You just found out your WordPress site has been hacked. Maybe there’s weird Japanese text in your Google results. Maybe your customers are getting redirected to a pharmacy site. Maybe your hosting provider shut you down entirely. Whatever happened, the first question on your mind is probably: how much is this going to cost me?
The hacked WordPress site cost depends on a lot of factors — the type of attack, how long it’s been compromised, who you hire to fix it, and whether you had any security measures in place to begin with. We’ve cleaned up hundreds of hacked WordPress sites over the years, and the honest answer is: it varies wildly. But we’re going to break down every dollar so you know exactly what to expect.
The Short Answer
Most WordPress hack cleanups cost between $500 and $3,000+. That’s a wide range, and here’s why.
A simple malware removal on a small business site with a single infection point? You might get away with $300-$500 if you find the right freelancer. A full-blown compromise where the attacker has backdoors buried in your database, your theme files, your plugins, and maybe even your server configuration? That’s easily $1,500-$3,000 or more — especially if you need emergency, same-day service.
And that’s just the direct cleanup cost. It doesn’t include the revenue you lost while your site was down, the SEO rankings that tanked, or the customers who saw the “This site may be hacked” warning in Google and decided to never come back. We’ll get into those hidden costs later.
What Factors Affect the Cost
Not all hacks are created equal. Here’s what actually determines how much you’ll pay.
Type of Hack
The most common WordPress hacks include malware injections, SEO spam (sometimes called “pharma hacks”), backdoor installations, phishing pages, and full database compromises. According to Sucuri’s annual Website Threat Research Report, SEO spam makes up a huge percentage of WordPress infections — and it’s one of the trickiest to fully remove because it buries itself in your database.
A simple malware injection that lives in one file? Quick fix. An SEO spam attack that’s been running for six months and has created thousands of spammy pages indexed in Google? That’s a different beast entirely.
How Long It’s Been Compromised
This is huge. A hack caught within 24 hours is dramatically easier to fix than one that’s been festering for months. The longer an attacker has access, the deeper they dig in. They plant more backdoors. They modify more files. They infect your database. Some attackers even patch the vulnerability they used to get in — not to help you, but to keep other hackers out of “their” site.
If you’re not running regular security scans, you might not even know you’ve been hacked until Google flags you or your hosting provider pulls the plug.
Who Fixes It
Your options generally fall into three buckets:
A freelancer on a platform like Upwork or Fiverr: $100-$500. You might get lucky, or you might get someone who removes the visible symptoms without finding the actual backdoor. Then you’re hacked again in two weeks.
A specialized WordPress security company like Sucuri or Wordfence: $500-$800 for their standard cleanup plans. These are generally solid, but you’re working through a ticket system with limited personalization.
A web agency or developer who knows your site: $500-$3,000+. More expensive, but they understand your specific setup, can do a thorough cleanup, and can actually harden your site afterward. This is what we do at Snazzy Solutions with our website maintenance services, and it’s why our clients rarely get hacked twice.
Severity and Scope
A single-site cleanup is one thing. But what if you’re on shared hosting and the infection has spread to other sites on the same server? What if your e-commerce store has been compromised and customer data has potentially been exposed? Now you’re looking at data breach notification requirements, potential legal liability, and the cost of a forensic investigation.
For WooCommerce sites that handle payment data, a hack can trigger PCI compliance issues that cost far more than the cleanup itself.
DIY vs Hiring a Professional
Can you fix a hacked WordPress site yourself? Technically, yes. Should you? That depends on your skill level and how much your time is worth.
The DIY route usually involves installing a security plugin like Wordfence or Sucuri, running a scan, removing flagged files, and hoping you got everything. Cost: $0-$200 for a premium plugin license. Time: anywhere from 4 to 20+ hours if you’re learning as you go.
Here’s the problem. Security plugins catch known malware signatures. They’re great at finding the obvious stuff. But sophisticated attackers use obfuscated code, hide backdoors in your database, or modify core WordPress files in ways that don’t trigger automated scans. If you miss even one backdoor, you’ll be re-infected within days.
