The call usually comes on a weekend. The contact form has stopped sending, or the site shows a hosting company’s “account suspended” page, or Google has flagged it for malware. Then the owner discovers that the freelancer who built it has moved on, nobody knows the hosting login, and the last backup was the one made on launch day two years ago.
Website maintenance is the boring service that prevents that call. This guide explains what a maintenance plan in Pakistan should include, what fair monthly pricing looks like in PKR, how it differs for WordPress, Shopify and custom systems, and how to tell a real plan from a “we will look at it if something breaks” arrangement.
What maintenance is, and what it is not
Maintenance is the routine work that keeps a site secure, fast, backed up and online: updating software, monitoring uptime, patching security holes, keeping backups that actually restore, renewing domains and certificates, and making the small content changes a business needs every month. It is not a redesign, not SEO, and not new features; those are separate projects, though a good maintenance partner will quote them when you need them.
The reason it matters more in Pakistan than most owners expect: most business sites here run on WordPress with ten to twenty plugins, on shared hosting, built by someone who is no longer around. Every one of those plugins publishes security fixes, and every unpatched site is scanned by bots within days. A site nobody maintains does not stay the same; it slowly gets slower, then gets hacked.
What a monthly plan must include
These are the minimum items. If a plan does not list them in writing, it is not a maintenance plan.
- Software updates, staged first. WordPress core, theme and plugin updates, tested on a copy of the site before they touch the live one. Blind auto-updates are how contact forms and checkouts break silently.
- Daily off-site backups with a restore test. A backup on the same server is not a backup. At least one restore should be practised every month, so recovery is a known procedure, not a hope.
- Uptime and security monitoring. Alerts when the site goes down, when the SSL certificate is near expiry, and when files change unexpectedly. Malware scanning and clean-up if the site is compromised.
- Renewal tracking. Domain, hosting, SSL and any paid plugins on a calendar, with reminders sent to you before they expire. The most common “site is down” call in Pakistan is an expired domain.
- Speed and health checks. A monthly look at load time on a real phone, broken links, form deliverability, and Search Console errors.
- Content and small changes. A fixed allowance of hours each month for new photos, price updates, a new team member, a banner for a campaign.
- A monthly report. One page: what was updated, what was fixed, uptime, backup status, what needs attention next.
- A named contact and response time. Someone you can message on WhatsApp, with a written response time for critical issues.
Extra items for stores and custom systems
WooCommerce and Shopify stores need an order-flow test after every update: add to cart, checkout with each payment method, order email, courier booking. A theme update that breaks the JazzCash button costs real money by the time someone notices. Stores also need app audits (unused apps slow the store) and a check that payment gateway credentials and webhooks still work.
Custom systems (portals, CRMs, accounting platforms) need server patching, database backups with point-in-time restores, dependency updates for the framework (Laravel, .NET, Node), log review, and someone who understands the code. This is why we keep the same engineers on the systems we built; see our server maintenance and custom development pages.
What website maintenance costs in Pakistan
Fair 2026 ranges from agencies that do the work above, month to month, in PKR:
- Business website (WordPress, 5 to 15 pages): PKR 10,000 to 25,000 per month. The lower end covers updates, backups and monitoring; the upper end adds speed reviews and a monthly content allowance.
- Online store (WooCommerce or Shopify): PKR 25,000 to 60,000 per month, because of order-flow testing, app and gateway checks, and faster response times.
- Custom system or portal: PKR 40,000 to 150,000 per month depending on server count, users and how critical it is to daily operations.
- Hosting itself: paid separately, in your own account. Roughly PKR 1,500 to 5,000 a month for shared hosting, PKR 8,000 to 30,000 for a managed VPS.
Two comparisons help. A single emergency clean-up of a hacked WordPress site in Pakistan costs PKR 30,000 to 80,000 and a few days offline. And a Starter plan at PKR 10,000 a month is less than most businesses spend on one Facebook boost. Our own plans are PKR 10,000, 25,000 and 60,000 per month; the details are on the website maintenance page.
Annual contract or month to month?
Annual maintenance contracts (AMCs) are common in Pakistan, usually with a discount for paying upfront. They are fine if the provider is proven. For a new provider, insist on month to month for the first three months. If they are not sending reports and answering on WhatsApp by then, you have lost little. A provider confident in their service does not need to lock you in.
Warning signs of a plan that will not save you
- No written list of what is included; “we handle everything” means nothing is defined.
- Backups mentioned without a location or a restore test.
- Hosting, domain or the site itself registered in the provider’s name. If the relationship ends badly, so does your website. We wrote about this in how to choose a web development company in Pakistan.
- Updates applied directly to the live site with no staging copy.
- No response-time commitment, or a response-time promise with no examples of past incidents.
- A price so low that the maths does not work. PKR 2,000 a month cannot pay for anyone to actually look at your site.
Questions to ask before signing
- Where are backups stored, how often, and when did you last restore one for a client?
- Do you test updates on a staging copy first?
- What is your response time for a site that is down, and how do I reach you at 9pm?
- What is in the monthly report?
- What happens to my logins and files if I cancel?
- Do you maintain sites you did not build, and what is the onboarding process?
How Fox Logic runs maintenance
Our oldest maintenance client has been with us since 2018, which is the standard we work to. Onboarding takes a week: access, off-site backups, monitoring and a baseline health report. Updates are staged on a copy of the site before going live, stores get an order-flow test after every update, and every plan includes a monthly report and a WhatsApp contact. We maintain WordPress, WooCommerce, Shopify and the custom systems we build, for businesses in Lahore, Karachi, Islamabad and across Pakistan. Sites built by other vendors start with a stabilisation pass: backups, environments and security first, then the regular rhythm.
If your site has nobody watching it, send us the URL. We reply within one working day with a short audit and the right plan.
