What is a typical WordPress maintenance cost per year?

It varies based on your site's complexity, but most organizations spend between $2,000 and $15,000 per year on total WordPress management when you factor in hosting, plugins, security, labor, and risk exposure. This calculator helps you find your specific number.

How much does WordPress hosting cost for a small organization?

Basic shared hosting can run $10 to $30 per month, but managed WordPress hosting with proper security and support typically costs $50 to $200 per month. The hosting fee is just one piece of the total cost of running a WordPress site, which is why we built this calculator.

What website management costs do most people forget about?

The biggest overlooked costs are internal labor (staff time spent on updates, troubleshooting, and coordination), premium plugin renewals, and risk exposure from things like hacks, downtime, or data loss. Most organizations undercount these by 30% to 50%.

Do I need to know my exact costs?

Estimates are fine, and "I don't know" is a valid answer. In fact, not knowing what you're paying is itself a finding. We'll work with whatever information you have.

Where do the cost and risk numbers come from?

All risk calculations are based on published research from Sucuri, Patchstack, Wordfence, and other WordPress security researchers. Every number includes a citation. Think of it like actuarial data: probabilities, not guarantees.

What happens with my information?

We'll send your cost report and one personalized follow-up. That's it. No automated drip campaigns, no spam.

WordPress Maintenance Cost Calculator

What Should WordPress Management Actually Cost?

Most organizations are either overpaying for fragmented services or underpaying and exposed to real risk. Answer a few questions about your current setup, and we'll show you the complete picture — no sales pitch required.

Between hosting, plugins, security, maintenance labor, and the cost of things going wrong, the true cost of running a WordPress site is almost always different from what's on the invoice. This tool gives you an honest, data-backed analysis you can use to evaluate any provider — including your current one.

Takes about 4 minutes No technical knowledge required. No credentials needed.

What You'll Get

Hosting Costs See what you're actually spending on hosting and services

Hidden Labor The dollar value of time your team spends on WordPress

Risk Exposure The expected cost of incidents based on industry data

Gap Analysis What your current setup is missing and what it would cost to fix

Built by a team that manages WordPress hosting and support for 200+ nonprofits and mission-driven organizations

About Your Site

What type of website do you have?

Business or corporate website

Nonprofit or advocacy organization

Lead generation / marketing site

Membership site with login access

eCommerce / online store

Blog or content site

Other

Roughly how much traffic does your site get per month?

Under 5,000 visitors

5,000 – 25,000 visitors

25,000 – 100,000 visitors

Over 100,000 visitors

I don't know

How many WordPress plugins are active on your site?

Fewer than 10

10 – 25

25 – 50

More than 50

I don't know

How critical is your website to your organization's operations?

Mission-critical — we rely on it for donations, registrations, leads, or member access

Very important — it's a major part of our public presence and communications

Moderately important — it's useful but not central to operations

Not very — it's mostly informational

What You're Currently Paying

Let's add up what you're currently spending on your WordPress site. Include everything you can — we'll help identify what might be missing in the next step.

How much do you pay for web hosting?

$

I don't know Someone else pays for it

Do you pay for any of the following services separately?

Security plugin or service Wordfence, Sucuri, iThemes, etc.

Backup service UpdraftPlus, BlogVault, VaultPress, etc.

CDN Cloudflare paid plan, StackPath, KeyCDN, etc.

SSL certificate If not included with hosting

Uptime monitoring service Pingdom, UptimeRobot Pro, etc.

Premium theme license Annual renewal

Premium plugin licenses Annual renewals — total

Do you pay a developer or agency for ongoing WordPress support?

Yes, a retainer or monthly support plan

Yes, but I pay per-project or per-hour as needed

No — I handle it myself or a staff member does

No — nobody is actively maintaining the site

Maintenance & Labor

Even if you're not writing a check for maintenance, someone is spending time on it — or nobody is, and that has its own cost. Let's figure out the real picture.

How much time do you or your team spend on WordPress maintenance per month?

This includes: running updates, troubleshooting issues, making content changes, monitoring for problems, coordinating with developers, etc.

Less than 1 hour

1 – 3 hours

3 – 8 hours

More than 8 hours

None — nobody is doing maintenance

When something breaks or needs urgent attention, how do you handle it?

We have a support team or provider with guaranteed response times

We call our developer/freelancer and hope they're available

A staff member figures it out (or tries to)

We post in forums or Google the problem

It stays broken until someone gets around to it

What's a reasonable hourly value for the time you or your team spend on website issues?

This isn't just developer rates — it's the value of a staff member's time spent troubleshooting WordPress instead of doing their actual job.

Under $25/hour

$25 – $50/hour

$50 – $100/hour

$100 – $150/hour

Over $150/hour

I haven't thought about it

Incidents & Risk

WordPress sites face real risks — hacking, downtime, data loss, plugin conflicts. Whether you've experienced these or not, understanding the risk helps us calculate the true cost of your current setup.

In the past 12 months, has your site experienced any of the following?

Site was hacked or infected with malware

Significant downtime (more than a few hours)

A plugin or theme update broke something

Data loss or inability to restore from backup

Security scare (suspicious activity, vulnerability notice)

Slow performance that affected user experience

None of the above

I'm not sure — I wouldn't necessarily know

If your site went down for 24 hours during your busiest period, what would the impact be?

Severe — we'd lose donations, registrations, sales, or member access

Significant — it would damage our credibility and frustrate users

Moderate — it would be inconvenient but not catastrophic

Minimal — most of our work doesn't depend on the website

Your Complete Cost-of-Ownership Report

Get your full line-item breakdown, cited risk analysis for each gap, and a board-ready budget summary you can share with your team.

A real person on our team will review your results and share specific cost-saving observations. No automated drip campaigns.

First Name

Email Address

Organization Name (optional)

Organization Type (optional)

We'll send your detailed cost report and one personalized follow-up. No spam, no drip campaigns.

True Cost Calculator