Website Maintenance Services in Canada That Stop Small Problems Getting Expensive
Updates applied and tested, daily backups you can restore from, security monitored, uptime watched, and a monthly allowance of changes so your site does not slowly drift out of date. Fixed cost, no ticket queue.
- Free health check of your current site
- Backups tested, not just taken
- Real person, same day response
What does website maintenance actually involve?
Keeping the software patched, the backups working, the site online and fast, and the content current. Most of it is invisible when it is done properly, which is exactly why it gets skipped until something breaks.
The most common failure we get called about is entirely preventable. A plugin has not been updated in eighteen months, a known vulnerability gets exploited, the site starts serving spam pages, and Google flags it. Recovery costs several thousand dollars and weeks of lost rankings. The updates would have cost a fraction of that.
The second most common is a backup nobody ever tested. There is a plugin taking backups every night into the same server that just failed, or into an account whose storage filled up in March. A backup you have not restored from is a hope, not a plan.
Maintenance is unglamorous but it is the cheapest insurance a business website has. What we do is straightforward: patch on a schedule with a staging test first, back up off site daily and test the restore quarterly, watch uptime and performance, and handle the small changes that otherwise pile up for a year.
- Core, theme and plugin updates tested on staging before going live
- Daily off site backups with quarterly restore testing
- Uptime and performance monitoring with alerts to us, not to you
- A monthly allowance of content and design changes
What is included in a website care plan?
Updates, backups, security monitoring, uptime checks, performance review, broken link and form testing, a monthly change allowance, and a report telling you what was done. Emergency response is included, not billed separately.
The list below is the standard plan. Ecommerce and custom applications add monitoring and testing beyond it.
Keeping it safe
- Core, theme and plugin updates applied on a schedule
- Updates tested on staging first, so a bad release never reaches you
- Daily off site backups retained for thirty days
- Quarterly restore test, because untested backups fail
- Security scanning and malware monitoring
- SSL certificate monitoring and renewal
Keeping it working
- Uptime monitoring with alerts routed to us first
- Page speed checked monthly against your baseline
- Contact and booking forms tested every month
- Broken link and 404 sweeps with fixes applied
- Database cleanup so the site does not slow over time
- Search Console errors reviewed and cleared
Keeping it current
- A monthly allowance of content and design changes
- New pages added from your copy where the allowance covers it
- Image and asset updates
- Emergency response if the site goes down, included
- Monthly report of everything done and everything found
- A named person who knows your site, not a rotating queue
How much does website maintenance cost in Canada?
Plans generally run from around 100 dollars a month for a small brochure site to 600 and up for ecommerce. The difference is monitoring depth, change allowance and how quickly you need someone to respond.
| Plan | Monthly | Change allowance | Suited to |
|---|---|---|---|
| Essential | $100 to $180 | 30 minutes | Small brochure sites that rarely change |
| Standard | $180 to $350 | 2 hours | Service businesses making regular small updates |
| Business | $350 to $600 | 4 hours | Content heavy sites, several stakeholders, faster response |
| Ecommerce | $450 to $900 | 4 to 8 hours | Stores where downtime directly costs revenue |
| Custom application | Quoted | Agreed per project | Bespoke builds needing monitoring and on call cover |
Hosting can be included or kept separate. Unused change allowance does not roll over, which keeps the plan price honest rather than inflated.
Is a maintenance plan better than paying hourly when something breaks?
Hourly is cheaper until the first incident. The difference is that a plan prevents most incidents entirely, and when one happens you are not negotiating a rate and waiting for availability while the site is down.
| Comparison point | Care plan | Ad hoc hourly work |
|---|---|---|
| Updates | Applied on schedule and tested first | Deferred until something forces the issue |
| Backups | Daily, off site, restore tested quarterly | Whatever the host provides, usually untested |
| Response when down | Same day, included | When someone is free, at emergency rates |
| Cost predictability | Fixed monthly | Nothing, then a large unplanned bill |
| Familiarity | A named person who knows the build | Whoever is available, starting from scratch |
| Small changes | Included in the allowance | Minimum billing per request, so they get postponed |
Does my website actually need a care plan?
