So I thought about the best way I knew to put the answer. This is an edited version of my response:

First, in order to keep a site online, Web companies like mine must rent disk space from companies that provide the computers (servers) that host sites on the Internet. Those companies use the rent to ensure that the site is kept online 99.9% of the time and not subject to failures from power losses, normal computer problems, hackers, or viruses. The only other option to avoid rent is to allow these companies to put advertising on your site. Obviously, for businesses, that isn’t acceptable; not only is it a sure-fire way for your site to lack credibility, but such advertising is tied to the content of your site, meaning that the ads that appear will be for competing businesses, making it that much worse.

Next, on your Web site itself, you will receive a constant stream of interactions from other people all over the Web. Some will be innocuous comments from customers remarking on how they like your food, others will be from people looking to place orders or asking questions, others will be from Russian hackers trying to get you to download viruses (it may sound funny, but this is really, really common, as any Web site administrator will tell you).

[ED. NOTE: I am really sick of hackers. I am fed up with filtering out all the conversational "I love your site, I use the same template, how do you do it? Here's my spam link that will steal your members's souls," garbage that comes through. I know they aren't all Russian, but there are a disproportionate number of these that lead back to .ru sites. Am I being unfair in throwing Russia under the bus like that?]

Your site admin (me, in this case) uses the technology the site is built with along with his skills and knowledge to deal with all of these issues as they arise. In addition, administration of your site will cover updates of things like online coupons and any other changes you want to make to the site on a regular basis.

Finally, monthly maintenance of your site includes updating Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, LinkedIn, Digg, and other online media sources as well as your own Web site with new content every day. Every single day. It’s this constant updating that makes your site rank well in search engines like Google and allows customers to find you on sites like Facebook. Your status updates, tweets (on Twitter), link postings to your site, and other online interactions connect you to the people who want to patronize local businesses like yours. These interactions direct people into your doors where their good experience and positive online interactions encourage better reviews for your business on sites like Yelp, purchases of gift certificates on the site you already have the business on, and so on.

[Ed. note again: Keep in mind that our service not only builds and hosts the site (and in this case, designs the logo and takes promo pictures at no additional charge), but we also include complete SEO, blog updates, and daily online media activity on 30+ sites.]

To sum it up, your online business is like your offline business: paying rent and utilities gives you a place to serve your customers, keeps vital services running, and keeps patrons coming back for more. Unlike rent and utilities, however, keeping your Web site running only costs $3 a day.

So, that’s what I said. I know wait for the decision makers to pow wow and determine whether we land the account. Do you find the fee fair? What would you add to the response to improve the answer?