Website maintenance for South Africa: annual support that keeps your site safe
Website maintenance for South African businesses running WordPress: Owl Media’s Annual Website Support plan costs R2,250 excl. VAT per year — monthly backups stored offline, monthly WordPress core, plugin and theme updates, and monthly security scans with fixes, watched by our own Owl Site Guardian monitoring. No ticket queue, no call centre.
Since 2014 · 4.5★ on Google · Direct access to the team · Ons praat ook Afrikaans
Who this is for
A WordPress site is not a set-and-forget asset. Plugins fall behind, PHP versions change, and out-of-date sites are the ones that get hacked — usually at the worst possible moment. If your site was built years ago and nobody is watching it, or you’re paying for “hosting with support” that never actually answers, Annual Website Support fixes that.
Owl Media is a web design and digital marketing studio serving Centurion, Pretoria, Midrand and Johannesburg since 2014. We look after the sites we build — and sites other people built, too.
What Annual Website Support covers
One plan, one honest price — R2,250 excl. VAT per year:
- Monthly backups, stored offline — away from the server, so a hacked or crashed site can always be restored.
- Monthly updates of the WordPress core, plugins and theme — the single most important thing in keeping a WordPress site secure — applied carefully, not auto-updates that quietly break your layout.
- Monthly security scans, with fixes or a restore from backup when something is found.
- Owl Site Guardian monitoring, our own monitoring system, so we usually know your site is down or misbehaving before you do.
What it doesn’t cover: content updates and changes on the website. Those are billed at our regular hourly rate of R750 — and small changes are often done the same day you ask. Full pricing for everything we do is on the pricing page.
How it works
- You message us. WhatsApp, email, or the form below.
- A 15-minute call and a quick health check of your current site.
- A fixed quote within 2 working days — including anything that needs fixing before support starts.
- We take over quietly. Updates, monitoring and backups start immediately.
- You WhatsApp changes as you need them. We confirm when they’re live.
What clients say about our turnaround
“I would recommend OWL Media for all the digital aspects of your business. Their turn around time on website updates are fantastic – almost always on the same day. They have great knowledge on both Google and Meta advertising, have proper tracking in place and always conduct business in a professional and friendly manner.” — Janette Engelbrecht, Google review
Why Owl Media, honestly
- Versus your hosting company’s “support”: hosts keep the server on; nobody there is updating your plugins, watching your forms or fixing your layout. Annual Website Support covers the site itself.
- Versus a freelancer: we’re a team with our own monitoring system, so cover doesn’t disappear when one person goes on leave.
- Versus a big agency retainer: you pay for maintenance, not meetings. Small changes go straight to the person who makes them.
And because the same team does web design and SEO, maintenance never undoes your rankings — and improvements can happen in the same visit.
Frequently asked questions
How much does website maintenance cost in South Africa? Plans range widely in the market, from a few hundred Rand a month for updates-only to several thousand for full support. Owl Media’s Annual Website Support is R2,250 excl. VAT per year — monthly backups, WordPress updates, security scans and Owl Site Guardian monitoring. Content changes are billed separately at R750 per hour.
Do you maintain websites you didn’t build? Yes. We start with a health check — WordPress version, plugins, backups, security state — and tell you honestly what shape the site is in. If something needs fixing before a plan makes sense, we quote that first, with no obligation.
What happens if my website gets hacked? We restore from backup and fix what the security scan finds — that’s part of the plan. Because Owl Site Guardian monitors your site continuously and backups are stored offline every month, there’s always a clean version to return to. An extensive clean-up beyond the plan’s scope is quoted at R750 per hour before any work starts.
How fast do you make small changes? Often the same day — our clients say so publicly in their Google reviews. Small means things like text edits, price updates, new images or a staff change. Bigger jobs, like a new page or feature, get a quick fixed quote first.
My site works fine. Do I really need maintenance? A working site and a safe site aren’t the same thing. Outdated WordPress plugins are the most common way small-business sites get hacked, and an unmonitored site can be down for days before anyone notices. Maintenance is cheaper than one rebuild after an incident — that’s the honest maths.
What’s not included in Annual Website Support? Content updates and changes — text edits, new photos, new pages, redesigns, e-commerce changes and marketing work. Those are billed at R750 per hour (small changes are usually quick), and we always tell you before anything becomes billable.
Can I cancel? The support plan runs per year, and our monthly services are month-to-month with 30 days’ notice. There’s no long-term lock-in designed to trap you; the plan should earn its keep.
Stop worrying about your website
WhatsApp us or get a quote — Name, Email, Phone, Service, Message. We reply within one working day. No spam, ever.
Based in Centurion, working across Pretoria, Midrand and Johannesburg North — see our pricing and contact details.