Quick answer: A website care plan is a monthly service that keeps your site updated, backed up, secure and running, usually with a set amount of time for small changes. In Australia most small business plans cost $100 to $300 a month. If your website brings in enquiries, a care plan is cheap insurance against the site breaking, slowing down or being hacked.
A website is not a brochure you print once. Especially on WordPress, which powers a large share of small business sites, the core software, theme and plugins release updates constantly, many of them security fixes. Skip them for a year and the site becomes slower, buggier and easier to break into.
What a good care plan includes
The essentials
- Updates: WordPress core, theme and plugins, tested so an update does not break the layout or forms.
- Backups: automatic daily backups stored off the server, with regular checks that they can actually be restored.
- Uptime monitoring: an alert if the site goes down, so it is fixed before customers notice.
- Security monitoring: malware scanning, login protection and firewall rules.
- Form checks: making sure enquiry forms still send, because a broken form costs you leads silently.
The extras that make the difference
- Time for changes: new photos, updated prices, a new staff member, a seasonal promotion.
- Speed checks: keeping the site within Google’s Core Web Vitals as content grows.
- Reporting: visits, enquiries and the pages that drive them, in plain English.
- Improvements: new landing pages, conversion reviews and ideas to get more out of your traffic.
What it costs
| Level | Typical price (AUD per month) | Who it suits |
|---|---|---|
| Maintenance only | $40 to $100 | Simple sites that rarely change |
| Standard care | $100 to $300 | Most small businesses that rely on enquiries |
| Growth or partner | $300 to $800+ | Businesses that want ongoing improvements and content |
Watch for plans that bundle hosting in the designer’s own account. It can be convenient, but it means you do not control your website. A better setup is hosting in your name, with the care plan covering the work.
What happens if you skip maintenance
- Plugins fall out of date and become the easiest way in for hackers.
- An automatic update eventually breaks something, and nobody notices for weeks.
- Forms stop sending and you assume business is just quiet.
- The site slows down as images and plugins pile up.
- Fixing a hacked or broken site often costs more than a year of care.
How to choose
Ask three questions:
- How much does the website matter to revenue? If it brings in a meaningful share of new customers, it deserves professional care.
- How often do you change things? If you update prices, staff or offers regularly, pick a plan with change time included.
- Do you want it to keep improving? A plan with reporting and a quarterly review turns the website from a cost into a growth channel.
Also check the basics: is there a minimum term, what response time do you get for urgent problems, and is unused time carried over or lost?
Our care plans
We offer three plans, all on hosting in your own name: Essential Care at $149 a month (updates, backups, monitoring and 30 minutes of changes), Growth Care at $279 (one hour of changes, speed checks and a monthly report) and Partner Care at $449 (three hours of changes, a new page each quarter and conversion reviews). Clients running ads with us get Essential Care included. See care plans.
Planning a new website?
Next step: fill in the website brief. It takes about 10 minutes, and you get a fixed quote within one business day, then 2 or 3 design concepts to compare before anything is built. See website packages and care plans.
Written by Gregory
20 years building websites and running lead generation, mostly with my own money on the line. Based in Sydney, working with clients worldwide. How I work →