Most small business websites reach a point where something stops working — or never worked as well as it should. A contact form that no longer sends emails. Pages that load painfully slowly on mobile. A layout that's gone wrong after a plugin update. An SSL warning that's costing you customer trust.

The good news is that most of these issues don't require a full rebuild. At £25 per hour, targeted website repairs are one of the most cost-effective investments a UK business can make. But what does a typical repair job actually involve, and how long does it take?

Here's a practical breakdown of the most common website repair jobs — what's included, what causes them, and what to expect in terms of time and cost.

Why Website Repairs Often Take 6–10 Hours

Six to ten hours is a common range for repair jobs because most issues aren't as simple as they first appear. A broken contact form might seem like a five-minute fix, but diagnosing the root cause — whether it's a plugin conflict, server configuration, or email delivery issue — takes time. So does testing the fix across browsers and devices to make sure it holds.

A rough breakdown of how that time is typically spent:

Common Repair Jobs and What They Involve

1. Broken Contact Form (2–5 Hours)

Contact forms stop working for several reasons: plugin conflicts after a WordPress or theme update, changes to server-side mail configuration (SMTP), spam filter changes blocking outgoing email, or CAPTCHA tokens that have expired.

What the repair involves:

Approximate cost at £25/hr: £50–£125

2. Slow Page Load Speed (4–8 Hours)

A slow website is one of the most common and most damaging problems a UK business can have. Google uses Core Web Vitals as a ranking factor, and users abandon pages that take longer than 3 seconds to load. Yet the causes of slowness are rarely obvious without proper investigation.

What the repair involves:

Approximate cost at £25/hr: £100–£200

3. Plugin or Theme Conflict After Update (3–6 Hours)

WordPress, Magento, and other CMS platforms update regularly — and sometimes an update breaks something. Layouts shift, features stop working, or the entire site goes white. This is almost always a plugin or theme conflict, but identifying exactly which combination is causing the issue takes methodical work.

What the repair involves:

Approximate cost at £25/hr: £75–£150

4. Broken Mobile Layout (4–7 Hours)

A website that looks fine on desktop but breaks on mobile is a serious problem — the majority of UK web traffic comes from smartphones. Mobile layout issues typically stem from CSS that wasn't written with responsiveness in mind, or from design changes that were only previewed on desktop.

What the repair involves:

Approximate cost at £25/hr: £100–£175

5. SSL / HTTPS Issues (2–4 Hours)

An expired SSL certificate or mixed content warning shows a "Not Secure" label in browsers and immediately undermines trust. For e-commerce sites, it can block transactions entirely. SSL issues can also arise after migrating a site or changing hosting without updating URLs.

What the repair involves:

Approximate cost at £25/hr: £50–£100

6. Security Breach or Malware Removal (6–12 Hours)

A hacked website is one of the most stressful situations a business owner can face. Malware on a site can redirect visitors, inject spam links, steal customer data, or get your domain blacklisted by Google. The repair process is thorough and time-intensive — but it's faster and cheaper than losing customer trust or rebuilding from scratch.

What the repair involves:

Approximate cost at £25/hr: £150–£300

7. E-Commerce Checkout or Payment Issues (4–8 Hours)

For online shops, a broken checkout process is a direct loss of revenue. Payment gateway errors, incorrect tax calculations, shipping rules that don't apply correctly, or orders that complete without triggering confirmation emails — all of these need fixing promptly.

What the repair involves:

Approximate cost at £25/hr: £100–£200

Quick Reference: Common Repairs at a Glance

Repair Type Typical Hours Approximate Cost
Broken contact form 2–5 hours £50–£125
Slow page load / speed optimisation 4–8 hours £100–£200
Plugin or theme conflict 3–6 hours £75–£150
Broken mobile layout 4–7 hours £100–£175
SSL / HTTPS issues 2–4 hours £50–£100
Malware removal & security 6–12 hours £150–£300
E-commerce checkout fix 4–8 hours £100–£200

When Repairs Are Worth It vs. When to Rebuild

Repairs make sense when the underlying site is fundamentally sound — built on a supported platform, with a reasonable structure, and without deep architectural problems. If targeted fixes resolve the issue and the site will serve the business well for another few years, that's the right call.

A rebuild starts to make more sense when:

A good developer will tell you honestly which situation you're in — and won't push you toward an unnecessary rebuild just to increase the invoice.

What to Expect From a Repair Engagement

When you approach a developer for repair work, the process should be straightforward:

  1. Initial assessment — A brief conversation or review of the site to understand what's broken and what the likely cause is. This is usually done before any work begins.
  2. Estimate — An honest estimate of how many hours the repair is likely to take, with a clear hourly rate. At £25/hr, most common repairs cost between £50 and £200.
  3. Access and environment — You'll need to provide hosting access, FTP or cPanel credentials, and any relevant admin logins. A trustworthy developer will work on a staging copy where possible.
  4. The fix — Work is carried out and tested before going live.
  5. Handover — You receive a summary of what was done, what caused the issue, and any recommendations to prevent recurrence.

A Note on Ongoing Maintenance

Many of the repair jobs described above are preventable. Plugin conflicts, security breaches, and performance degradation are all significantly less likely on a site that's actively maintained — with regular updates, security scans, and performance checks.

If you find yourself needing repairs more than once or twice a year, a small monthly maintenance retainer (typically 2–4 hours per month at £25/hr) is often more cost-effective than reactive fixes. It also means issues are caught early, before they affect your customers.

Further reading

Need a website repaired?

Describe what's broken and we'll give you an honest assessment of what it involves and how long it will take — at £25/hr, with no obligation.

Get a Free Quote