The short answer: budget roughly 5,000 to 20,000 KES per month for a business website, or 5 to 20 percent of the original build cost per year. The number depends on how often content changes, whether you run e-commerce and how much support you need.
What maintenance covers
- Hosting, domain and SSL renewal.
- Security updates and vulnerability fixes.
- Backups and restore testing.
- Bug fixes and broken integrations.
- Content updates and image optimisation.
- Performance and uptime monitoring.
- Analytics checks and reporting.
Typical tiers
| Level | Monthly range | What it covers |
|---|---|---|
| Essential | 5,000 to 10,000 KES | Hosting support, updates, backups, monitoring |
| Active | 10,000 to 20,000 KES | Plus content updates and minor changes |
| Managed | 20,000 to 50,000+ KES | Plus integrations, reporting and support SLA |
What happens without it
Plugins fall behind, certificates expire, forms silently break and backups go untested. The cost is not the repair. It is the enquiries lost while the site was broken and the search visibility lost during downtime.
What to ask a support provider
- What is the response time for a broken form or checkout?
- Are backups tested, or just taken?
- Are security updates included?
- How are content changes requested and priced?
- Do we own hosting, domain and code access?
- What is excluded from the retainer?
Our Website Design & Development work includes handover and support options. If you need a maintenance review, send us the site URL and the last update date.
Frequently asked questions
How much should we budget for website maintenance?
Most Kenyan business sites need 5,000 to 20,000 KES per month. E-commerce, portals and high-change sites cost more.
Is maintenance included in the build?
Usually not beyond a short warranty period. Confirm what is included before launch and what the monthly support fee covers.
Can we maintain the site ourselves?
You can handle content updates if the CMS is simple. Security, backups, performance and integrations usually need a technical owner.
What happens if we skip maintenance?
Security risk, broken forms, slow pages and downtime increase. The repair is usually more expensive than the maintenance you skipped.
Next step: if you do not know when your site was last updated, ask for a maintenance check.