Website maintenance is the ongoing work that keeps a live website healthy after launch: software updates, security monitoring, backups, content changes and SEO upkeep. tPanel provides website hosting and maintenance for WordPress and Shopify websites across Australia on a flat monthly plan from A$500 per month — with the pricing, inclusions and exclusions published on this page.
Most website problems — hacks, breakage after updates, silent drops out of Google — happen to sites nobody is looking after. A maintenance plan exists so someone is.
What Does tPanel's Website Maintenance Plan Include?
The monthly plan covers six areas of ongoing work:
Monthly SEO Audit and Report
A monthly site-wide SEO check — page titles and meta descriptions, Google indexing status, broken links, image alt text, page speed and mobile usability — delivered as a written report with a prioritised list of recommended actions.
Content Updates
Up to 4 content update requests per month: text changes, image and banner swaps, announcements, and publishing or unpublishing content within existing page layouts. You supply the words and images; tPanel puts them live.
Site Operations and Monitoring
Regular checks of site availability and the enquiry or checkout flow, management of theme, plugin and app updates, code backups, and investigation of anything behaving strangely in the site's admin.
Domain and SSL Management
Domain renewals handled on your behalf with advance reminders, and SSL certificates installed and renewed where an independent certificate is needed. Third-party fees are passed through at cost — no markup.
Emergency Response
General issues answered within one business day. Faults that stop customers ordering or enquiring are treated as urgent, with a 4-hour response during business hours.
Priority Development Access
When you need a new page, feature or redesign, maintenance clients get priority scheduling — assessment within 2 business days — and a 10% discount on the development work.
How Much Does Website Maintenance Cost in Australia?
tPanel's website maintenance plan is A$500 per month (ex GST) for a standard WordPress or Shopify business website. That flat fee covers everything in the section above. There are no per-task invoices for routine work and no surprise hourly bills for a banner change.
- Standard business website (WordPress or Shopify): from A$500/month ex GST
- Billing: monthly in advance, minimum term one month
- Cancellation: 30 days written notice, either party — no lock-in contract
- Third-party costs: domain, SSL, Shopify subscription and app fees are paid at cost, passed through with receipts
- Larger scope: multiple sites, custom systems or server hosting managed by tPanel are quoted based on the actual scope
For comparison, tPanel's maintenance for full custom software systems is a fixed A$1,000 per month — website maintenance is priced lower because the platforms (WordPress, Shopify) carry more of the operational load. Both follow the same principle: a flat monthly fee, not per-seat pricing and not a percentage of the build cost. Fixed means fixed for the scope being maintained — the fee never creeps up with more users, more traffic or the passage of time. It only changes when the scope itself grows: if the website later gains a mobile app that also needs looking after, the monthly fee is adjusted to cover the added scope, agreed with you before it changes.
What Is Not Included — and Why
A maintenance plan stays affordable by having clear edges. The following are quoted separately rather than absorbed into the monthly fee:
- New pages, new features and structural redesigns — this is development work, and maintenance clients get priority scheduling and a 10% discount on it
- Bulk product entry and catalogue uploads
- Content production — photography, image editing and copywriting (you provide the material; tPanel publishes it)
- Deep SEO execution — keyword strategy, content marketing, link building and ad campaigns (the monthly audit tells you what is worth doing; execution is scoped separately)
- Faults caused by the platform itself or by third-party app providers — tPanel follows these up but cannot guarantee third-party fixes
- Repairing damage from code changes made by others — fixable, billed by time
Publishing these boundaries up front means no dispute later about what A$500 was supposed to cover.
Who Needs a Website Maintenance Plan?
Not every website needs one. A brochure site that never changes and takes no orders can survive on occasional attention. A maintenance plan makes sense when:
- The website takes orders or generates the enquiries the business runs on
- Content changes are needed regularly but there is no in-house web person
- The site has been hacked before, or has broken after an update before
- Google rankings matter and nobody is watching indexing, speed or broken links
- Domain or SSL renewals have been missed before — or nobody is sure who controls them
- The original developer is gone and the site is effectively unowned
If two or more apply, an unmaintained website is already costing more than a maintained one — the cost is just invisible until something breaks.
Where Does the Hosting Fit In?
Hosting is where the website physically runs, and it works differently for the two platforms tPanel maintains. Shopify stores are hosted by Shopify itself — hosting is part of the Shopify subscription, and tPanel manages the store, domain and DNS around it. WordPress sites need separate hosting, which tPanel arranges and manages as part of the plan, sized to the site's actual traffic.
In both cases the point is the same: one accountable party. When something goes wrong, you contact tPanel — not a hosting company, a domain registrar and a developer who each point at the other two.
Maintenance Is Also How Websites Get Better
The monthly SEO audit turns maintenance from an insurance policy into an improvement loop: each month surfaces a short list of worthwhile fixes — a slow page, a missing meta description, a broken link, content worth expanding — and the content-update allowance means small fixes actually get done instead of joining a backlog.
When an audit surfaces something bigger — a new service page worth building, an integration that would remove manual work — that becomes scoped development, done by the same team that already knows your site. tPanel builds WordPress websites, Shopify stores, system integrations and custom business systems, so the website can grow into whatever the business needs next.
FAQ
How much does website maintenance cost in Australia?
tPanel's website maintenance plan is A$500 per month (ex GST) for a standard WordPress or Shopify business website. It includes a monthly SEO audit and report, up to 4 content update requests per month, site monitoring, update management, backups, and domain and SSL management. Larger sites or additional systems are quoted based on scope.
Is there a lock-in contract for website maintenance?
No. tPanel's maintenance plan is billed monthly in advance with a minimum term of one month. Either party can end the arrangement with 30 days written notice.
What counts as a content update?
A content update is a change within the site's existing structure — editing text, swapping images or banners, updating announcements, or publishing content into existing page layouts. New pages, new features, structural redesigns and custom code changes are development work and are quoted separately, with maintenance clients receiving priority scheduling and a 10% discount.
How fast does tPanel respond to website problems?
General issues are responded to within one business day. Urgent faults that affect ordering or checkout are responded to within 4 hours during business hours.
Can tPanel maintain a website built by someone else?
Usually yes. tPanel first runs a site review covering code quality, plugin or app health, hosting, performance and security, then confirms the monthly plan and scope before taking the site on.
Does the maintenance plan include SEO work?
The plan includes a monthly baseline SEO audit — titles and meta descriptions, indexing status, broken links, image alt text, page speed and mobile usability — delivered as a written report with recommended actions. Deep SEO execution such as keyword strategy, content marketing, link building or ad campaigns is quoted separately.
Put Your Website in Maintained Hands
Tell tPanel about your site — platform, what it does for the business, and what worries you — and get a clear answer on scope and the monthly fee.