Website maintenance reports: what to include, with a template

The maintenance report is the part of a care plan the client actually sees, so it is the part that decides whether they keep paying. Get it right and the retainer renews itself. Here is what to include, and a template you can copy.

What a good report does

A report has one job: answer the question “is my site healthy and is this worth it”. A non-technical client should grasp it in thirty seconds and a developer should be able to act on it. That means leading with a clear verdict, then the detail, not a wall of raw data.

Avoid two common mistakes. Do not dump error logs on a client who cannot read them. And do not only report problems, because a report that is all bad news makes the client feel the site is falling apart on your watch. Lead with what is working, then what you fixed, then what is next.

What to include

1. A health score. One number, 0 to 100, with a plain band like Healthy or Needs attention. It sets the tone before anyone reads a word.
2. A short summary. Two or three sentences in plain English: how the site is doing, anything urgent, the headline for the month.
3. The headline numbers. Checks passed, items recommended, urgent items and uptime over the period.
4. What is working well. The passing checks, grouped, so the report opens with reassurance.
5. Recommended actions. Each written as what it is, why it matters and the next step, grouped urgent or recommended.
6. A category breakdown. Availability, security, SEO and the rest, each marked healthy or needs attention.
7. Improvements made this period. The warnings you cleared since last time. This is the running proof the retainer is working.

A maintenance report template

Copy this structure and fill it in each month.

[Your agency] monthly report for [client site] Period: [start] to [end]

Health score: [0 to 100] ([band]) [One or two sentences: overall state, anything urgent, the headline.]

This month at a glance

• Checks passed: [n]
• Recommended actions: [n]
• Urgent items: [n]
• Uptime: [percentage]

What is working well

• [Category]: [short note]
• [Category]: [short note]

Recommended actions

• [Title]. What we found, why it matters, the next step. ([urgent or recommended])

Improvements made this period

• [What you fixed or resolved since last report]

A note from us [A short, human line putting the month in context.]

Make it repeatable

Writing this by hand every month for every client is where good intentions go to die. The trick is to generate it from monitoring you are already running, so the report is a by-product, not a chore.

That is exactly what Janitor does: it runs the checks, scores the site and produces a branded PDF following the structure above, on demand or scheduled monthly with your branding on every page. You add the human note, and it sends itself.

If you have not scoped the plan behind the report yet, start with what to include in a website care plan.