Launching a website is not the end of the project: it is the start of its life in production. Updates, backups, monitoring, small improvements: website maintenance covers a set of tasks that determine its availability and security over time. This article details what the term means in practice and what a maintenance contract should specify.
Why a live website needs looking after
A website rests on several technical layers that evolve independently of you: the language and libraries used, browsers, security certificates, connected third-party services (payment, maps, email sending). Each of these layers regularly publishes fixes. A website left unattended keeps working for a while, then accumulates incompatibilities and known vulnerabilities.
Add to that the ordinary events of running a business: a form that stops sending its messages, a domain name that comes up for renewal, a regulation that changes. Looking after the website means detecting these situations early, before they have an effect on visitors.
The four strands of maintenance
The term brings together services of different kinds. Telling them apart helps you understand what a provider is actually offering.
- Corrective maintenance: repairing what no longer works, whether a bug, a broken display after a browser update or a third-party integration that has changed its format.
- Preventive maintenance: applying security updates, renewing certificates and the domain name, checking that backups are usable, monitoring availability and response times.
- Evolutionary maintenance: adding a page, changing a journey, integrating a new tool. This strand is closer to development than to upkeep, and it is usually billed separately or from a bank of hours.
- Content maintenance: updating text, images, prices or opening hours. Depending on the website, this task is carried out by you through an administration interface or entrusted to the provider.
What varies with the website's technology
The maintenance workload depends heavily on how the website was built. A static website in HTML and CSS, with no database or administration area, exposes little attack surface and mainly requires keeping an eye on the domain, the certificate and the hosting. A website built on a content management system with many extensions needs frequent updates, each of which can cause regressions that have to be checked. A custom web application in React sits between the two: dependencies must be kept up to date, but the scope is known and under the control of the team that developed it.
The maintenance cost of a website is largely decided at the design stage: the fewer third-party components there are, the fewer things there are to watch.
What a maintenance contract should specify
Offers on the market range from simple hosting with backups to full support including development hours. To compare them, it is worth checking that the following points are set out in black and white.
| Point to clarify | Question to ask |
|---|---|
| Scope | Which strands are included: corrective, preventive, evolutionary, content? |
| Response times | How quickly is a blocking outage dealt with? And a non-urgent request? |
| Backups | How often, kept for how long, and tested on what occasion? |
| Monitoring | Is the website checked automatically, and who is alerted if it goes down? |
| Included hours | How many hours of development per month or per year, and what happens to unused hours? |
| Reversibility | If the contract ends, do you get the code, the content and the access credentials back? |
Access and ownership
An often-overlooked point concerns who holds the access credentials. The domain name, the hosting, the third-party service accounts and the source code repository should be opened in your organisation's name, with the provider as a delegated user. This arrangement avoids depending on a single person and makes it easier to change provider if necessary. The contract should also specify who owns the code and the content produced.
Order of magnitude of the costs
Rates vary according to scope and type of website. To give a sense of scale, preventive upkeep for a simple brochure website generally comes to a few tens of euros per month, while a contract covering a business application with committed response times and development hours runs to hundreds of euros a month. An annual package representing between 10 and 20% of the initial development cost is a frequently quoted benchmark, though not a rule.
The choice between a monthly package and on-demand intervention depends on how critical the website is: a website that appointments or orders depend on justifies regular upkeep, while a rarely changed presentation page can make do with a periodic check.
What you can keep track of yourself
Even with a provider, a few checks remain within your reach and deserve to be scheduled.
- Note the expiry dates of the domain name and subscriptions, and make sure renewal emails arrive at an address that is actually read.
- Test the contact form once a month by sending a real message.
- Browse the website on a phone after every significant change.
- Keep an up-to-date list of connected services and of the people who have access to them.
Planning for maintenance from the design stage of a website avoids most of the unpleasant surprises after launch. If you would like to take stock of how your current website is looked after, or build this question into an upcoming project, you can get in touch or take a look at our services.