Quick answer
Website maintenance in Dubai usually costs from around AED 300 a month for a small brochure site to AED 2,000 – 6,000 a month for e-commerce and business-critical sites, with custom platforms on contractual SLAs going higher. A common rule of thumb for budgeting: plan for roughly 10 – 15% of the site's build cost each year.
The range is wide because “maintenance” means very different things from one quote to the next. One agency's AED 500 plan is a plugin update once a month. Another's is daily backups, uptime monitoring, form testing and a few hours of changes. On paper, both are called maintenance.
This guide explains what you should actually get each month, what a fair price looks like for different kinds of B2B websites, what drives the cost up or down, and what to check before you sign a retainer. It's written for B2B companies whose website mostly does one job: bringing in inquiries.
What you should actually get each month
A proper maintenance plan isn't one task. It's a routine of small jobs that keep the site safe, working and up to date. Here's what a month should look like:
Every day (automated)
- Off-site backups of files and database
- Uptime monitoring, with alerts if the site goes down
- Malware and security scanning
Every week
- Platform, theme and plugin updates, tested before they go live
- A test submission of every inquiry form to confirm leads still arrive
- A check of failed logins and security alerts
Every month
- Page speed and mobile performance check
- Broken link and error scan
- Content changes from your hours allowance: new team members, products, banners, a news post
- A test restore of a backup, at least every few months
- A short report: what was updated, uptime, issues found and fixed, hours used
Ongoing
- SSL certificate and domain renewals tracked so nothing expires by surprise
- Small bug fixes when something breaks
The report matters more than it seems. It's how you know you're paying for work and not just an invoice. If a maintenance provider can't show you what they did last month, assume they did very little.
What maintenance is not: redesigns, new pages or features, SEO campaigns and content writing. Those are separate projects. A good contract draws that line clearly so your monthly fee stays predictable.
How much website maintenance costs in Dubai
There's no fixed market rate, but published Dubai pricing guides cluster around similar ranges. Here's how they map to the kinds of websites B2B companies actually run:
| Type of website | Typical monthly cost (AED) | What it should cover |
|---|---|---|
| Small company profile site (5–10 pages, rarely changes) | 300 – 900 | Updates, backups, uptime monitoring, form checks, minor fixes |
| B2B lead-generation or corporate site (active content, several forms, bilingual) | 900 – 2,500 | All of the above plus security hardening, monthly report, a few hours of content changes |
| Large industrial or multi-division site (dozens of product and service pages, group companies) | 1,500 – 3,500 | More content hours, performance work on heavy pages, staging-tested updates |
| E-commerce, portals or sites with integrations (CRM, ERP, payments) | 2,000 – 6,000+ | Faster response times, checkout or integration monitoring, more support hours |
| Custom platforms on a contractual SLA | 4,000 – 6,000+ | Guaranteed response and recovery times, dedicated team, compliance reporting |
Sources: ranges based on Element8 (July 2026) and Kolonell (September 2026). Agency-published ranges, excluding VAT.
Two patterns hold across the market. Annual retainers usually cost less per month than month-to-month plans. And agencies often charge less to maintain a site they built themselves, because they already know the code.
If you're comparing with the build budget: in a worked example from one 2026 agency pricing guide, a B2B site in Dubai costs AED 22,000 to build and around AED 14,000 to maintain in its first year. That's far above the 10–15% rule of thumb, which shows how much the scope of “maintenance” varies between providers. Always check what a quote actually bundles.
At TakesTwice, we don't sell fixed packages. Every maintenance plan is scoped to the site: how it's built, how often it changes, and how fast you need us to respond. We start with a quick review of your site and send a monthly price with the inclusions written out. Ask for a maintenance quote.
What pushes the price up or down
Two sites with the same number of pages can cost very different amounts to maintain. These are the factors that matter most:
- How the site was built. A clean build with a handful of plugins is cheap to maintain. A WordPress site stacked with page builders, sliders and 40 plugins needs more testing every time something updates, and more fixing when updates clash.
- How often it changes. A company profile that changes twice a year needs very few hours. A site with new products, news, careers and campaign pages every month needs a bigger content allowance.
- Size and structure. Large industrial sites with dozens of products, divisions and group companies take longer to check, update and keep consistent.
- Languages. Every change on a bilingual Arabic and English site is really two changes, and right-to-left layouts need their own testing.
- Integrations. CRMs, ERPs, payment gateways and WhatsApp connections can each break silently and need watching.
- Response time. “We'll fix it within two business days” is cheap. “Within one hour, around the clock” is not. Pay for the response time your business actually needs.
- Who built it. Taking over someone else's site usually starts with a paid audit, and sometimes a clean-up, before regular maintenance can begin.
What happens when nobody maintains the site
For a B2B company, the danger isn't a dramatic crash. It's slow, quiet damage nobody notices until it has cost real money.
- Inquiries stop arriving. A hosting or email change breaks the contact form, and leads disappear for weeks before anyone asks why the phone has gone quiet. For a company where one inquiry can be a six-figure contract, this is the most expensive failure of all.
