The verdict in three sentences
For a mid-sized company's corporate website, the right contract combines a preventive maintenance retainer (EUR 150 to 1,500 per month, roughly £130 to £1,300) and a bank of application maintenance days (2 to 10 days per quarter at EUR 550-750 per day). The clauses that genuinely protect you are the fix SLA (4 h for a blocking incident) and availability penalties below 99.9%. A CIO who prices actual needs often saves 20 to 30% compared with a tacitly renewed contract.
Maintenance, enhancements, hosting: what you actually pay for
Three services are often bundled into a single invoice line, which makes any comparison impossible. Corrective and preventive maintenance covers monthly security updates, backups, monitoring and bug fixes. Application maintenance and enhancements cover changes: a new page, a new form, a CRM connector, a template redesign. Hosting and managed infrastructure may sit with the agency or with a third party (AWS, Azure, OVHcloud).
| Retainer level | Price per month (EUR, excl. VAT) | Typical content | Company profile |
|---|---|---|---|
| Essential | 150 to 300 | Monthly updates, daily backup, monitoring | SME, stable brochure site |
| Standard | 400 to 700 | + unlimited fixes, 24 h SLA, monthly report | Mid-sized firm, multilingual corporate site |
| Enhanced | 800 to 1,100 | + 8 h SLA, regression testing, half-yearly security audit | Listed or regulated company |
| Critical | 1,200 to 1,500 | + 4 h SLA 7 days a week, on-call, tested recovery plan | Transactional site or client portal |
| Out of scope | 550 to 750 per day | On-demand enhancements | All profiles |
SLAs and penalties: the clauses to negotiate
An SLA is only worth something if it separates response (time for an engineer to acknowledge) from resolution (time to restore service). Require both, by severity level.
| Severity | Example | Response | Target resolution | Penalty if missed |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Blocking | Site down, contact form broken | 30 min | 4 h | 5% of monthly fee per hour |
| Major | Key page erroring, careers portal broken | 2 h | 8 h | 3% per 4-hour block |
| Minor | Degraded display on one browser | 8 h | 48 h | None, tracked in report |
| Enhancement | New page, new field | 48 h | Per quote | Not applicable |
| Monthly availability | Measured by external probe | Continuous | 99.9% (43 min downtime max) | 10% of fee below 99.9%, 25% below 99.5% |
Cap penalties at 30% of the monthly fee: beyond that, serious agencies refuse to sign and you narrow your choice to providers who have no intention of paying them.
Sizing the bank of enhancement days
A quarterly day bank avoids raising a purchase order for every small change. The trap is oversizing it: unused days are rarely carried over beyond one quarter. Review the last 12 months of requests: a mid-sized corporate site uses on average 3 to 5 days per quarter (HR campaigns, product pages, compliance updates). Negotiate a 50% carry-over of unused days into the next quarter and tiered pricing: EUR 750 per single day, EUR 650 in a 5-day bank, EUR 550 in a 10-day bank.
Finally, require reversibility: admin access, a Git repository in your name, technical documentation and 5 days of handover support if you change provider.
Mini case study
Rachel, CIO of a 1,200-employee industrial group headquartered in London, pays EUR 1,400 per month for an "all-inclusive" contract renewed since 2022 with no written SLA, plus about 18 enhancement days a year at EUR 750, i.e. 16,800 + 13,500 = EUR 30,300 a year.
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She renegotiates: Standard retainer at EUR 650 per month with a 4 h SLA on blocking incidents (EUR 7,800 a year) and a bank of 5 days per quarter at EUR 650, i.e. 20 days for EUR 13,000. Total: EUR 20,800 a year, saving EUR 9,500 (31%), with contractual penalties and 2 extra days of capacity on top.
FAQ
What is the average price of company website maintenance in 2026?
From EUR 150 per month for a simple brochure site to EUR 1,500 per month for a critical site with a 4 h SLA and on-call cover. A mid-sized company usually sits between EUR 400 and 700 per month.
What day rate should I expect for website enhancements?
A day of application maintenance is negotiated between EUR 550 and 750 in 2026, depending on technology and committed volume. A bank of 10 days per quarter brings it down towards EUR 550.
Is a 99.9% SLA realistic?
Yes, it allows 43 minutes of downtime per month, achievable with decent hosting and a CDN. Going to 99.95% or 99.99% requires a redundant architecture that raises cost by 30 to 60%.
What happens to unused enhancement days?
Negotiate a 50% carry-over to the next quarter, or their conversion into an audit (performance, WCAG accessibility). Without a written clause, they are usually lost.
How long does a maintenance contract last?
The standard term is 12 months, renewable, with 3 months' notice. Avoid 36-month commitments without an exit clause tied to SLA breaches.
Let's scope your project. Send us your current contract and request history: we will propose a right-sized retainer, a written SLA and a day bank at the right volume, starting within 15 days. Detailed quote within 48 h. WhatsApp +221 77 596 93 33.
Mohamed Bah
Fondateur, Kolonell
Passionate about digital and entrepreneurship in Africa, Mohamed has been helping Sénégalese businesses with their digital transformation since 2020. Founder of Kolonell, he believes every SME deserves a professional and accessible online présence.
