Website maintenance in Spain is the line on the quote nobody shows you on the day they sell you the site. The site is delivered and paid for. Six months later something expires that you didn't know could expire, and the contact form has spent weeks sending emails to nowhere. This guide covers what maintenance really includes, what it costs in Spain using public rates checked on 5 October 2026, and which part you can do yourself without paying anyone.

What website maintenance is (and what it isn't)

Maintaining a website means keeping it working, secure and true. Working: it loads and the form arrives. Secure: software up to date and a valid certificate. True: today's hours, prices and phone number, not the ones from the day it was built.

What it isn't: a redesign every year, or paying for a monthly email that says «all fine». If a contract doesn't tell you which tasks it covers and how often, it's a subscription to a peace of mind you can't check.

Many small-business sites are built on WordPress, so that's what we'll talk about. On another platform the names change, not the tasks.

What proper website maintenance includes

These are the tasks that should appear, by name, in any offer:

Updates: the content management system, plugins, theme and the server's PHP version.
Backups: automatic, stored away from the server itself, and tested. A backup that has never been restored is a hope.
SSL certificate: the padlock in the browser. Almost every host renews it automatically now, but someone has to check that it does.
Domain and hosting: renewed on time, on the right card.
Security: watching for login attempts, malware and changes nobody asked for.
Function: forms that arrive, links that don't error, a site that stays up.
Legal pages and cookies: legal notice (aviso legal), privacy policy and a banner where rejecting is as easy as accepting, as the AEPD (Spain's data protection authority) requires.
Content: holiday hours, new prices, the service you no longer offer.

Look at the last one: almost no maintenance plan includes it, and it's the one your customers see most.

What breaks when nobody does it

Certificates expire sooner and sooner

Browsers and the authorities that issue certificates agreed in 2025 to shorten their lifespan (CA/Browser Forum ballot SC-081v3). Since 15 March 2026 a certificate lasts at most 200 days; from March 2027, 100 days; from March 2029, 47 days. With automatic renewal you notice nothing. Without it, one day your site shows a red «not secure» warning.

Plugins are the way in

Patchstack, a WordPress security company, counted 11,334 new vulnerabilities in the WordPress ecosystem during 2025, 42% more than the year before. 91% were in plugins and only six in WordPress core. And 46% were made public before the developer had released a fix. These are worldwide figures, not Spanish ones, but WordPress is the same here. Every plugin you don't use is an open door you don't need.

PHP expires too

PHP is the language WordPress runs on. Each version has a published end-of-support date on php.net: PHP 8.2 stops receiving security fixes on 31 December 2026. If your host is still on an old version, the problem isn't today: it's a year from now.

What no dashboard flags

The August hours nobody removed in September. The form that sends emails to a former employee. The link to a booking tool you no longer pay for. None of this breaks the site: it leaves it lying, which is worse.

What website maintenance costs in Spain

We checked public rates on 5 October 2026:

Option	Price	What it includes
Professionals on Cronoshare	€50–150/month · €25–50/hour · €600–800/year	Ranges from quotes sent through that platform
Nerade, Básico plan	€40/month (€36/month paid yearly)	WordPress and plugin updates, basic security, backups, error recovery and 1 hour of support a month
Nerade, Pro plan	€75/month (€67/month yearly)	The above, plus more support hours and content uploads

Two readings. Between €40 and €150 a month is normal and it's a fair price for the work behind it, not a rip-off. But that work exists because the site is made of parts (server, PHP, theme, fifteen plugins) that someone has to keep fitting together. Fewer parts, less maintenance.

Subscription or pay per job

Paying by the hour looks cheaper until something breaks on a Friday. A monthly fee makes sense if it covers the tasks above in writing. Before signing, ask for: the task list with its frequency, where backups are stored and when the last one was tested, and how fast they respond if the site goes down. For what the site itself costs, we break it down in how much a website costs in Spain.

The checklist: maintenance you can do yourself

Once, today (30 minutes):

Log in to your host and check the certificate renews automatically.
Check when your domain expires and that auto-renewal points to a valid card.
Delete deactivated plugins. Deactivated isn't the same as harmless.
Send yourself a message through your own contact form.

Every month (30–45 minutes):

Update plugins and theme, after taking a backup.
Open the site on your phone and tap every button: call, WhatsApp, book, directions.
Check hours, prices and services against this month's reality.

Every quarter (one hour):

Restore a backup to a test environment to know it works.
Ask your host which PHP version you're on and when it loses support.
Reread the legal notice, privacy policy and cookie banner: do they still describe what the site does?

And outside the site, your Google profile also falls behind if you don't touch it: we cover that in why your Google Business Profile needs activity.

Doing it yourself: the full sum

Adding up the times in the checklist:

Quick and once: half an hour. Certificate, domain, leftover plugins and the form test. Do it today, whatever site you have and whatever you sign up for: it's yours and it's free.
Slow, a long weekend: what turns up when an update breaks the theme or the host changes PHP version. This is where the nephew or the €40–150 a month quote comes in.
What never ends: 30 to 45 minutes every month, plus an hour every quarter. Between 10 and 13 hours a year that have to be found in the worst month, which is why almost nobody finds them. Maintenance isn't dropped because it's hard; it's dropped because it never warns you.

What we do

At wiweb the site isn't made of plugins you have to update. We host it ourselves, on our own platform, so updates, server, automatically renewed SSL, compressed images and legal pages with the cookie banner are included from the free plan. Every change keeps a copy and can be undone. And content, the task nobody includes, is changed by writing: «say I close at three on Friday». You see it before it goes live.

Free (€0): your site live at yourbusiness.wiweb.me, with every widget and every page. No card, no expiry.
Grow (€9/month): connect your own domain and get a monthly analysis of Google, speed, content and AI, with what to improve. You keep renewing the domain with your registrar.
Pro (€24/month): the analysis is weekly and technical issues fix themselves; any new text waits for your approval. We watch your reviews and rankings.

We don't maintain sites hosted elsewhere, and we don't build online shops. See how it works or create your website free. And the honest part: no plan, ours included, buys a date when Google starts sending you customers. What it does buy is a site that doesn't break while you wait.

FAQ

How much does website maintenance cost per month in Spain?

Based on public rates checked on 5 October 2026, the usual range in Spain is about €40 to €150 a month for a business site, or €25 to €50 an hour if you pay per job. Look at which tasks are included, not just the price.

Is website maintenance mandatory?

No. What is mandatory is that the site complies with the law (legal notice, privacy, cookies). The rest you can do yourself with the checklist above; the hard part is keeping it up.

What happens if I don't update WordPress?

Nothing visible at first. The risk is in plugins: thousands of new vulnerabilities appeared in 2025, almost half with no fix available when they went public.

Website maintenance in Spain: what it includes, what it costs and what breaks when nobody does it