A small business website costs about €5–€60 a month to keep online. That covers domain, hosting or a builder plan, and email.
Website maintenance cost per month only climbs past that if you pay someone to look after it. A care plan with a real person costs about €45–€65 a month in the Dutch market, and more from agencies.
Most of the rest is optional. Below is every line item in euros, what you actually need, and what you can skip.
Website maintenance cost per month, itemised
Here's what a typical small business site pays for, per year.
| Item | Per year | Per month | Need it? |
|---|---|---|---|
| Domain name (.eu) | €5–€12 | under €1 | Yes |
| Shared or WordPress hosting | €36–€264 | €3–€22 | Yes, unless on a builder |
| Builder plan (Wix, Squarespace) | €144–€600 | €12–€50 | Instead of hosting |
| SSL certificate | €0 | €0 | Yes, but free |
| Business email, 1 user | about €75–€150 | about €6–€13 | Usually |
| Premium plugins | about €40–€110 each | €3–€9 | Sometimes |
| Care plan (updates, backups) | €150–€1,070+ | €12.50–€89+ | Depends |
| Ad hoc fixes | €55–€105 an hour | — | When things break |
Sources for each line follow below. Dollar prices are converted at about $1 = €0.89 (the rate on 23 October 2026) and are approximate.
Domain: €5–€12 a year
Your domain is the one thing you must keep paying for. Let it lapse and someone else can register it.
Across 100-plus registrars tracked by DomainOffer, .eu renewals start around $5–$6 a year. The market average is about $13. That's roughly €5–€12.
Two things to check:
- Renewal price, not first-year price. The first year is often a promo.
- Whose name it's in. It should be your business, not your designer's. More on that in Who owns my website?
Builder plans include a free domain for year one only. After that, Wix and Squarespace bill it at their standard rate.
Hosting or a builder plan: €36–€600 a year
You pay for one or the other, not both.
Regular hosting
For a site built on WordPress or plain code, you rent space from a host.
Dutch hosts list basic plans from €2.99 to €22 a month after the intro period. That's €36–€264 a year.
The trap is renewal. Hostinger's Premium plan, for example, is advertised at about $2.49 a month on a 48-month deal. It renews at $10.99 a month, roughly €9.80. Plans also auto-renew for the same term unless you switch it off.
Budget for the renewal price from day one.
Builder plans
A builder like Wix or Squarespace bundles hosting, security and the editor.
In euros, Wix runs about €12–€18 a month for Light, €24–€32 for Core and €35–€50 for Business. Longer commitments are cheaper. Squarespace starts at $19 a month on annual billing, about €17.
That's €144–€600 a year. More than basic hosting, but you're also paying for the editor.
SSL: free
SSL is what makes the padlock appear and the address start with https.
You should not pay for it. Let's Encrypt, a non-profit, issues trusted certificates at no cost and renews them automatically. Most hosts and all major builders include one.
If a provider charges €50 a year for "SSL", ask why. Paid certificates exist, but a small business site doesn't need one.
Email: about €75–€150 a year per person
A website doesn't need email, but your business probably wants name@yourbusiness.com.
Google Workspace costs $7 per user per month for Starter and $14 for Standard. That's about €75 and €150 a year per person. Prices exclude tax.
Google is running a 50% intro offer for new customers from 8 November 2026 to 8 February 2027, for the first year.
Cheaper options exist:
- Many hosts bundle a few mailboxes. Hostinger includes two free for the first year.
- Squarespace's Core plan and above include a free first year of Google Workspace.
Two people on Workspace Standard is about €300 a year. For many small businesses that's the biggest line on the bill.
Plugins and add-ons: often skippable
On WordPress, premium plugins add up quietly. Two common examples:
- WP Rocket (speed): from $3.49 a month billed yearly, about €37 a year
- Yoast SEO Premium: $118.80 a year excl. VAT, about €106
The free versions of many plugins are enough for a small site. A well-built site shouldn't need a paid plugin just to load fast.
On builders, watch for paid apps: booking widgets, pop-ups, review feeds. Each one is a few euros a month, forever.
Before you pay for any add-on, ask what breaks without it. If nothing does, skip it.
Care plans and hourly rates: website maintenance cost per year
A care plan pays someone to update software, keep backups and fix problems. Whether you need one depends on how the site is built.
A Dutch comparison checked prices in October 2026 and found three bands, all excl. VAT:
| Band | Per month | Per year | Typically includes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Budget, mostly automated | €12.50–€30 | about €150–€360 | Automatic updates, backups, no hosting |
| Maintenance by a person | €44–€65 | about €528–€780 | Weekly updates, daily backups, sometimes small edits |
| Premium or agency | €96–€399 | about €1,150–€4,800 | More checks, more hours, a named contact |
Some include hosting. Many don't, so compare like with like.
Website maintenance cost per hour
Work outside a plan is billed by the hour. The same comparison found €55–€105 an hour excl. VAT, often billed per quarter hour.
Hack recovery is the expensive case. That's when a care plan pays for itself.
Do you need one?
- Builder site (Wix, Squarespace): No. The platform handles updates and security. You just edit content.
- WordPress site: Usually yes, or do the updates yourself monthly. Software left unpatched is a security risk, and WordPress sites run a lot of it.
- Static or hand-coded site: Rarely. Little to update, little to break.
What you can skip
Most small sites overpay for at least one of these.
- Paid SSL. Free certificates are just as trusted.
- Premium plugins you don't use. Audit them once a year.
- "SEO maintenance" with no report. If nobody can tell you what was done, don't pay for it.
- A care plan on a builder site. The builder already does the technical part.
- Intro hosting prices. Compare the renewal price instead.
- Extra email seats. Shared inboxes or aliases often do the same job for free.
What you shouldn't skip: domain renewal, backups, and someone, even you, checking the site monthly on a phone.
Three realistic monthly budgets
Here's what a small site really costs, per month, excl. VAT.
- Lean (static or WordPress, self-managed): hosting €5, domain under €1, one email account €6. About €12 a month.
- Builder: Wix Core about €25, domain under €1, one email account €6. About €32 a month.
- Looked after: hosting €5, domain under €1, two email accounts €12, care plan €59. About €77 a month.
These are our worked examples from the prices above, not survey averages.
If you're still choosing how to build, running costs are part of the decision. Ask for them with any website quote, ours included. See How much does a small business website cost in Europe? and Is it worth paying someone to build a website?
