Let’s break down a typical small business web bill. You’re probably paying for some or all of these separately:
- Hosting: €15-30/month
- Domain name: €15-25/year
- SSL certificate: €30-50/year (this is actually free)
- Website maintenance: €99-199/month
- SEO: €200-500/month
- Email hosting: €5-15/month
- Any text change or image update: €50-75 each time
Add it up. You’re probably spending €400-700 a month for a website that… does what exactly?
What each line item actually costs (wholesale)
Here’s what your agency is paying for these services:
- Hosting: A good managed server costs €5-15/month per site. Even premium hosting rarely exceeds €20.
- Domain: €10-12/year at any registrar. That’s it.
- SSL: Let’s Encrypt provides this for free. Literally free. If someone charges you for SSL in 2026, they’re hoping you don’t Google it.
- Email: Google Workspace or equivalent is about €6/user/month. Nothing to mark up.
The markup on these basics is where many agencies make their profit. Not on skill, not on results. On reselling commodity services.
What “maintenance” should actually mean
If you’re paying €100-200/month for website maintenance, you should be getting:
- WordPress core, theme, and plugin updates (weekly)
- Daily automated backups with easy restore
- Security monitoring and malware scanning
- Performance monitoring (is the site fast? is anything broken?)
- Small content updates included (text changes, new images, etc.)
- Uptime monitoring with alerts
What many agencies actually do for your “maintenance” fee: run an automated update once a month, if that. The rest is profit.
The real question: what are you getting for your money?
The markup isn’t the problem. Agencies need to make money. The problem is when you’re paying €500-700/month total and getting:
- Zero new enquiries from Google
- A website that looks the same as it did 2 years ago
- An invoice every time you need something small changed
- Reports you don’t understand
- No clear explanation of what they’re actually doing
That’s not a service. That’s a subscription to nothing.
What it should look like instead
One monthly fee. Everything included: hosting, domain, SSL, maintenance, updates, security, SEO, content changes. No surprises. No extras. And you should be able to see whether it’s working by one metric: are new clients finding you through your website?
If the answer is no after 6 months, something needs to change. Not your budget. Your provider.
Run a free audit on your site to see where you actually stand.