Who handles website hosting, SSL, security, and updates after launch?
What hosting and SSL actually cover, and what ongoing maintenance a site really needs.
On HubSpot CMS, hosting, SSL, and the CDN are included and platform patching is HubSpot's job, which is a large part of why we recommend it. What still needs an owner is your content, your integrations, and the periodic review that keeps a site from quietly rotting.
What each term actually covers
- Hosting is the server your files live on and the bandwidth to serve them. A CDN copies those files to servers near your visitors so the page arrives faster.
- SSL is the certificate that makes the address bar say https and encrypts traffic. It is table stakes. Browsers flag sites without it and forms on an unencrypted page should not exist.
- Security is broader: patching the platform, keeping third party code current, controlling who has admin access, and having a backup you have actually tested restoring.
- Maintenance is the ongoing work: content updates, broken link cleanup, form testing, speed checks, and removing scripts nobody uses anymore.
The self-hosted alternative, honestly
WordPress on your own hosting gives you total control and a plugin for everything, and that was a real advantage for years. The cost is that somebody has to own updates every month. Plugins update independently, occasionally conflict, and an unpatched one is the usual way a site gets compromised. Sucuri's 2023 Hacked Website Report found 95.5 percent of the infected sites they cleaned were WordPress across 39,594 sites, and Sucuri notes that largely tracks WordPress holding roughly 62.8 percent of the CMS market. Both facts are true at once: it is the most used platform and therefore the most attacked, and you are still the one paying for the patching.
That is why we do not build or maintain whole websites in WordPress. It is fine as a limited component, such as a store, sitting behind a HubSpot fronted site.
What ongoing support looks like with us
Most clients handle their own content edits, which is the point of building somewhere you can edit. For the work that needs us, we sell flexible digital support retainers: Level 1 is 10 hours a month at $1,900, Level 2 is 15 hours at $2,775, Level 3 is 20 hours at $3,500, and Level 4 is 40 hours at $6,750. Billing is Net 15, monthly, with 30 days notice to pause, change tier, or cancel.
If you only need a few edits a year, do not buy a retainer. Call us when you need something.
Related: Do you offer website maintenance after launch?, Does LevelUp Digital offer retainer services?, Why doesn't LevelUp Digital build websites in WordPress?, and our retainers page.