- The site gets hacked. Outdated plugins are the most common way in. The result is spam pages, redirects to scam sites, Google warnings in front of your homepage, and an emergency clean-up bill.
- Credibility erodes. Expired SSL certificates trigger “Not secure” warnings. Broken images, dead links and a 2021 copyright line make a serious company look closed.
- Rankings slip. Slow pages and broken links gradually push you down in search results you worked to earn.
- The rebuild bill arrives. A site left alone for two or three years often reaches a point where fixing it costs more than rebuilding it, turning a small monthly cost you skipped into a full project budget.
UAE businesses that collect personal data through forms also have obligations under the UAE's data protection law (Federal Decree-Law No. 45 of 2021). A breached site is a legal problem as well as a technical one.
In-house, freelancer or agency?
| Option | Works well when | Watch out for |
|---|---|---|
| In-house developer | Your website is your product and changes daily | A full UAE salary package costs more per year than almost any retainer, and one person can't cover security, design and development, or be on call 24/7 |
| Freelancer | A small site with occasional changes and a tight budget | Availability, holidays, and what happens if they disappear with your logins |
| Agency retainer | Your site brings in leads and needs reliable, documented care | Vague contracts. Make sure inclusions, hours and response times are written down |
For most B2B companies in Dubai, a retainer sized to actual needs is the practical choice. Review it every year: if you're constantly running over your hours, move up a tier; if you're barely using them, move down.
Case study: maintaining Petrofix
Petrofix supplies oil and gas products and engineering services across the UAE and the wider Middle East, with group companies in the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Bahrain, Kuwait and Oman. Its website is a large WordPress site: product ranges, repair and refurbishment services, specialised divisions, principals and partners, and every group company each have their own sections.
A site like this is exactly where maintenance pays for itself:
- It's big. Dozens of products, services and divisions mean dozens of pages that need to stay accurate as the business changes.
- It's how buyers check the company. Operators, EPC contractors and procurement teams look up a supplier before they invite it to bid. A broken page or a dead contact form costs credibility at exactly the wrong moment.
- It runs on WordPress with plugins. Every core, theme and plugin update has to be applied and tested so nothing on the site breaks.
What we handle for Petrofix:
- New pages as the business grows. When Petrofix adds services, products or divisions, we build the pages so the site keeps up with what the company actually offers.
- Photos and content updates. The team sends us new photos and copy, and we put them live, formatted to match the rest of the site.
- Fixing hosting problems. When the site ran into hosting issues, we diagnosed and fixed them so it stayed online and reliable.
None of this is glamorous, and that's the point. Petrofix's team focuses on running the business and sends us what needs changing. The site stays current without anyone in-house having to touch WordPress.
What to check before you sign a maintenance contract
Maintenance contracts in Dubai range from detailed service agreements to a single line on an invoice. These questions show the difference quickly:
- What exactly is included, and what costs extra? Get the list of tasks and the line between maintenance and new work in writing.
- How many support hours do I get, and what happens to unused ones? Some agencies roll them over, most don't.
- What are the response times, and are they in the contract? “Fast support” in a sales call isn't a commitment.
- Where are backups stored, and when did you last test a restore? Backups should be off the server, and restores should be tested.
- Are updates tested before they go live? Updating straight on the live site is how a form or page breaks on a Thursday evening.
- What will the monthly report show? Updates applied, uptime, issues found, hours used.
- Who owns the logins? Your domain, hosting and website admin accounts must be in your company's name. If the relationship ends, you keep everything.
- What's the notice period? A fair contract lets you leave with reasonable notice and a clean handover.
FAQ
How much does website maintenance cost per month in Dubai?
From around AED 300 a month for a small company profile site to AED 2,000–6,000 or more for e-commerce, integrated or business-critical sites. Most B2B lead-generation sites fall between AED 900 and 2,500.
Does a small B2B website really need maintenance?
Yes. Small sites are hacked through the same outdated plugins as large ones, and a broken inquiry form loses leads regardless of company size. A basic plan costs far less than one emergency clean-up.
Is hosting included in maintenance?
Sometimes. Many agencies bundle hosting, others bill it separately. Ask, because it changes how two quotes compare.
Can you maintain a website someone else built?
Usually, yes. Expect a short paid audit first to check the code, plugins and hosting. If the site has problems, they're typically fixed once before regular maintenance starts.
Do I lose my website if I stop paying for maintenance?
You shouldn't. As long as your domain, hosting and admin accounts are in your company's name, you keep everything. Check this before signing any contract.
For what it costs to build a site in the first place, see our B2B website pricing guide for Dubai.
Keep your website working for you
TakesTwice maintains B2B websites across the UAE, including large industrial sites like Petrofix. We handle the updates, backups, monitoring and changes, and send you a clear report every month. If your site hasn't been looked after in a while, talk to us about a health check.
Sources: Element8: Website maintenance cost in Dubai; Kolonell: Website pricing guide for a Dubai B2B in 2026.