We’ve seen so many site owners spend a weekend “cleaning” their site, only to find the same hack back on Monday morning. It’s demoralizing. And all those hours you spent? That’s time you weren’t spending on your actual business.
If your site is a simple blog with no sensitive data, DIY might work fine. If it’s your business’s website — especially if it handles customer data or generates revenue — hire a professional. The cost difference between a $500 professional cleanup and a $0 DIY attempt that fails is actually negative when you factor in lost time and repeated infections.
This is also why WordPress requires more maintenance than Wix or Squarespace — the flexibility comes with responsibility.
The Hidden Costs Nobody Talks About
The cleanup bill is just the beginning. Here’s what really hurts.
Lost Revenue
If your site generates leads or sales, every hour it’s down costs you money. And it’s not just downtime — even after cleanup, some customers won’t come back. A study from the Ponemon Institute found that the average cost of downtime for small businesses is $8,580 per hour. Your mileage will vary, obviously, but even a few hundred dollars in lost sales adds up fast.
For e-commerce sites, the damage compounds. Abandoned carts. Missed orders. Customers who see a security warning and go straight to your competitor.
SEO Damage
This one stings. Google takes security seriously. If your site is distributing malware or hosting phishing pages, Google will slap a “This site may harm your computer” warning on your search results. According to Google’s own documentation on hacked sites, recovering from a manual penalty can take weeks to months — even after the hack is fully cleaned.
If an SEO spam attack created thousands of junk pages on your site, those get indexed. Now Google associates your domain with spammy pharmaceutical keywords. Cleaning up the hack is step one. Recovering your search rankings? That’s a much longer process involving disavow files, reconsideration requests, and a lot of patience.
We’ve seen businesses lose 50-80% of their organic traffic after a hack. Some recover within a few months. Others take a year or more.
Customer Trust
How do you quantify the cost of a customer who sees that red “Deceptive site ahead” warning in Chrome and never visits your website again? You can’t, really. But it’s real.
If you collect any personal information — contact forms, email signups, payment details — a breach can trigger notification requirements depending on your state or country. That means telling your customers their data may have been compromised. Not a great look.
Google and Browser Blacklisting
Google Safe Browsing protects roughly 5 billion devices. If your site gets flagged, you’re essentially invisible to a huge portion of internet users. Chrome, Firefox, and Safari all use Safe Browsing data to warn users. Getting de-listed after cleanup requires submitting a review request to Google and waiting — sometimes days, sometimes weeks.
During that time, your site might as well not exist.
Email Deliverability
Here’s one most people don’t think about. If your server was used to send spam (which is common in WordPress hacks), your IP address and domain might end up on email blacklists. Suddenly your legitimate business emails are landing in spam folders. Fixing this involves contacting multiple blacklist providers, proving the issue is resolved, and requesting removal. It’s tedious and it can take weeks.
How to Prevent It (And Why Prevention Is Way Cheaper Than Cleanup)
Here’s the thing about WordPress security: prevention is absurdly cheap compared to cleanup. We’re talking $30-$100/month vs. $500-$3,000+ per incident.
What does solid WordPress security actually look like?
Regular updates. WordPress core, themes, and plugins need to be updated promptly when security patches are released. Over 50% of WordPress vulnerabilities come from outdated plugins — that’s not a made-up number, it’s straight from Wordfence’s threat intelligence data.
Quality hosting. Cheap shared hosting is the number one risk factor we see. A good WordPress host provides server-level firewalls, malware scanning, automatic backups, and site isolation so one infected site can’t compromise your neighbors.
A web application firewall (WAF). Services like Cloudflare or Sucuri can block most attacks before they even reach your site.
Strong passwords and two-factor authentication. It sounds basic because it is. But brute force attacks on wp-login.php are still one of the most common attack vectors.
