Website maintenance services keep a live site fast, secure and up to date: software and plugin updates, backups, security and uptime monitoring, small content and design tweaks, and plain-English monthly reporting. For a small business, this ongoing care typically costs $50–$300 per month. Studio Smirk keeps you in full ownership, with no lock-in.
No obligation, no sales pitch. We'll tell you if you don't need a plan.
Not sure you need a plan? Read this first →No lock-in · Cancel anytime · You own your site, domain and every account · Nothing outsourced
If your site has gotten slow, thrown up a "not secure" warning, or broken a form after an update, it isn't cursed. It's just overdue for care. A live website needs regular upkeep, or it degrades and starts costing you enquiries.
You know the feeling. The site loads a little slower every month. A grey "not secure" warning appeared in the browser bar; that's Google's flag that the site is missing the basic security certificate customers now expect. A plugin update quietly broke the contact form, and you only found out when someone rang to say they couldn't reach you. And you daren't touch your own opening hours in case the whole thing falls over.
Here's the thing nobody tells you: a website isn't "finished" the day it launches. Like a car, it needs servicing. Skip the servicing and it doesn't stop all at once. It just gets slower, less safe, and quietly worse at bringing you work.
Website maintenance services fix that. In plain terms, maintenance is keeping a live site updated, backed up, secure and working, so it keeps doing its job while you do yours. (Wondering whether you even need a plan? We answer that honestly further down, and in more depth in do you actually need a maintenance plan?)
No obligation, no sales pitch. We'll tell you if you don't need a plan.
A website care plan, sometimes called website support, is a monthly service that handles the technical upkeep of your live site. In practice that's six things: keeping software up to date, taking backups, watching for security and downtime problems, keeping the site fast, making your small changes for you, and reporting back in plain English.
Here's what each one means, and why it matters to your bottom line, not just your peace of mind.
Keeping the site's software, plugins and themes current. A plugin is a small add-on that gives your site a feature (a booking form, a photo gallery, a payment button). Out-of-date plugins are the number-one way sites break and the number-one way hackers walk in. We keep them current so nothing snaps and nobody gets in.
A recent copy of your whole site, always ready to restore. A backup is exactly that: a saved copy. With one in place, a bad update or a hack is an inconvenience we roll back in minutes, not a catastrophe that wipes months of work.
Watching for malware (malicious code that infects a site) and for downtime, the times your site is offline. Uptime is the share of time your site is actually up and reachable. We monitor both and clear the "not secure" warning, so the site is live and trustworthy exactly when customers are looking.
Keeping load times fast as the site grows. A slow site quietly loses enquiries (people leave before it loads), and Google ranks slow sites lower. We keep the site quick so you don't pay for that in lost work.
The changes you don't want to risk doing yourself: opening hours, a new photo, a price, a staff update. You email us; it's done. No logging in, no fear of breaking something, no waiting weeks.
A short, readable summary of what we did, what changed, and whether the site is healthier this month than last. What we did, in words you can actually read, not a 40-page PDF nobody opens.
One more piece: hosting (the service that keeps your site online; think of it as the rent for your site's space on the internet). Hosting can sit inside your care plan or stay separate on your own account. Either way, we don't mark it up.
A care plan should be us doing work on your website, never us holding your website. With Studio Smirk you own the site, the domain, the hosting and every account, all in your name, and you can cancel anytime. Leaving never means losing your site.
Let's name the fear plainly, because almost every owner we meet has lived it: the last "maintenance plan" turned out to be a subscription you couldn't cancel and couldn't see inside. You paid every month, never quite knew what for, and were scared to stop in case they switched your website off. That's not a care plan. That's a hostage situation with an invoice.
You own everything, permanently. The website, the domain, the hosting login, every account, all in your name from day one. A plan is us doing work on your asset. It is never us keeping your asset.
No lock-in. Cancel anytime. If you ever leave, the site stays yours and stays online. We hand over any logins you don't already hold, cleanly, and nothing gets switched off. No ransom, no dark screen, no "log a ticket to get your own website back."
You deal with the person doing the work. We're a small studio and take a few clients at a time, so there's no account manager relaying messages and nothing outsourced to a team you'll never meet. When you email about your site, the person who reads it is the person who fixes it.
No lock-in. You own your site, domain and every account, permanently. Cancel whenever you like; nothing gets switched off.
Not everyone does, and we'll tell you if you don't. If your site is small, static and you're comfortable making the odd change yourself, occasional check-ins may be all it needs. A plan earns its place when a site is the kind that breaks, gets targeted, or takes bookings.
