Short answer: For a Taiwanese SMB company website, fixed costs after launch run about NT$10,000–40,000 a year, covering domain, hosting, SSL, backups and website maintenance; sites with members or payments run about NT$40,000–150,000. Domain and hosting are mandatory and maintenance is a choice, but repairing an unmaintained site often costs several years of fees.
"Isn't the website done once it launches?" A baking ingredients wholesaler left its site untouched for two years. One day a customer reported gambling ads on the homepage: a plugin vulnerability had let someone inject code, and Google flagged the site as unsafe. Cleanup, a rebuild and three months of lost rankings cost more than five years of website maintenance fees.
Fixed Costs After Launch
Bottom line: only domain and hosting are mandatory every year; the rest depends on the type of site.
- Domain renewal: your street address, renewed yearly; forget it and website and email stop together.
- Hosting: where the site lives, from shared hosting to cloud servers depending on traffic and features.
- SSL certificate: the padlock in the address bar; without it browsers show "Not secure".
- Backups: decide how far back you can restore and how much you lose.
- Website maintenance: updates, monitoring and small fixes that keep the site safe and working.
Website Maintenance Cost Breakdown
Bottom line: a company site costs about NT$10,000–40,000 a year; a system site with members or payments needs NT$40,000–150,000.
| Item | Company site (per year) | Ecommerce / member site (per year) | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Domain renewal | About NT$500–900 | About NT$500–900 | .com.tw and .com prices differ slightly |
| Hosting | NT$2,000–8,000 | NT$8,000–40,000 | Shared vs cloud hosting |
| SSL certificate | NT$0 | NT$0–10,000 | Free certificates usually suffice |
| Off-site backup | NT$0–2,000 | NT$2,000–8,000 | Keep at least 30 days |
| Website maintenance | NT$6,000–30,000 | NT$30,000–100,000 | Updates, monitoring, small edits |
Domains renew through registrars accredited by TWNIC; SSL can use free Let’s Encrypt certificates with automatic renewal.
The Real Risks of Skipping Maintenance
Bottom line: the biggest risk is not an outdated look but a break-in or a sudden outage.
- Plugin break-ins: per the Patchstack report, the WordPress ecosystem logged nearly 8,000 new vulnerabilities in 2024, most of them in plugins.
- Version conflicts: after a host upgrades PHP, old code can show a blank page.
- Expired domain or certificate: the site goes down and customers think you closed.
- No backups: when the database breaks, you rebuild from scratch.
- Slowdowns: images and plugins pile up, and visitors leave when mobile loads exceed 3 seconds.
DIY vs Hiring Maintenance
Bottom line: a 5-page site that rarely changes can be self-managed; sites with payments, members or ad campaigns should be outsourced.
| Compare | DIY | Outsourced |
|---|---|---|
| Yearly cost | Domain and hosting only | Plus from NT$2,000 a month |
| People needed | A staff member, 2–4 hours a month | Vendor handles it |
| When things break | Find someone ad hoc, often with rush fees | Handled within contract response times |
| Best for | Simple company sites | Ecommerce, member and booking systems |
Common Traps
Bottom line: maintenance contracts fail most often because scope is vague.
- The domain is registered in the vendor's name and cannot be recovered when you switch.
- "Small edits" are included, but monthly hours are not specified.
- Backups sit on the same server as the site and vanish together.
- Comparing only monthly fees without asking about response times.
Decision Checklist
Bottom line: more than 4 yes answers out of 10 means website maintenance belongs in your annual budget.
- ☐ The site has members, payments or bookings
- ☐ It runs WordPress with more than 10 plugins
- ☐ You do not know whose name the domain is registered under
- ☐ You do not know when the domain expires
- ☐ The site has not been updated in over a year
- ☐ There is no off-site backup
- ☐ You run Google or Facebook ads
- ☐ No one on staff understands the website
- ☐ A day of downtime would hurt revenue
- ☐ The original developer is unreachable
Frequently Asked Questions
Do I have to pay for maintenance after launch?
Domain and hosting are mandatory; maintenance is optional. But unmaintained sites typically hit plugin vulnerabilities or version conflicts within 1–2 years.
What happens if I forget to renew my domain?
Your website and company email stop together. There is a grace period, but after the redemption period someone else may register it.
Do I need to buy an SSL certificate?
Not necessarily. Let’s Encrypt issues free certificates and most hosts renew them automatically; paid certificates matter only when you need company validation details.
Does website maintenance include redesigns?
Usually not. Maintenance covers updates, backups, monitoring and small edits; new pages or features are quoted separately.
Next Step: Monthly Website Maintenance
ScriptWalker (a Taiwanese Laravel / Flutter custom development studio) offers monthly website maintenance from NT$2,000, including version updates, daily off-site backups, uptime monitoring, domain and certificate expiry reminders, and a monthly small-edit allowance. Not sure whether your current maintenance fee is reasonable? Send us your URL for a free website check-up:
- Email: [email protected]
- Phone: 0916-224-047
- LINE: @ufv9089p