Here is the comparison nobody in this industry puts in front of you, because it does not flatter most of us.
| What you pay monthly | Typical UK cost | Who does the work |
|---|---|---|
| Wix Business | ~£22/mo | You |
| Squarespace Core (monthly billing) | ~£24/mo | You |
| Managed maintenance plan | £20–£50/mo | Your designer |
Read that again, because it is the whole article. A DIY builder subscription and a managed plan land within a few pounds of each other. The difference is not the money. The difference is who spends their Sunday evening working out why the photo gallery has gone sideways on mobile.
A builder subscription is a software licence. You are renting the tool. You are still the labour.
What a plan should cover as a minimum
If a plan does not include all of these, it is not really a maintenance plan — it is hosting with a nicer name.
- Hosting that is fast enough not to hurt you. Cheap shared hosting on an overloaded server will cost you more in lost enquiries than you save.
- Your domain renewal, registered in your name. Ask this outright.
- An SSL certificate. This should be free and included. If it is a line item, question it.
- Automatic backups you can actually restore from. "We take backups" and "we have restored a backup" are different claims. Ask which one is true.
- Security and software updates. On WordPress this is not optional — an unpatched site gets found by bots, not by people.
- Uptime monitoring, so they know the site is down before you do.
- A named human who replies. Not a ticket queue that closes itself after seven days.
The bit that separates plans: content changes
Everything above is table stakes. Where plans genuinely differ is what happens when you email and say "can you swap the prices on the services page and add these four photos from Friday's job?"
Broadly there are three answers you will get:
- "That will be £X." Billed per change, often with a minimum charge. Common, and it quietly trains you to stop asking — which is how sites go stale.
- "You have two hours a month included." Better, but you end up rationing. Nobody wants to spend their allowance on a phone number correction.
- "Send it over." Unlimited content updates, included.
The per-change model has a hidden cost that does not appear on any invoice: the updates you decide not to bother with. The new reviews you never added. The photos of last month's work still sitting on your phone. A site that stopped reflecting the business two years ago.
Where the line normally sits
Even on a generous plan there has to be a boundary, or "maintenance" quietly becomes "unlimited free development". The sensible line, and the one most decent agencies use, is between content and construction.
Content — should be included: text changes, new or replaced photos, revised prices, opening hours, staff changes, new reviews and testimonials, updated service descriptions, seasonal messages, new content added into a page that already exists.
Construction — should be quoted: new pages, online booking, an online shop, member areas, third-party integrations, or a redesign. This is new development. It takes planning and testing, and pretending otherwise just means the cost gets buried in everyone else's monthly fee.
What matters is that you are told which side of the line something falls on before the work happens, not after.
Questions worth asking before you sign
- "Is my domain registered in my name, with me holding the login?" The single most damaging thing to get wrong. If it is in the agency's account, you do not own your web address.
- "What is your normal turnaround on a small change?" A plan that includes unlimited updates but takes three weeks is not generous, it is theoretical.
- "How many changes are included?" Get the actual answer, not "reasonable use".
- "What happens if I leave?" Can you take the site elsewhere, and will they export it?
- "Is the monthly fee fixed, or does it renew at a higher rate?"
What we do, and why
Our plan includes unlimited content updates, usually live within 24 hours. Send photos from a job on Tuesday and they are on the site by Wednesday. Got three new Google reviews this month? Send them over. Adding a new block of content to a page you already have is included, not billed.
New pages and new features are quoted separately, and we tell you before we start — never after.
We do it this way for a slightly self-interested reason: a site that keeps changing performs better than one that does not. Fresh photos of real work convert better than stock. New reviews build trust faster than old ones. If we charge you every time you want to add something, you stop adding things, the site goes stale, it stops generating enquiries, and eventually you conclude that websites do not work. That outcome is worse for us than the twenty minutes it takes to add your photos.
Our plan starts at £29/month — a few pounds more than a Squarespace subscription billed monthly, except you are not the one doing the work.
You can see what our plans cover, or if you would rather judge the work before the terms, we will design your homepage for free — no cost, no card, no obligation.