Who Maintains It After Launch: Hosting, Backups and Running Costs

Conversations about hiring a vendor almost always stop at "when will it be done". What rarely gets discussed is what happens afterwards — even though that part runs for years, not weeks.

What keeps running after handover#

Servers. A site or system has to live somewhere, and that somewhere costs money every month. If the vendor pays for it now, ask what happens if the relationship ends.

The domain name. Renewed annually. A domain nobody renews can be taken by someone else, and getting it back is usually far more expensive than the renewal would have been.

Backups. Not just existing, but having been restored at least once. Backups that are never tested often turn out to be unusable precisely when they are needed.

Security updates. The components a site is built from keep being updated, some of them because vulnerabilities were found. A site that is never updated grows steadily more exposed.

HTTPS certificates. These usually renew automatically now, but when it fails visitors see a large warning that your site is unsafe.

Three ways to arrange it#

The vendor keeps running it#

You pay an ongoing fee; they monitor, back up and fix. This suits businesses without technical staff, and it is what we recommend for most clients.

Worth asking: what exactly is included, and how quickly do they respond when something goes down.

Your own team#

Cheaper if the people genuinely exist. What often happens is that the "IT team" turns out to be one person who also handles the office network and the printers, and the site comes last.

If you choose this, make sure they have full access and know where everything lives.

A mix#

You handle content, the vendor handles servers. This is the arrangement that most often makes sense: adding an article or swapping a photo needs no technical skill, but updating components does.

Questions to ask before signing#

• Who pays for the server, and whose name is the account in?
• If I change vendor, what do I take with me?
• How often do backups run, and has a restore been tested?
• What is the response time if the site goes down?
• Who applies security updates?

Any answer is acceptable. No answer is not.