Webmaster Forum / General / Web Design / July 2008

There is no "norm".  It all depends on the site, how well it was
written, how big and how often changes are required, as well as what
administrative tasks are expected to be performed (i.e. backups,
updating software, etc.).

Some big sites require very little maintenance, while some small sites
require lots of it.

What did it cost?  How long do you expect to keep it?
How much of a total cost of ownership would you be prepared to pay for
"up-front" and "ongoing" costs?

To some extent, thhe balance of these is always a choice. Developers
need to make a profit, site operators need to buy their work at a
reasonable rate, but "one fixed price" vs. "pay for use" is a flexible
business decision either side can negotiate to best suit themselves.

How much "rework" do you plan to do to the site (ie. changes to what
you wanted), the rest being bug-fix work (it never did what we asked
for in the first place)?

What's "bug fix", what's "rework changes covered by the maintenance
contract" and when does it become "New and chargeable development
work"?

For a site that's supposed to work without changes for up to 5 years
(i.e. life of underlying technologies), I wouldn't want to pay much of
the total cost in ongoing maintenance charges, assuming I hadn't
already offered to pay that in order to drive the initial dev costs
down (i.e. >=67% of the total being the initial).

For a site that depends on "looking fresh" and is planning on
makeovers every six months or fewer, I wouldn't be surprised if the
total maintenance costs (again over 5 years) are three or four times
the initial dev costs (i.e. <= 20 - 25% of the total beign the
initial).