Website carewithout theplugin roulette.
Ongoing care for business websites in Stourbridge and the West Midlands: hosting, monitoring, updates and the small changes that otherwise sit on a list for a year. Monthly, cancellable, and honestly not compulsory.
A hand-built website needs far less maintenance than a WordPress one, because there is no server to patch and no plugin stack to break. Our care plans run from £150 to £400 a month and cover hosting, monitoring, updates, backups and a set number of change hours, with the higher tiers adding performance monitoring and content work. They are monthly with no minimum term, and if your site does not need one we will tell you.
What upkeep actually
means now.
Website maintenance as an industry was shaped by WordPress, where it genuinely is a monthly job. A typical install carries a theme, a page builder and fifteen to thirty plugins, each written by someone different, each updating on its own schedule, any of which can break the others or open a security hole. That is a real recurring risk and a real recurring cost, and the plans sold to cover it are usually justified.
A hand-built site is a different proposition. It is pre-rendered and served from a CDN, so there is no server for anyone to attack and nothing to patch at three in the morning. Dependencies still need updating, backups still need keeping, and things still break, but the surface area is a fraction of the size. That changes what you should be paying for: less insurance against breakage, more actual work on the site.
- 01 /
Hosting and uptime
Global CDN, automatic HTTPS, security headers. Monitored, with an alert that reaches a person rather than a dashboard.
- 02 /
Dependency updates
Framework and library updates applied and tested, not left for two years until an upgrade becomes a rebuild.
- 03 /
Backups and recovery
Code in version control with full history, content backed up, and a restore that has actually been tested.
- 04 /
The small changes
New prices, a staff photo, opening hours, a service you no longer offer. The jobs that otherwise sit undone for a year.
- 05 /
Performance watch
Core Web Vitals checked over time, because sites get slower gradually as content is added, and nobody notices until rankings move.
- 06 /
Search Console watch
Crawl errors, indexing problems and manual actions spotted when they appear rather than six months later.
The plans,
and the prices.
Three tiers, monthly, no minimum term, cancel whenever. The difference between them is mostly how much actual work on the site is included, because the monitoring and updates cost us roughly the same on any of them.
| Plan | Monthly | What it covers |
|---|---|---|
| Essential | £150 | Hosting, uptime and security monitoring, dependency updates, backups, and up to one hour of content or design changes a month. |
| Standard | £250 | Everything in Essential, plus Core Web Vitals monitoring, quarterly technical review, Search Console watch, and up to three hours of changes a month. |
| Complete | £400 | Everything in Standard, plus a new or rewritten page each month, Business Profile upkeep, and up to six hours of changes. Unused hours roll over one month. |
When you should
not buy one.
We would rather have this argument here than take money for something you do not need. A care plan is worth having when the site is genuinely part of how the business gets work, and when changes need to happen without you chasing anybody. It is not worth having in several common cases.
If your site is small, static and rarely changes, buy hosting and call us when you need something. If you have someone in-house who can edit content, take a lower tier and use it for the technical side only. If your site is on WordPress and struggling, a care plan is maintenance on a problem rather than a fix, and rebuilding once is usually cheaper across two years than paying monthly to keep it upright.
- 01 /
A brochure site that never changes
Hosting a hand-built site costs very little. Pay for the hosting and buy work by the hour when you need it.
- 02 /
You have someone in-house
Take Essential for the technical upkeep and let your own person handle content. Do not pay twice.
- 03 /
A WordPress site that is failing
Monthly maintenance on a site that is fundamentally slow is a subscription to a problem. We will price the rebuild honestly and let you compare.
- 04 /
You are between decisions
If a redesign is coming within six months, wait. There is no sense in paying to maintain something you are about to replace.
What happens
if you leave.
You take everything. The domain is registered to you, the code is in a repository in your name with its full history, the hosting account is yours and the Google accounts are yours with us added as a user. We remove ourselves and hand over anything we hold. There is no exit fee and nothing is held hostage.
That is worth checking with any provider before you sign, not because most are dishonest but because the arrangement is often sloppy rather than deliberate: a domain registered on the agency's account years ago by someone who has since left. Ask the question now while everyone is friendly.
Local
questions.
Do I actually need a maintenance plan?
If your site is hand-built, small and rarely changes, probably not. Buy hosting and pay for work when you need it. If the site brings in enquiries, changes regularly, or you would rather not think about it, a plan earns its money mostly in the change hours rather than the monitoring.
How much does website maintenance cost in Stourbridge?
Our plans are £150, £250 and £400 a month. Across the market you will see £30 to £100 a month for WordPress plugin-and-security cover, which is a different and narrower product, and considerably more than £400 from agencies bundling in marketing. What matters is how many hours of actual work are included.
Can you maintain a website you did not build?
Usually. We will look at it first and be straight with you: if it is a WordPress install with thirty plugins and a page builder, we can keep it running but we cannot make it good, and we will say which of those you are buying.
What counts as a change?
Text, images, prices, opening hours, adding or removing a page, swapping a photograph, updating a team member. New features, new templates or new integrations are quoted separately, because they are projects rather than upkeep.
Is there a contract?
A written scope, yes. A minimum term, no. It is monthly and you can stop at the end of any month. We would rather you stayed because it is worth it.
Do unused hours roll over?
On the Complete plan, one month. On the others they do not, because holding an open balance of hours turns a care plan into a bank and makes it impossible to schedule properly. If you have a bigger piece of work coming, tell us and we will plan for it instead.
Launched, then
left to rot?
Or just email
hello@stourbridgewebstudio.co.uk