Website maintenance options compared
There are three honest options for keeping a website healthy: a monthly plan, ad-hoc call-outs, or nothing. All three have a price — the third one just invoices you later, at the worst time. Here is the fair comparison.
Updated July 2026
Side by side
| Criterion | Maintenance plan | Ad-hoc support |
|---|---|---|
| Monthly cost | Predictable: indicative R850–R8,000 by plan tier in SA | R0 until something breaks; then hourly at R650–R950+ |
| Response when things break | Priority targets; provider already knows the build | Queue position and re-learning time billed to you |
| Silent failures (forms, SSL, backups) | Monitored — caught before customers notice | Discovered by a customer, eventually |
| Software updates | Tested and applied routinely | Deferred until forced — the riskiest pattern |
| Small improvements | Monthly change time keeps the site current | Minimum-charge friction means they never happen |
| Search performance | Reviewed on business-tier plans; decay gets seen | Unwatched |
When maintenance plan is the right choice
- The website produces enquiries or sales you would miss within days
- Ecommerce or applications where downtime is direct revenue loss
- You want one accountable party and no surprise invoices
When ad-hoc support is the right choice
- A genuinely static site whose failure costs little and shows fast
- You have technical capacity in-house for monitoring and updates
- The site is scheduled for replacement within months
Our verdict
Match the plan to what failure costs: if a dead form for a week costs one client, essential care already pays for itself; if the site is a seldom-visited brochure, ad-hoc is defensible and we will say so. The only indefensible option is “nothing” on a site that earns money. Our plan tiers and indicative pricing are published openly — compare them against what one silent failure would cost you.
Relevant service: Website maintenance and support
Apply this to your situation
Tell us what you need and get a straight answer — clear scope, indicative pricing and a fixed quote after one scoping conversation.