DIY or Pay Someone? Deciding Who Maintains Your Website

By Shane Snyman, JWD Website Design Updated 25 September 2026

Here is a question every South African business owner eventually asks: “Why am I paying someone to click an update button? I can do that myself.”

Fair point. Often you can. The real question is not whether you are able to, but which jobs are safe for you to do, which ones are worth handing over, and what your own time is costing you in the meantime.

This guide is about that decision: DIY, professional, or a mix of both. If you want to see what a maintenance service covers and how JWD charges for it, read our website maintenance service guide. If you have decided to do it yourself and want a step-by-step list of tasks, our DIY website maintenance checklist has you covered.

First, What Kind of Site Do You Have?

How much maintenance a site needs depends heavily on how it was built.

A WordPress site has a core, a theme and plugins that all get updates. Someone has to apply them and check nothing broke afterwards. This is where most maintenance time goes.
A custom static site has no plugins or admin area to update, so there is far less routine upkeep. Changes to the content are made in the code, so they are only a DIY job if you are comfortable editing code.
A custom CMS site has an admin area for your pages and posts, so everyday content edits are easy to do yourself. Ask whoever built it what technical upkeep it needs.

Not sure which one you have? Our guide to static vs WordPress vs custom CMS explains the difference. The rest of this article leans towards WordPress, because that is where the DIY question matters most.

What an Owner Can Safely Do Yourself

These jobs are low-risk for most business owners, as long as you are careful:

Updating text, prices and contact details through your admin area
Adding blog posts and swapping images
Testing your contact form now and then by sending yourself a message
Checking your site on your phone for anything that looks broken
Keeping your logins safe: strong passwords, and removing access for people who no longer need it
Watching your renewal dates for your domain and hosting

None of these can easily take your site down, and doing them yourself saves both time and money.

The Jobs That Carry Real Risk

These are the tasks where DIY most often goes wrong:

Plugin, theme and WordPress updates

Updates matter. Patchstack’s State of WordPress Security in 2026 report found that 91% of the new WordPress vulnerabilities disclosed in 2025 were in plugins and 9% in themes, with only a handful in WordPress core itself. So keeping plugins and themes updated is important.

The risk is in the update itself. An update can clash with your theme or with another plugin, and you end up with a blank page or a checkout that no longer works. If you know how to roll it back, it is an annoyance. If you do not, your site can stay broken until someone who does is available.

Restoring from a backup

Having a backup and being able to restore it are two different things. If you have never tested a restore, you do not really know it works. JWD hosting has a backup tool in the control panel, but whichever host you use, find out how a restore works before you need one, not during an emergency.

Anything involving payments or customer data

If your site takes payments, bookings or stores customer details, a mistake costs more than a bit of downtime. It can mean lost sales, or customer information at risk. This is the point where most owners are better off with a professional.

Cleaning up after a hack

If your site has been hacked, this is not a DIY job. Cleaning it up properly means finding how the attacker got in and closing that gap, not just deleting the obvious damage.

The Time Cost Nobody Counts

DIY is not free. It is paid for in your time, and time spent on the website is time not spent on your business.

A quick way to work out your own number:

Estimate how many hours a month you spend on the site, including time spent reading up on how to do things and fixing what broke.
Multiply by what an hour of your time is worth to your business.
Compare that with what a professional would charge for the same work.

For many owners of a simple site, DIY wins comfortably. For others, especially those who find the technical side stressful, the sum shows they are spending more in time than they would in fees. Only you can fill in those numbers, but it is worth doing honestly.

There is also a less obvious cost: the worry. “Did that update work?” “Is the backup running?” If that keeps nagging at you, it is a cost too.

When DIY Makes Sense

DIY is a perfectly reasonable choice if:

Your site is a simple brochure site with no payments, bookings or stored customer data
You, or someone on your team, is genuinely comfortable with your site’s admin area
A few hours of downtime would be inconvenient rather than costly
You know how your backups work and have tested a restore

When Paying Someone Makes Sense

Handing it over is usually the better call if:

Your site takes payments or stores customer details
Your business depends on the site for leads every day
You have a lot of plugins or a heavily customised theme
Updates make you nervous, or you keep putting them off
You have already had one bad update or security scare

The Middle Ground: Split the Work

For a lot of businesses, the best answer is both. You handle the everyday content (text, prices, blog posts and photos) and a professional handles the technical jobs: updates, fixes and anything that could break the site. Just agree clearly who is responsible for what, so nothing falls through the gap.

How JWD Charges If You Hand It Over

We do not sell a monthly maintenance retainer. Website maintenance is charged at R450 an hour, and the work and the likely time are agreed with you before we start. You pay for the jobs your site actually needs, when it needs them, with no lock-in.

That suits the split approach well: do the everyday edits yourself, and call us in for the technical jobs. For the full picture of what the service covers, see our website maintenance South Africa page.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is it safe to update WordPress plugins myself?

It can be, if you have a working backup you know how to restore, and you check your site straight after each update, especially forms and any checkout. If you do not have both of those, updates are the job most worth handing over.

Can I do some maintenance myself and pay for the rest?

Yes, and for many small businesses this is the most sensible option. Do the everyday content updates yourself and pay a professional for the technical work. Agree clearly who is responsible for updates and backups, so each side knows what the other is covering.

Does a static website need maintenance?

Much less than a WordPress site. There are no plugins or themes to update. You still need to keep content accurate and your domain and hosting renewed, and content changes are made in the code, so they are a professional job unless you are comfortable editing code.

What is the biggest risk of DIY maintenance?

For WordPress sites, it is an update that breaks the site when there is no tested backup to fall back on. Skipping updates altogether is not the answer either, because most new WordPress vulnerabilities are found in plugins and themes.

Does JWD offer monthly maintenance plans?

No. Maintenance is charged at R450 an hour, agreed before work starts, with no retainer or lock-in. You only pay when your site needs work done.