Straight answer: in South Africa in 2026, proper WordPress maintenance costs between R400 and R2,500 per month depending on who does it and what’s included. Here’s the full breakdown.
Option 1: DIY — “free”
Updates, backups, security and fixes yourself. Cash cost: zero (plus backup/security tools, R0–R150/month). Real cost: 2–4 hours of your month, the risk of breaking your own site, and being the only person responsible at 11pm when it goes down. Fair choice for a hobby site; expensive for a business owner whose hours are worth money.
Option 2: Ad-hoc freelancer — R350–R800/hour
No monthly fee; you pay when something breaks. The catch is that you always pay at the worst moment: emergency rates, on the freelancer’s timeline, hoping they’re available. Two incidents a year can cost more than a year of a maintenance plan — with none of the prevention.
Option 3: Agency care plans — R750–R2,500+/month
Agencies bundle maintenance with strategy and often require you to host with them. Good for larger businesses with ongoing dev work; overkill if you just need the site kept healthy and small things fixed.
Option 4: Flat-fee unlimited plans — R499–R1,999/month
The model WP Hero runs: a flat monthly fee covering updates, daily backups, monitoring, security, and unlimited small tasks (under 60 minutes each). No hourly billing, no quotes for small fixes. You know the cost in advance, and prevention is built in.
The cost everyone forgets
The most expensive option is the one that looks free: nothing. A hacked-site cleanup runs R3,000–R15,000. A dead site during your busiest week costs sales you’ll never measure. A lost lead from a silently broken contact form costs whatever that customer was worth. Maintenance isn’t an expense next to those numbers — it’s insurance priced at a fraction of one incident.
What to check before paying anyone
- Are backups daily, and stored off your hosting server?
- Is there a defined response time in writing?
- What exactly counts as “included” vs quoted extra?
- Can you leave easily, with your site and backups handed over?