as plugins pile up, and eventually breaks or gets compromised, usually at the worst possible time.
Can I do WordPress maintenance myself instead of paying for a plan?
You can, and plenty of small business owners do. Budget 2 to 5 hours a month for updates, backup checks and the occasional plugin conflict, and be honest with yourself about whether that is actually going to happen every single month for years.
Does Web Blend offer WordPress maintenance plans?
Yes, from $170 a month. We maintain WordPress sites on a monthly plan, including sites we didn't build: core, theme and plugin updates, security patching, tested backups, uptime monitoring, and malware cleanup if it comes to that. We scope the site first and confirm the number before anything starts, because a five-plugin brochure site and a WooCommerce store are not the same job. We also build hand-coded sites that don't run WordPress at all, so if you'd rather leave the patch cycle than keep paying for it, we'll tell you when that maths works out better.
Do Web Blend's websites need any maintenance at all?
Some, just not the patch-and-pray kind. There is no WordPress core or plugin stack, so there is nothing to patch on that front. We still handle hosting, domain and DNS, and any platform-level updates on our side. Content changes and new pages are scoped work when you need them, not a monthly line item defending against vulnerabilities that do not exist on this stack to begin with.
// READY WHEN YOU ARE
Tell us what your WordPress site needs
Plans start at $170 a month. Send us the site, we'll scope it and confirm the number before anything starts. You get a straight recommendation, including when the cheaper option is the right one. No pressure, no jargon.
Get your site scoped