Website Maintenance Package

Total Website peace of mind

TLDR: A website is not a once-off project you build and forget. Like a car, it needs regular servicing to stay secure, functional, and up to date. Our maintenance package handles all of that for you every month – so you can focus on running your business while we make sure your website keeps working the way it should.

Why Website Maintenance?

Your Website Is Like a Car

You wouldn’t drive your car for three years without a service and expect it to run perfectly. Wear and tear builds up. Small issues become expensive problems. And if something goes seriously wrong, you’re stuck with a big bill or no car at all.

Your website works the same way. A WordPress website runs on software – themes, plugins, a content management system, and that software is updated regularly by developers around the world. When updates aren’t applied, your site becomes vulnerable. Security gaps appear. Plugins fall out of sync. Things break quietly in the background until one day they stop working altogether, or worse, your site gets hacked.

There’s another parallel worth noting: skip your car service and you void your warranty. With your website, skipping maintenance means skipping backups. And without a recent backup, if something goes wrong such as a failed update, a hosting issue, a hack, etc. you have no safety net.

Recovering a site without a backup is slow, expensive, and sometimes impossible. Maintenance isn’t a luxury. It’s what keeps your investment protected.

What Happens Without Maintenance?

Outdated plugins and themes become security vulnerabilities – easy entry points for hackers and malware
Software conflicts build up silently and eventually cause design breaks or pages that stop loading
Without regular backups, a single bad update or hosting issue can take your site offline with no way to restore it quickly
What starts as a small fixable issue turns into a full rebuild – at full cost

The irony is that maintenance costs a fraction of what a crisis costs. Prevention is always cheaper than the cure.

Backups

Your Peace of Mind

This is the part most people only appreciate after something goes wrong. Imagine your site gets hacked on a Tuesday morning. Enquiries stop coming in. Clients trying to find you see a broken page or a warning from Google. Without a recent backup, recovering that site takes days and costs real money – if it’s even fully recoverable.

With a current backup, we restore your site to its last clean version within hours. Business disruption minimised. No panic. No rebuild.

That backup alone is worth the monthly cost.

How it works

Exactly what we do once per month

Step 1

Initial backup

Before we touch anything, we create a full backup of your website. This way, if anything goes wrong during the update process, we can restore your site instantly.

Step 2

Software updates

We update all themes, plugins, and core software that power your website. These updates contain security patches, performance improvements, and compatibility fixes. Skipping them is the single biggest cause of hacked and broken websites.

Step 3

Troubleshoot

Updates occasionally cause conflicts - a plugin that doesn't play nicely with a new version of something else, a layout that shifts unexpectedly. We catch and fix these before they become visible problems on your live site.

Step 4

Master backup

Once everything is updated and confirmed working, we take a second backup of your clean, updated site and store it in the cloud. You always have a current, stable version saved and ready to restore if anything ever goes wrong down the line.

What does it Cost?

Standalone maintenance (site paid upfront or hosted elsewhere): R350/month

Smart Website System (24-month contract): Included

If you’re on our Smart Website System – specifically on our monthly website-on-contract package, maintenance is built in at no extra cost, alongside managed hosting, an AI chatbot, automated quote flow, and monthly performance reports.

If you own your website outright or it’s hosted with another provider, standalone maintenance is R350/month with no long-term contract required.

Frequently Asked Questions

For questions not answered below: info@aligndesigns.co.za

Why does my website need monthly maintenance?

WordPress websites run on themes, plugins, and software that are constantly being updated by developers. When those updates aren’t applied, security vulnerabilities build up and things eventually break. Monthly maintenance keeps your site current, secure, and functioning correctly — the same way regular car services prevent small issues from becoming expensive repairs.

What if I just leave my website and don’t do maintenance?

Your site will continue to work – for a while. But over time, outdated software becomes a security risk. Plugins fall out of sync. Design issues appear. And because there are no regular backups, if something does go wrong there’s no easy way to recover. What could have been a quick fix becomes a costly rebuild. Most of the “my website got hacked” or “my site suddenly broke” situations we see are the result of unmaintained websites.

Is maintenance included if I’m on the Smart Website System?

Yes. If you’re on our 24-month Smart Website System contract, website maintenance is fully included – no extra charge. It’s part of the fully managed service alongside hosting, your AI chatbot, automated quote flow, and monthly reporting.

What does the R350/month plan cover?

It covers everything in our monthly maintenance process: a pre-maintenance backup, all software and plugin updates, troubleshooting and fixing any issues that arise from those updates, and a post-maintenance backup stored securely in the cloud. You also get a monthly maintenance report showing what was updated and confirmation of site being secure.

Do you maintain websites built by other developers?

No, we only maintain websites we’ve built ourselves. We’ve run into too many problems in the past when taking over someone else’s work. Unknown build quality, undocumented customisations, and existing issues make it impossible for us to stand behind the results. If you need maintenance and your current site wasn’t built by us, the conversation usually starts with a new build.

What happens to my backups if I cancel?

We keep only the most recent monthly backup at any given time – the clean version of your site after that month’s updates are done. If you cancel, we stop performing maintenance and send you that latest backup. From that point it becomes your responsibility to store it safely. One important thing to know: the older a backup gets, the more likely it is to have compatibility issues if you ever need to restore it in the future. A backup from two years ago may not upload cleanly onto a current server environment. This is exactly why we recommend staying on monthly maintenance – a fresh, current backup is always worth more than an old one.

Is there a contract for the standalone maintenance plan?

No. The standalone R350/month plan is month-to-month. You can cancel at any time – we just ask for reasonable notice before your next billing date.