WordPress maintenance in Northern Virginia typically costs anywhere from a few hundred to several thousand dollars per year. GoDaddy’s 2026 website maintenance cost guide places most small business sites between $50 and $500 per month. Alliant Studios Web Care starts at $750 per year. Below, we explain why our pricing is lower and what our clients receive that the price alone does not reflect.
What You Are Paying For
Many agencies place client sites on a third-party hosting service and bill the client that provider’s rate plus an agency markup. Those providers typically raise their prices each year, and the increases are passed directly to the client.
Alliant Studios takes a different approach. We manage our own servers, so our costs consist of the server itself and our time, not a third-party service with annual increases of roughly 10%. The result is fewer dependencies and no outside price increases passed on to our clients.
Our clients also benefit from deep experience. Our team includes a systems administrator with 35 years of experience who manages infrastructure further upstream than most competitors. When an issue arises at the server level, we do not open a support ticket with another company. We resolve it ourselves.
Case Study: Approximately $6,500 Returned to the Budget
We recently began working with a client who had been paying $600 per month for a website that did not reflect that level of investment. We built them a new site that met their needs and moved them to Web Care at $750 per year, which was the level of service they required. The change saved them approximately $6,500 annually.
We like to think that savings of that kind are reinvested in the business and help keep people employed.
What a Typical WordPress Maintenance Client Uses
In most cases, relatively little. Much like the Maytag repairman, we spend a good deal of time on standby for problems that rarely occur. Most clients need about six hours per year for minor content updates, such as:
- Staff changes
- Phone numbers
- Email addresses
- Office closures
When broader issues do arise, such as a PHP update affecting multiple servers, we address them promptly.
For clients who require more time, we prepare a clear contract that accounts for additional hours in advance, so there are no unexpected invoices.
We also work extensively with Chick-fil-A, and their standard of service has influenced our own. We pride ourselves on our patience with every client.
The Cost of Skipping Website Maintenance
Forgoing a maintenance plan may appear to be the least expensive option, until problems arise. Sites that go unattended often lose leads, suffer damage to their domain reputation, and see traffic decline over time.
The risk is also growing. With the rise of AI tools, we are seeing a marked increase in automated attacks against WordPress sites. An outdated plugin or theme is often all it takes for an attacker to get in.
That is why we keep every site we manage current, with daily updates to plugins, themes, and WordPress core. We apply updates as soon as they are released because we are confident the sites we build can handle them.
Why You May Not Have Heard of Us
Alliant Studios is an independent small business with no private equity involvement. We do not advertise. Our growth comes from client referrals.
If anything, we have been too modest about our work. Like the cobbler whose own shoes need repair, we are often so focused on maintaining our clients’ sites that we neglect to promote our own.
Consider this our exception. If you are paying too much for WordPress maintenance, or are unsure what your current plan covers, compare our Web Care plans or contact us with a question. You will hear from a real person in Fairfax.