Regular backups. If something does go wrong, a clean backup can reduce your recovery time from days to hours. But only if the backup pre-dates the infection — which means you need frequent, automated backups with retention.
Daily security scanning. Catch infections early before they spread and cause serious damage.
This is exactly what our WordPress maintenance plans include. We handle all of it — updates, backups, security monitoring, and emergency cleanup if something does get through. It’s a fraction of the cost of dealing with a hack after the fact.
So the real question isn’t “how much does it cost to fix a hacked WordPress site?” It’s “how much does it cost to make sure it never happens in the first place?” And the answer is surprisingly little.
Frequently Asked Questions
How long does it take to fix a hacked WordPress site?
Most straightforward hack cleanups take 1-3 business days. A simple malware removal might be done in a few hours. But complex infections — especially SEO spam attacks with database-level modifications — can take a full week or more. Emergency or same-day service is available from most security providers, but expect to pay a premium (usually 50-100% more).
Can I fix a hacked WordPress site myself?
You can try. Free security plugins like Wordfence can scan for known malware and help you remove it. For a minor infection on a non-critical site, DIY might work. But if your site generates revenue, handles customer data, or if you’re not confident in your technical skills, we strongly recommend hiring a professional. The risk of missing a hidden backdoor is high, and re-infection means starting all over — plus additional damage to your SEO and reputation.
How do I know if my WordPress site has been hacked?
Common signs include: unexpected redirects to other websites, strange content or links appearing on your pages, new admin users you didn’t create, your hosting provider suspending your account, Google Search Console warnings, a sudden drop in search traffic, your site loading extremely slowly, and customers reporting security warnings in their browser. Sometimes there are no visible symptoms at all — the hack operates silently in the background, which is why regular security scanning is so important.
Will Google penalize my site if it gets hacked?
Yes, but it’s not a permanent penalty. Google will flag your site with warnings in search results and may temporarily de-index affected pages. Once you clean up the hack and submit a reconsideration request through Google Search Console, the warnings are typically removed within a few days to a few weeks. The bigger concern is the indirect SEO damage — lost backlinks, reduced crawl budget, and diminished domain trust can take months to recover from.
How much does ongoing WordPress security cost?
Ongoing WordPress security and maintenance typically costs $30-$200/month depending on the level of service. Basic plans include updates and backups. Premium plans add security monitoring, firewall management, uptime monitoring, and priority support. Our maintenance plans at Snazzy Solutions start at an affordable monthly rate and include everything you need to keep your site secure. Compared to the $500-$3,000+ cost of a single hack cleanup, it’s a no-brainer investment.
Does web hosting affect WordPress security?
Absolutely. Your hosting environment is the foundation of your site’s security. Cheap shared hosting often means shared resources with hundreds of other sites — if one gets infected, yours could be at risk. Quality WordPress hosting includes server-level firewalls, automatic malware scanning, site isolation, free SSL certificates, and regular server-side updates. It’s one of the highest-impact security decisions you can make. We recommend managed WordPress hosting for any business-critical site.
What Should You Do Next?
If your WordPress site has already been hacked, don’t panic — but don’t wait, either. Every hour the infection stays active, the damage compounds. Get a professional cleanup done as soon as possible, then invest in ongoing security so it doesn’t happen again.
If your site hasn’t been hacked yet, consider this your wake-up call. WordPress powers over 40% of the internet, which makes it the biggest target for automated attacks. It’s not a matter of if your site will be targeted — it’s when. The difference between a site that gets compromised and one that doesn’t usually comes down to basic maintenance: updates, backups, and monitoring.
We help businesses with exactly this. Whether you need emergency hack cleanup, ongoing WordPress maintenance, or you’re starting from scratch and want to build on a secure foundation with our web design services, we’ve got you covered.
Want to talk about your site’s security? Get a free consultation or start a conversation with us. We’ll take a look at your setup and tell you exactly where you stand — no sales pitch, just honest advice.