Budget the website as a running cost, not a one-off: hosting and renewals, maintenance, content, advertising, and a yearly reserve toward the next rebuild. One-off budgets leave nothing for upkeep, so the site ages until it fails.

A line in the budget that says website

Autumn is when many small businesses draft next year's numbers. In many of those plans the website appears once, as a single line, and only in a year when it is being rebuilt.

In the other years it has no line at all. Hosting renews on a credit card, and updates happen when somebody remembers.

New pages wait until there is money left over, which there rarely is.

A website treated as a one-off purchase starts ageing the day it launches. The budget is where that begins, and where it can be stopped.

What a website costs each year

The last is the one almost nobody budgets, and the one that decides whether the next rebuild is planned or forced.

Why one-off budgets age a site

A site sits on software that keeps changing underneath it: the content management system, its plugins, the server's version of PHP, the browsers visitors use.

Kept up, those changes arrive in small, cheap steps. Left alone, they pile up until a host retires an old PHP version or a plugin stops working, and the site needs a large repair at short notice.

The content ages the same way. Services change, prices move, staff leave, and a site nobody budgeted time for goes on describing the business as it was at launch.

Eventually the business pays for a rebuild in a hurry, and the cycle starts again: a large spend, years of nothing, another large spend.

Hosting and renewals

List every recurring bill the site creates, with its renewal date: the domain, the hosting, any certificate that is not free, email accounts, paid plugins and outside services.

Some renew every two or three years, which is why they get missed. Put each one in the plan for the year it falls due.

A missed domain renewal is the costly one, because the website and the email stop at the same moment.

Do not assume hosting will cost the same next year. Some hosts have already announced increases this year, after a change in the licensing cost of the control panel software many of them use.

Maintenance as a monthly figure

Maintenance is the line that keeps the others cheap: updates applied monthly, backups restored now and then to prove they work, and someone watching for the site going down.

Budget it as a monthly amount, through a maintenance plan with whoever looks after the site or a set number of hours. Paid when nothing is wrong, it is what keeps the repair bills small.

December brings an example. PHP 7.1, still running on plenty of older hosting plans, stops receiving security fixes on December 1, and sites on it need checking before they move to a newer version.

A worked example

A custom home builder with four site crews had its site built in 2015 for a single fee. Since then, the only website costs in its books were the hosting and the domain.

By this autumn the site ran on an outdated version of PHP, a premium slider plugin had stopped updating when its licence lapsed in 2017, and the services page barely mentioned laneway houses, by now most of the firm's work.

The owner sat down with the firm's web company and its bookkeeper to plan next year.

The website got five lines: hosting and renewals, a monthly maintenance plan, two days of content work a quarter, a spring search campaign, and a rebuild reserve.

The maintenance plan covers the PHP upgrade and replaces the abandoned slider. The first content days go to the laneway house pages.

The reserve is the expected cost of a rebuild divided by the years until it is due, so the next site is paid for before anybody needs it.

Content and advertising

Content is the line most often left at zero, because the owner assumes it will be done in spare time. Spare time is where website content goes to wait.

Put a figure on it: so many days of writing help a quarter, a photography session in the spring, or a set number of hours of a staff member's time, protected like any other job.

Advertising belongs in the plan as a monthly amount with a test period and a review date, not as money spent when business is slow. Ads land on the website, so the two lines depend on each other.

A reserve for the next rebuild

Every site is eventually replaced, because the business, the technology or both move on. The only question is whether the money is there when it happens.

Estimate what the next rebuild might cost, asking whoever built this one if you are unsure, and divide it by the years you expect the current site to last. Set that amount aside each year.

A reserve also changes the conversation. A business with the money set aside can plan the rebuild, write a brief and choose its timing, rather than rushing it the month something breaks.

The counter-case

A small site with a few pages, no shop and no integrations needs a modest budget, and several of these lines will be small. The point is that they exist, not that they are large.

A business planning to rebuild next year should put most of the money into the rebuild and its content, and spend on the current site only what keeps it safe and accurate until then.

And advertising is optional in a way maintenance is not. A business that does not advertise can leave that line empty, as long as the others are filled.

Small site or large, the principle is the same: running costs in every year's plan, and a reserve for the rebuild.

Before the budget meeting

  1. List every website bill from this year.
  2. Add renewals that fall every few years.
  3. Ask your web company for next year's costs.
  4. Budget maintenance as a monthly amount.
  5. Put a figure on content.
  6. Start a reserve for the rebuild.
  7. Review the lines every quarter.

Step six is the one that breaks the cycle. Without it, every rebuild arrives as an emergency, and every emergency is decided in a hurry.

What to ask for when the rebuild comes is covered in writing a brief before you ask for quotes.

Frequently asked questions

What does a website cost each year?

Domain and hosting renewals, maintenance, software licences, content, any advertising, and a reserve toward the next rebuild. Most plans include only the first, if anything.

Why does a one-off budget age a site?

Nothing is set aside for updates or content after launch, so changes pile up until a large repair or a rushed rebuild is needed, and the cycle repeats.

How should maintenance be budgeted?

As a monthly amount, through a maintenance plan or a set number of hours. Paid when nothing is wrong, it keeps the eventual repair bills small.

How much should go into a rebuild reserve?

Estimate the next rebuild's cost, divide it by the years you expect the current site to last, and set that amount aside each year.

Is content really a budget item?

Yes. Left to spare time, content waits indefinitely. Budget days of writing help, a photography session, or protected staff hours, like any other job.

What if we are rebuilding next year?

Put most of the budget into the rebuild and its content, and spend only what keeps the current site safe and accurate until the new one launches.

West Coast Media Solutions Inc. provides web design, web development, hosting, digital marketing, and business consulting to organisations across Canada, drawing on more than twenty-five years in the field.

No website line in next year's budget?

Ask us for next year's running costs in writing. We will list each line, including the reserve.

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