Website maintenance covers the tasks that keep it online, secure, and up to date. This includes backups, patches, monitoring, and minor updates. Based on the plans we see circulating in Quebec, a basic plan goes $300 CAD to $1,200 CAD per year.
Two questions hide behind this word. What does the package you're being charged for cover, and when does it become essential? Answers item by item.
| Maintenance in four key points |
|---|
| A site without maintenance degrades: unpatched flaws, missing backups, outdated content. A basic package costs $300 CAD to $1,200 CAD per year; full coverage can approach $4,800 CAD. The need varies by platform: a WordPress site requires more oversight than a Webflow site. AI-assisted maintenance lowers the cost of repetitive checks. |
What exactly is website maintenance?
It's the ongoing upkeep of your site, like that of a vehicle. Regular check-ups, parts to replace, adjustments so everything runs smoothly.
Concretely, someone monitors that the site responds, applies patches and backs up data. Bugs are fixed before a customer notices them.
| Maintenance, redesign, updates: who does what |
|---|
| Maintenance maintains the existing site without changing its form. Content updates change text, photos or prices. A redesign rebuilds the site. It's a full project on its own, not maintenance. |
What a maintenance package really covers
A serious package spells out its items in black and white. Here's the foundation—what you should find everywhere.
- Security: patches applied upon release, barriers against intrusions.
- Backups: regular copies of the site and data, tested, restorable.
- Monitoring: alert if the site goes down, rather than a client telling you.
- Technical updates: the software that runs the site, and any modules added to it, stay current.
- Small interventions: text to change, a photo to replace, a bug to fix.
The needdepends heavily on the platform. A WordPress site lives on extensions that need updating. A Webflow site delegates infrastructure to the platform ; for a custom site, it all depends on what your contract specifies.
| Testing backups |
|---|
| A backup never tested is just hope. Ask for the date of the last restore test. Also verify where it's stored: a copy kept on the same server disappears with it. A serious provider answers both questions without getting touchy. |
How much does website maintenance cost in Quebec
A basic plan sitsbetween $25 CAD and $100 CAD per month, $300 CAD to $1,200 CAD per year. It covers security, backups and monitoring.
Complete coverage, with content interventions and monthly reports, runsfrom $150 CAD to $400 CAD per month. Online stores are at the top of the range.
| Maintenance Level | Per Month | What's Included |
|---|---|---|
| Basic | $25 to $100 CAD | Security, backups, monitoring |
| Standard | $100 to $150 CAD | Basic + updates and minor adjustments |
| Complete | $150 to $400 CAD | Standard + content, reports, priority support |
Hourly, use your provider's current rate, which is often more expensive overall. Emergency interventions are charged at premium rates.
AI is changing maintenance costs
Maintenance is a checklist that nobody enjoys doing. Checking every page, every link, every tag, month after month. It's exactly where artificial intelligence excels.
On a site accessible by files, a tool like Claude Code reviews the entire site. Broken links, missing description text for Google, oversized images, old addresses to redirect. Relentlessly, at every pass.
Result: the hours billed for these checks are reduced, and the package covers more for the same price. Repetitive tasks move to the machine, judgment stays human.
| Before, after |
|---|
| Before: reviewing the entire site for Google took half a day to bill, twice a year. Now: it runs with every site change, and the report flags only what's broken. The provider spends the hours saved on improvements, not checks. |
Neglecting maintenance: the hidden bill
A site left to itself doesn't stay the same: it declines. Three drifts settle in quietly.
- Security: an unpatched vulnerability eventually gets exploited. A hacked site costs far more than an annual package.
- SEO: broken links, slow pages, rankings slip toward competitors.
- Trust: outdated hours and a broken form suggest a company that's been abandoned.
The worst scenario remains outright loss: a server that crashes without a recent backup wipes out years of content. That risk is covered for just a few dozen dollars a month.
| ⚠️ The false economy calculation |
|---|
| Canceling maintenance saves a few hundred dollars. A single emergency—hack, outage, or recovery—often costs more than that in one go. Maintenance isn't a comfort expense: it's site insurance. |
Read a maintenance contract before signing
Packages look similar from afar; contracts, though, differ on five clauses. Review them carefully, well before signing.
- The guaranteed response time in case of a breakdown, in hours and in writing.
- What « minor updates » cover, and how many per month.
- The actual frequency of backups, and where they're stored.
- What happens at the end of the contract: access, backups and documentation handed over.
- The exclusions: redesigns, new features and after-hours emergencies are billed separately.
A good contract reads in ten minutes and is understood without a lawyer. Unnecessary complexity is already a red flag.
| Maintenance, in a nutshell |
|---|
| Maintenance keeps your site secure, backed up and up to date; a redesign is a separate project. Basic: $25 to $100 CAD per month. Complete: up to $400 CAD. Online stores cost more. AI-assisted maintenance reduces the cost of repetitive checks. Demand guaranteed response times, tested backups and clear exit clauses. |
Have your site's maintenance needs evaluated →
Website maintenance: we break it all down
How often should a website be maintained?
Monitoring runs continuously, fixes are applied as soon as they're released, backups are at least weekly. A full review each month completes the picture.
What does a site « under maintenance » mean?
It's a temporary message displayed during technical work. A few minutes to a few hours: beyond a day, something's going wrong behind the scenes.
What monthly budget should I plan for?
From $25 CAD to $100 CAD per month for the essentials, more if you also delegate content. For an online store, expect almost always more than $150 CAD.
Can we skip it on a brochure website?
On a platform that handles the technical side itself, like Webflow, the bare minimum is covered. What remains are content backups, information updates, and monitoring: someone has to handle them.
Can AI maintain a website on its own?
It runs checks and prepares fixes faster than a human. Decision and deployment remain supervised : we validate, like with any collaborator.
Who should handle maintenance: me or a provider?
Content tasks can stay in-house. The technical side — security, backups, patches — is better handled by a well-equipped provider : mistakes are costly there.
