We surveyed the published pricing of web maintenance providers across Minnesota, Wisconsin, North Dakota, and Illinois in August 2026 — counting only numbers actually printed on public pricing pages. Most shops publish nothing at all, which already tells you something about the market. Here’s the shape of what the ones willing to say a number are charging.

The distribution, in three bands

The commodity band: $40–$395/month. Automated updates, backups, and content-edit minutes. Across the Twin Cities, outstate Minnesota, and Wisconsin we found published plans starting as low as $39.99 and topping out at $395 — that ceiling buying roughly ninety minutes of content edits plus monitoring. The tells across this band: value measured in minutes rather than engineering, customized code frequently excluded from coverage, and major version upgrades — the hardest, most valuable problem — almost universally out of scope. Several plans also require 6–12-month contracts.

The professional band: $475–$3,950/month. Where engineering appears. Published plans here include a $475/month security-focused tier rising toward $3,950 for full core maintenance at one Twin Cities firm, general support entries around $750/month at another, and — in the Duluth market — productized growth subscriptions running $1,750–$9,500/month, marketing-led but proof that four-figure monthly commitments are normal in this region when the value is legible.

The specialist tier: $2,500+/month. We found exactly one provider in four states publishing Drupal-specific support pricing: $2,500–$11,500 per month for SMB Drupal support. Chicago’s marquee Drupal shops publish no maintenance pricing at all, and the famous ones reportedly start projects in six figures.

Where we sit, on purpose

Dead North’s published ladder — $350 / $650 / from $1,500 per month — threads the seam: the entry tier costs less than the commodity band’s ceiling while delivering staging-tested patches and restore-drilled backups instead of edit-minutes; the middle tier occupies a band where, as far as we can find, no provider in four states publishes anything; and the commerce tier is well under half of the region’s only published Drupal-support floor. The full inclusion table is public, which in this market is itself the differentiator.

How to read a maintenance price

Under ~$300: you’re buying scripts and minutes. Legitimate for a brochure site on a supported platform — just know what it is.
$350–$1,500: you should be getting named patch windows, tested restores, real engineering hours, and a human who knows your site. If those aren’t in writing, you’re paying professional prices for commodity service — the contract red flags post has the checklist.
Above $2,500: team coverage and enterprise process. Right for enterprises; a lot of overhead below that.

And on Drupal 7, 8, or 9? No maintenance plan at any price restores security releases that no longer exist — that money belongs in an upgrade first. There are 174,000+ sites in that boat; the ferry runs daily.

Methodology: August 2026 survey of publicly published pricing pages from providers across the four states; only printed prices counted, no quotes or estimates. We keep the receipts — if you’re comparison-shopping and want the underlying distribution for your situation, ask and we’ll walk you through it.

Dead North publishes every price on one page — Minneapolis, serving the whole Upper Midwest, including a soft spot for Fargo.