As of 2026, a website annual maintenance contract in India runs from about ₹6,000 a year for a small brochure site to ₹60,000 or more for a busy e-commerce store. The price gap is not the real problem. The real problem is that two AMCs at the same price can mean completely different things: one includes monthly updates, backups, uptime monitoring and four hours of changes; the other means someone answers the phone when the site is down.
This guide sets out what an AMC should actually contain, what is fairly excluded, and the three or four clauses worth reading before you sign.
What a website AMC costs in India
Typical annual ranges before GST, for a site that is already working:
- Static or small WordPress site (5–10 pages): ₹6,000–15,000 a year. Updates, backups, small text and image changes.
- Business site with forms, blog and integrations: ₹15,000–30,000 a year, usually with a few hours of change work each month.
- E-commerce store: ₹30,000–90,000 a year. More plugins, payment and shipping integrations, and downtime that costs money by the hour.
- Custom application: priced as a retainer rather than an AMC, often 15–20% of the original build cost per year.
Hosting, domain renewal, SSL and paid plugin licences are usually charged separately. If a quote looks unusually cheap, check whether it includes those, or whether it is simply an on-call arrangement with no scheduled work at all. Our website maintenance cost guide breaks the components down further.
What a good AMC includes
Scheduled technical work
- Core, theme and plugin updates on a stated schedule — monthly at minimum, with a staging check before applying them to a live store.
- Backups taken automatically, stored off the hosting server, with a stated retention period. A backup sitting on the same server that failed is not a backup.
- Uptime monitoring with an alert to the agency, not only to you.
- Security scanning and malware cleanup if the site is infected. Prevention is covered in our guide on fixing and preventing a hacked WordPress site.
- SSL renewal and a check that certificates auto-renew before they expire.
- A quarterly speed check against Core Web Vitals, since plugins and new images degrade performance over time.
Content and change work
Most disputes are about this, so it must be quantified. A workable AMC states a number of hours or a number of change requests per month — for example, four hours or ten small changes — and defines what a small change is: text edits, image swaps, adding a blog post, updating prices or a team member. Anything bigger is quoted separately, and that is reasonable.
Response times
Put two numbers in the contract. A response time for a site that is down (same day, ideally within a few hours in business hours) and a response time for routine requests (two to three working days). An AMC without a response commitment is a promise to eventually reply.
What is fairly excluded — and what is not
Fair exclusions: new pages and new features, redesigns, content writing, photography, paid plugin and theme licences, hosting and domain fees, third-party API charges, and damage caused by someone else editing the site.
Not fair: charging you to fix a bug in work the same agency built and delivered this year, refusing to hand over backups, or treating a plugin update that broke the site as a billable incident. The line is simple — new work is chargeable, keeping what you paid for in working order is the AMC.
Clauses to check before you sign
- Access and ownership. You should hold the domain registrar account, hosting account and admin logins in your own name, with the agency added as a user. If the agency holds everything, an AMC dispute becomes a hostage situation. Our guide on taking back your website from an agency exists because this happens often.
- Backup handover. Specify that a full backup is provided to you on request, in a usable format, within a stated number of days.
- Exit terms. What happens at the end of the term: what is handed over, what notice is required, and whether unused change hours lapse.
- Scope of “unlimited”. Unlimited support almost always means unlimited emails, not unlimited work. If a quote says unlimited changes, get the definition of a change in writing.
- Reporting. A short monthly or quarterly report — updates applied, backups taken, uptime, changes done. Without it you cannot tell a working AMC from a dormant one, which is the single most common complaint we hear.
Do you actually need an AMC?
If your site is static HTML with no forms and no payments, an AMC is often unnecessary; keep hosting, renew the domain and pay for changes as they come. If you run WordPress, WooCommerce or any site with logins and payments, you need maintenance whether or not you buy it as a contract — the cost of a hacked or broken store far exceeds a year of AMC. A site that sells is closer to a vehicle than to a poster: it needs servicing.
A practical middle path for small businesses is a light AMC covering updates, backups, monitoring and a couple of hours of changes, with larger work quoted separately as needed. That usually lands between ₹10,000 and ₹20,000 a year and keeps the site from decaying quietly.
The short version
- As of 2026, expect ₹6,000–15,000 a year for a small site, ₹15,000–30,000 for a business site and ₹30,000–90,000 for e-commerce, before GST.
- Insist on scheduled updates, off-server backups, uptime monitoring, a defined number of change hours and two response-time commitments.
- Hold your own domain, hosting and admin accounts, and get backup handover and exit terms in writing.
- Ask for a short monthly report — it is the only proof the AMC is being worked rather than billed.
Frequently Asked Questions
How much does a website AMC cost in India?
As of 2026, a small brochure site costs about ₹6,000–15,000 a year, a business site with forms and a blog ₹15,000–30,000, and an e-commerce store ₹30,000–90,000, all before GST. Hosting, domain renewal and paid plugin licences are normally billed separately, so confirm whether a low quote includes them or is simply an on-call arrangement with no scheduled work.
What should be included in a website maintenance contract?
At minimum: core, theme and plugin updates on a stated schedule, automated backups stored off the hosting server, uptime monitoring with alerts, SSL renewal, security scanning, a defined number of change hours or requests per month, and response-time commitments for downtime and for routine requests. A short monthly report showing what was done is what separates an active AMC from a dormant one.
Is a website AMC necessary for a small business?
If your site is static HTML with no forms or payments, usually not — renew hosting and the domain and pay for changes as they arise. If you run WordPress, WooCommerce or anything with logins or payments, maintenance is necessary whether or not you buy it as a contract, because outdated plugins are the most common cause of hacked Indian business websites.
What does “unlimited support” mean in a website AMC?
In practice it almost always means unlimited emails or tickets, not unlimited work. Agencies that offer it define a change narrowly, such as text edits and image swaps, and quote separately for anything structural. Ask for that definition in writing before signing, along with the monthly hours it corresponds to.
Who should own the hosting and domain accounts under an AMC?
You should, in your own company name, with the agency added as a user or administrator. This is the single most important clause in the contract: if the agency owns the registrar and hosting accounts, any dispute leaves you without access to your own website, and recovering it can take weeks.