You probably do want a plan if: your site runs on WordPress or uses plugins, it takes bookings, payments or enquiries, you've been through a break or a hack before, or "I'll just log in and update it myself" is honestly never going to happen. (WordPress is the software a huge share of small-business sites are built on: flexible, but it needs regular updates to stay safe.)
You might not need one yet if: your site is tiny, static, rarely changes, and you're happy handling the occasional edit. If that's you, we'd rather say so than sell you a plan you don't need.
For the deeper "how do I know?" walkthrough, and keeping your small-business site secure, start with our guides.
Maintenance keeps a working site working; it isn't a rebuild. If you've just launched a new site, a care plan keeps it running well from day one. If your site is genuinely past saving, you may need a rebuild first, and that's a different service.
Just launched, or just built or rebuilding your site? A care plan is how you keep it fast, secure and current from the start, instead of letting a brand-new site slowly degrade.
If your site is genuinely past saving (dated, broken, or built on something we can't safely maintain), maintenance won't fix that; you'd need the build itself first. Site beyond repair? See website design.
What needs upkeep depends on your trade. A dentist's booking site carries different risks than a plumber's lead form or a restaurant's menu: different plugins, different busy hours, different things that must never go down.
We keep the plan shaped to what your business actually relies on. To see how that looks for your line of work:
Most small-business website maintenance costs around $50–$300 per month. Where you land depends on your platform, how often you need changes, and whether hosting and security monitoring sit inside the plan. We price each plan to the actual site, so you pay for the work, not agency overhead.
A few things move the monthly number up or down:
Your platform. A simple static site needs less looking after than a plugin-heavy WordPress site with bookings and payments.
How often you need changes. A site you tweak weekly costs more to manage than one that barely moves.
What's inside the plan. Whether hosting and security monitoring sit in the plan, or stay on your own separate accounts.
Traffic and complexity. More visitors and more moving parts mean more to keep fast and safe.
What you'll never get is a surprise invoice. Monthly website maintenance with us is a predictable number you agree up front: website management without the mystery. You pay for the work done on your site, not for account managers and middlemen you'll never speak to.
The quickest way to a real figure is a free website health check. We look at your actual site, tell you what it genuinely needs, and turn that into a no-obligation scope and quote, with no pressure, and no plan if you don't need one.
No lock-in. You own your site, domain and every account, permanently. Cancel whenever you like; nothing gets switched off.
No obligation, no sales pitch. We'll tell you if you don't need a plan.
Every month you get a plain-English report showing exactly what we handled: no jargon, no filler. Below is a sample so you can see the format before you ever sign up.
Updates applied, backups taken, uptime %, speed before/after, and the small tweaks made this month.
This is what "we handled it" looks like on paper, and the site it's about is entirely yours.
See more of our work →Most small-business website maintenance costs between $50 and $300 per month, depending on your platform, how often you need changes, and whether hosting and security monitoring are included. We price each plan to the actual site, so you pay for the work, not agency overhead, and there’s no lock-in, so you can cancel anytime.
Software and plugin updates, regular backups, security and uptime monitoring, speed checks, small content and design tweaks (like changing your opening hours or swapping a photo), and a plain-English monthly report of what we did. We explain each part as we go, so you always know what you’re paying for.
No. A care plan is us doing work on your website, never us holding it hostage. You own the site, the domain, the hosting and every account, all in your name, and you can cancel anytime. If you leave, the site stays yours and stays online; we hand everything over cleanly.
Not everyone does. If your site is small, static and you’re happy making the odd change yourself, you may not need a plan yet, and we’ll tell you that. But if it runs on WordPress or plugins, takes bookings or enquiries, or "log in and update it" is never going to happen, a plan keeps it fast, secure and working.
Yes. That’s a core part of a care plan. You email us the change (opening hours, a new price, a staff update, a fresh photo) and we make it, so you never have to log in and risk breaking something. It’s included in your monthly plan, not billed as a surprise extra.
Nothing bad. Because everything is in your name, cancelling just means we stop doing the upkeep: your site, domain and hosting all stay yours and stay online. We hand over any logins you don’t already hold and leave you with a working site. No switch-offs, no ransom.
Ideally yes, from day one: updates, backups and security are what keep a brand-new site from slowly degrading. If you’re the one who just built or rebuilt your site, a care plan simply keeps it running well; if you still need the build itself, that’s our web design service, not this.
Tell us where your site lives and we'll take a proper look (speed, security, updates, backups, the lot) and tell you plainly what it needs. If that's a care plan, you'll get a clear scope and a fair monthly number. If it isn't, we'll say so. Useful either way.
No lock-in. You own your site, domain and every account, permanently. Cancel whenever you like; nothing gets switched off.
No obligation, no sales pitch. We'll tell you if you don't need a plan.
Not sure you need a plan? Read this first →