Small business owners constantly ask me what it costs to fix common WordPress problems. Most have been quoted wildly different prices by different agencies and have no idea what is reasonable. Some have been talked into £500 fixes for problems that take 30 minutes. Others have ignored issues that cost them more in lost revenue every month than the fix would cost once.
I run WebDev Wales, a small web development studio in Neath, South Wales. We fix WordPress sites for small businesses across Wales every week. Here is what the most common issues actually cost in 2026, what is happening under the hood, and what you should expect to pay a competent UK developer.
1. Hacked or Compromised WordPress Site
What it looks like: Google flags your site as dangerous. Strange spam links appear in your footer. Random pages you did not create show up in search results. Admin login redirects elsewhere.
What is actually happening: Almost always an outdated plugin or theme has been exploited. The attacker injected malware, often a backdoor that lets them re-compromise the site even after a surface clean.
What it takes to fix:
- Take the site offline temporarily
- Pull the latest backup from before the compromise (this is why backups matter)
- If no clean backup exists, manually audit every file in wp-content for injected code
- Reinstall WordPress core and every plugin from fresh downloads
- Reset every password (admin, FTP, database, hosting)
- Submit a re-review request to Google to remove the warning
Realistic UK pricing: £400-£800 for a clean fix on a typical small business site. Cheaper if you have a clean recent backup. Significantly more if the site has been compromised for months and Google has indexed the spam pages.
What I charge: £450 standard, includes 30 days of monitoring afterwards.
2. Site Loading Painfully Slowly
What it looks like: PageSpeed Insights mobile score under 30. Pages take 5+ seconds to load. Customers bouncing.
What is actually happening: Usually a combination of huge unoptimised images, too many heavy plugins, no caching layer, and cheap shared hosting that is slow to respond.
What it takes to fix:
- Run a full plugin audit, deactivate anything not actively needed (you would be amazed)
- Compress every image to WebP format and serve responsive sizes
- Install a caching plugin (WP Rocket or W3 Total Cache) and configure it properly
- Set up a CDN (Cloudflare free tier is fine for most small businesses)
- If hosting is the bottleneck, migrate to a proper managed WordPress host
Realistic UK pricing: £200-£500 depending on how bad it is. Most small business sites can be moved from a 25 mobile score to 75+ in a day's work.
What I charge: £275 for a standard speed optimisation pass.
3. The Site Just Stopped Working After an Update
What it looks like: White screen of death. Critical error message. Half the site is broken. Owner panicking because they tried to update plugins and now everything is dead.
What is actually happening: A plugin update introduced a conflict, or the PHP version got bumped and a plugin no longer supports it.
What it takes to fix:
- Access the site via FTP or hosting file manager (since admin is broken)
- Identify the plugin that broke things from the error logs
- Either roll back the plugin to the previous version or find an alternative
- If PHP version is the issue, downgrade temporarily and plan a proper migration
Realistic UK pricing: £100-£300. Most fixes take under two hours but require knowing where to look.
What I charge: £125 flat for a recovery, more if it turns out to be a deeper compatibility issue.
4. Spam Comments and Form Submissions Out of Control
What it looks like: Hundreds of spam comments per day. Contact form filling up with garbage. Spam emails being sent through the site without consent.
What is actually happening: No anti-spam protection in place, and bots have found the form endpoints.
What it takes to fix:
- Install Akismet or CleanTalk for comment spam
- Add hCaptcha or Cloudflare Turnstile to all forms (don't use reCAPTCHA, Google has deprioritised it for accessibility)
- Tighten the contact form validation
- Set up SPF/DKIM/DMARC properly to stop your domain being used for spam relay
- Consider disabling comments entirely if you are not actively moderating them
Realistic UK pricing: £150-£300.
What I charge: £175.
5. Site Looks Broken on Mobile
What it looks like: Site looks fine on desktop. On a phone, text is too small, buttons are too close together, images overflow the screen, contact form unusable.
What is actually happening: Theme was either not properly responsive, was customised in a way that broke responsive behaviour, or relies on outdated CSS techniques.
What it takes to fix:
- Audit the theme on multiple device sizes (Chrome DevTools is fine for this)
- Fix the broken breakpoints in the theme CSS
- If the theme is too far gone, recommend a swap to a modern responsive theme
Realistic UK pricing: £200-£600 depending on whether it is a CSS fix or a theme swap.
What I charge: £275 for a standard responsive fix.
What These Numbers Mean
A reputable UK developer should be honest about how long things take and price accordingly. Watch out for:
- "WordPress maintenance" packages that promise to prevent these issues for £20/month. That is not enough money to actually maintain anything. The provider is hoping nothing breaks.
- Quotes that are mysteriously round numbers like £500 or £1000 for any of the above. Real fixes have real time estimates. Round numbers usually mean the developer has not actually scoped the work.
- "Optimisation" packages that promise to "boost your SEO" without telling you what they will do. Always ask for the specific actions.
If you are in Wales and have a WordPress site giving you headaches, happy to take a look and give you an honest scope before you commit to anything. No obligation.
Jack Warner is the founder of WebDev Wales, a web development studio based in Neath, South Wales. He builds and maintains websites for small businesses across Wales.
Top comments (1)
Useful breakdown, ta. One thing I would add for any UK WP freelancer reading this: the price you charge matters less than the contract clause that says you do not get the money. The five clauses I see most often in agency-handed contracts on this side that quietly cost people more than the day rate ever earned them:
None of these are illegal. All five are 5-minute conversations to amend. Most freelancers never have the conversation because the work is in front of them and the contract is the thing you skim. Same energy as the WP plugin update prompts you ignore until something breaks.
What is your typical payment-terms setup? 50/50 split, milestones, retainer? That is the bit I see varying most across regions.