How much does it cost to run a website each year?
Most owners budget carefully for building a website and budget nothing for keeping it — then act surprised a year later when small bills arrive from companies they barely remember, or worse, when nothing arrives at all and the site quietly rots in silence. A website is not a one-time purchase like a sign. It is more like a shopfront on a rented street: cheap to keep, expensive to neglect, and always costing something. Here is what the "something" actually is, piece by piece.
The yearly pieces, honestly
The domain name renews every year. Your web address is rented, not owned, and the rental comes due annually. It is a small bill — and the most dangerous one to miss, because if a domain lapses, your website and your business email go dark and someone else can register the name. So what does that small bill protect? Everything that points at your business.
Hosting is the rent on the space your site lives in. Every website sits on a computer somewhere that stays on so customers can reach you at 2 a.m. That is a monthly or yearly cost for as long as the site exists. There is no version of a live website with no hosting underneath it — anyone offering "no ongoing costs, ever" is leaving this part out.
Upkeep is the piece owners skip — and the one that bites. Software needs security updates. Hours change, prices change, a service gets added, a phone number gets replaced. A site nobody maintains does not stay frozen in its good first version; it drifts. The contact form that silently stopped delivering. The holiday hours from two years ago still showing on Google. The page a customer found that no longer matches what you charge. None of it announces itself. Customers just quietly go elsewhere.
What neglect actually costs
Not a dramatic crash, usually — something worse for business: slow leaks. A broken form is every inquiry it swallowed. Stale information is every customer who drove to the wrong hours or called a dead number and did not try twice. And a site left unpatched is the one that gets broken into, because outdated software is exactly what automated attacks look for. Running a website properly is not expensive. Running one badly costs customers you never hear about.
What it costs here
We print our running costs the same way we print our build prices — in the open, as flat numbers you can plan a year around:
- Website Care — $100 a month. Your site looked after: kept updated, kept current, and checked so the leaks above never start.
- Managed Hosting — $50 a month. Your site's home handled for you — the rent paid, the lights on, nothing for you to renew, chase or wonder about.
Together they are the whole "keeping it alive" bill in two flat monthly numbers, from the same studio that built the site — one place to text when anything about your website needs attention.
Want to know what your website is costing you now — or what it silently stopped doing? Text or email us — we answer fast. Text: (774) 666-1728 · Email: design@goddessisacrownsecrets.com Send us your website address, and we will tell you honestly what shape its upkeep is in.