Hosting and care calculator
What will hosting and maintenance cost?
Choose a hosting plan and a care plan, set how many websites and mailboxes you have, and add migration or optimisation work.
- R850/hourOne rate for every service
- 40% depositto start the work
- Up to 12 monthsto pay larger projects
Add your company detailsThey appear on the quote, its PDF and any link you share.
These details stay in your browser. They're only sent to us if you request a formal quotation.
Next step
Turn this into a formal quotation.
Send us your details and we'll review this configuration, check anything that needs a closer look, and send a formal quotation with timelines and terms. The quote you've built here is attached automatically.
- Your detailsSo we know who to send it to.
- Your projectA few questions so the quotation fits.
Your request is with us.
We'll review your configuration and email you a formal quotation. Your reference is .
Keep a copy of what you built:
Price a single service
Price another service.
Each one uses the same R850/hour rate and the same payment terms, so you can price a single service or combine several in the full agency calculator.
Website
A business website on WordPress or a custom CMS, from a few pages to a large content site.
Open calculator
E-commerce
An online store on WooCommerce or Shopify, with payments, shipping and the integrations your operations depend on.
Open calculator
Web apps and integrations
Customer portals, internal systems, dashboards, automation and API integrations, built in Laravel or PHP.
Open calculator
Mobile app
Cross-platform iOS and Android apps, with the backend and admin tools behind them.
Open calculator
Content and copywriting
Website copy, articles, product descriptions and case studies written to rank and convert.
Open calculator
SEO
Technical, on-site and local SEO with content that earns rankings, reported monthly.
Open calculator
Organic social
Planned, designed and published social content with community management and monthly reporting.
Open calculator
Paid media
Google, Meta, LinkedIn and TikTok campaigns: tracking, ad creation and optimisation, with your ad spend shown separately.
Open calculator
Hosting and care
Managed hosting, updates, backups, security and a support team for one website or a whole portfolio.
You're here
Hosting and care, together or separately
Hosting keeps your site online: the server, SSL certificate, backups and monitoring. Care keeps it healthy: software updates, security patches, content changes and someone to call when something breaks.
Both are charged per website, so a business running several sites can see the full monthly cost in one quote.
Moving to us
Migration is priced per site. It covers files, database, DNS, SSL and a test before switchover, so there’s no downtime. Email migration moves existing mailboxes and their history.
What every site we look after includes
These items are in every quote, whatever you choose further down, because the work can’t be done properly without them. Together they come to 3 hours at R850 an hour.
- Onboarding and site health audit. Access, documentation, plugin and security review. Charged per site. (2 h)
- Backup and monitoring setup. Off-site backups, uptime and SSL monitoring. Charged per site. (1 h)
Basic, Standard and Premium compared
Hosting and care are separate choices, each with three levels, charged per website.
Website hosting
| Level | What you get | Hours | Price |
|---|---|---|---|
| Basic: Shared hosting | Fine for brochure sites with modest traffic. SSD shared server; Free SSL certificate; Daily backups. | — | R420 per site/month |
| Standard: Dedicated hosting slot | Resources reserved for your site only. This is what most businesses need. Reserved CPU and memory; Staging site; Daily off-site backups; Uptime monitoring. | — | R1,695 per site/month |
| Premium: Managed cloud server | For high-traffic, campaign-heavy or e-commerce sites. Dedicated cloud server; CDN and web application firewall; Hourly backups; Priority incident response. | — | R3,950 per site/month |
Maintenance and support plan
| Level | What you get | Hours | Price |
|---|---|---|---|
| Basic: Essential care | Updates and security. Content changes are billed when you need them. Core, plugin and theme updates; Security patching; Monthly backup check. | 1.5 h | R1,275 per site/month |
| Standard: Growth care | Updates plus regular content changes and reporting. Everything in Essential; About 2 hours of content updates; Uptime and speed monitoring; Monthly report. | 4 h | R3,400 per site/month |
| Premium: Priority care | A monthly time bank for continuous improvement. Everything in Growth; Same-day response; Small feature improvements; Quarterly review meeting. | 10 h | R8,500 per site/month |
How the work runs
- Onboarding. We get access, document the setup and audit the site’s health and security.
- Migration, if needed. Files, database, DNS, SSL and email move across, tested before switchover.
- Monitoring. Backups, uptime and SSL monitoring start immediately.
- Monthly care. Updates, patches and content changes at your plan’s level, with a report.
- Ongoing review. We recommend changes to your plan as traffic and needs change.
Ways to manage the budget
- Match hosting to traffic. Shared hosting is fine for a brochure site; e-commerce needs more.
- Choose Essential care if your team edits content. You only pay for updates and security.
- Combine several sites. One portfolio on one plan is simpler to manage and report on.
- Clean up email. Forwarders often replace mailboxes nobody reads.
Before you request a quote
Have these ready and the formal quotation will be faster and more accurate:
- Your website address and current hosting provider
- Admin access to the website, hosting and domain
- How many mailboxes you have, and how much storage they use
- Any recent problems such as downtime, hacks or slow pages
- Your domain names and when they renew
- Who on your team should receive reports and alerts
Hosting and care questions
A few useful answers before you decide.
What's included when we move to you?
An onboarding and site health audit, and backup and monitoring setup. That’s 3 hours per site, once-off.
Can I have care without your hosting?
Yes. Care plans work on any host we can access securely. Choose our hosting only if you want us to host as well.
What's the difference between the hosting plans?
Shared hosting (R420 a month) suits brochure sites with modest traffic. A dedicated hosting slot (R1,695) reserves resources for your site and adds a staging site and uptime monitoring. A managed cloud server (R3,950) adds a CDN, firewall and hourly backups for high-traffic and e-commerce sites.
What's the difference between the care plans?
Essential care (1.5 hours a month per site) covers updates, security patches and backup checks. Growth care (4 hours) adds about two hours of content updates, monitoring and a monthly report. Priority care (10 hours) adds same-day response, small improvements and a quarterly review.
What happens to unused care hours?
Care hours are reserved each month and don’t roll over. If you regularly need more, the extra support hours slider reserves additional time at the same rate.
Is migration from my current host included?
Add migration and it’s done per site: files, database, DNS and SSL, with a test before switchover so there’s no downtime. Email migration moves existing mailboxes and their history.
Do you host email?
Yes. Mailboxes are R39 each a month with 2 GB of storage, and extra storage is R15 a month per GB. Forwarders and catch-all addresses are R15 a month each. Mailboxes are Exchange-compatible and work with Outlook and phone mail apps.
Can you register our domains?
Yes. Domains are registered in your name and renewed annually: .com at R550 a year, .co.za at R250 and .org at R1,000. Add them in the domain names section and they appear under annual costs.
What happens if my site goes down?
Every plan includes uptime monitoring, so we’re alerted and start working on it. Priority care and the managed cloud server add priority response. Backups mean we can restore a working version if something goes badly wrong.
Can you manage several websites for us?
Yes. Set the websites slider and hosting, care and onboarding are multiplied per site, so you see the full monthly cost for the whole portfolio in one quote.
Is there a contract term?
Yes. Monthly services are on a 12-month contract with a 3-month minimum, and the contract renews for another 12 months unless you give one calendar month’s notice before it ends. If you need to stop early, you pay 3 months’ fees after the month you give notice, starting with your one calendar month’s notice. For example, notice in month 3 means you’re billed for months 1 to 6. The commitment covers our fees, including campaign and boosting commission; ad and boost spend paid to the platforms isn’t included. You can upgrade your hosting or care plan at any time.