If your site runs on WordPress or anything with plugins, yes. If it is a static build or fully hosted like Shopify, far less so. The deciding factor is how much software sits between your visitor and your content.
WordPress sites with plugins
The clearest case. Plugins are the most common entry point for compromised small business sites, and they need patching on a schedule rather than when somebody remembers.
Sites where enquiries arrive by form
Forms break quietly. A plugin update, an expired API key or a full inbox can stop submissions for weeks before anyone notices the phone went quiet.
Ecommerce stores
Downtime costs revenue directly, and payment, tax and shipping integrations all change underneath you. These need monitoring rather than periodic checking.
Businesses with no technical staff
If nobody internally can restore a backup or read an error, the value of a plan is not the updates. It is having someone to call who already knows the build.
Sites with regular content changes
A monthly change allowance costs less than ad hoc billing, and it means small updates actually happen rather than being postponed for a year.
Probably not you if
You run a static site, or a fully hosted platform with no apps, and nothing changes month to month. We will tell you that rather than sell a plan you do not need.
How do requests and reporting work?
Email or a shared board, answered same day in business hours by someone who knows your site. A monthly report lists everything applied, everything found and anything worth planning for.
Plans are month to month. Maintenance should be kept because it is worth keeping, not because leaving is difficult, and everything stays in accounts you own so moving away is straightforward.
- Response in business hours
- Same day
- Off site backups
- Daily
- Restore testing
- Quarterly
- Report on work done
- Monthly
Website maintenance questions
The free health check covers updates, backups, security, speed and broken links on your current site.
Ask us directlyDo I really need a maintenance plan?
If your site runs on WordPress or any platform with plugins, yes. Those need patching, and unpatched plugins are the most common way small business sites get compromised. A static site or a fully hosted platform like Shopify needs far less, and we will tell you if that is your situation.
What happens if my site gets hacked?
On a plan, we handle it: take the site down safely, restore from a clean backup, find and close the entry point, and submit for review if search engines flagged it. That work is included rather than billed as an emergency, which is most of the reason plans exist.
Can you maintain a site you did not build?
Usually yes. We start with a health check to see what state it is in. Occasionally we find a build so fragile that maintaining it responsibly is not possible without work first, and in that case we say so and quote the remediation rather than take a monthly fee for something we cannot actually protect.
How often do you apply updates?
Security patches within days of release. Routine updates monthly, applied to staging first and checked before going live. Applying everything the moment it is released is how sites break, and waiting six months is how they get compromised.
What counts as a small change?
Text edits, swapping images, adding a team member, publishing a page from copy you supply, updating hours or prices. What falls outside is new design work, new functionality or a new template, which we quote separately so the plan price stays predictable.
Is hosting included?
It can be, or you can keep your own. We are not tied to a host and take no referral fees. Where your current hosting is genuinely the cause of a performance problem we will say so, but we will not push a move that mainly benefits us.
Can I cancel?
Any time, month to month. Everything runs in accounts you own: hosting, domain, backups and monitoring. When you leave you keep the backups and nothing has to be handed back.
Services that work well alongside this one
- Website OptimizationSpeed and conversion work beyond routine upkeep.
- Technical Website AnalysisA full audit when you suspect deeper problems.
- Web Design ServicesWhen maintaining the current build stops being worth it.
- Custom Web DevelopmentBuilding the functionality the site is missing.
- Search Engine OptimizationGrowing traffic to the site you are keeping healthy.
- Website DesigningRefreshing the look without rebuilding everything.
Find out what state your website is actually in
We will check your updates, your backups, your security, your speed and your broken links, then tell you what needs attention now and what can wait. It takes a few days and costs nothing.