Ask three companies to quote the same five page website and the numbers that come back can look like a typo: $800 from one, $4,500 from another, $18,000 from the third. None of them are lying to you. They're quoting three different things, and almost nobody stops to explain which of those things you actually need.
We build and rebuild websites for a living, so here's the straight version: third party ranges only, current for mid 2026. We're not quoting our own prices here, because a number without a scope is how owners get burned.
The three ways to buy a website
Every quote in Canada comes from one of three worlds: you build it yourself on a subscription platform, you hire a freelancer, or you hire an agency. The ranges below line up across the Canadian pricing guides published this year, and the builder prices come straight from the platforms' own Canadian pricing pages. Prices move, so treat this as the shape of the market, not gospel.
| How you buy it | Typical 2026 price | What you're really getting | Who it fits |
|---|---|---|---|
| DIY builder (Wix, Squarespace) | $20 to $60 a month, $0 up front | A template, hosting, and SSL. Your own evenings do the design work. | A brand new business proving an idea |
| Freelancer | $1,500 to $8,000 one time | A custom build. Support afterward depends entirely on one person's availability. | An established business with a normal brochure site |
| Agency | $5,000 to $15,000 for a standard build, $25,000 and up with custom features | Strategy, design, build, copywriting, and a team you can call next year | A business where the website carries real revenue |
A few notes on those rows. Wix's Canadian plans run from about $24 a month at the low end to over $200 for its top commerce tiers. Squarespace's popular plans land around $20 to $60 a month on annual billing. Both publish prices in Canadian dollars, so check their pricing pages the week you decide.
For freelancers, the 2026 guides cluster a typical five to eight page small business site between $2,500 and $7,000, or $50 to $150 an hour when billed by time. Agencies quote the same scope at roughly $5,000 to $15,000, and the gap is mostly copywriting, project management, and the fact that more than one person touches the work.
What the sticker price doesn't cover
The build price is the number everyone compares, but it's the ongoing costs that decide whether you're still happy in year three.
Your domain is the cheap part. A .ca or .com runs $15 to $25 a year from any accredited registrar. Hosting ranges from a few dollars a month on shared plans to $50 or more for managed WordPress. And the price guides that track ongoing costs put realistic upkeep, meaning hosting, security, backups, and small content changes, at roughly $1,000 to $5,000 a year for a professionally maintained site.
That upkeep number is heavily tied to how the site was built. WordPress needs constant plugin and security updates, which is exactly what you're paying a maintenance plan for. When we rebuild a WordPress site as a static site, the hosting bill usually drops to almost nothing and the security patching mostly disappears, because there's no database or plugin stack left to defend. Fewer moving parts, less rent.
Where quotes balloon
The gap between the quote and the final invoice almost always comes from the same short list.
Copywriting is the biggest one. Most quotes quietly assume you'll supply the words for every page. You won't want to, and writing eight pages of copy that actually sells is real billable work, often $100 to $200 per page from a decent writer. Ask every bidder whether writing is included before you compare numbers.
Page count creep is second. A five page quote becomes an eleven page site once every service wants its own page, and every new page means more design time and more copy. Photos are third: a template filled with stock photos looks like a template, and nobody budgets for a photographer until the draft looks flat.
And one trap that has nothing to do with price: check whose name the domain gets registered under. We've dealt with businesses that lost control of their own web address because a past developer registered it under their own account and then stopped answering emails. The domain should be in your registrar account, in your business's name, full stop. It's the first thing we verify when we take over any site.
Do this before you ask anyone for a quote
You can make every quote cheaper and easier to compare with about an hour of prep, and it costs nothing.
- List your pages by name. Home, one page per main service, About, Contact. Most small businesses land at five to eight.
- Gather your logo file, your ten best photos, and any text you already have, into one folder.
- Pick three websites you like, from any industry, and note one thing you like about each.
- Ask every bidder the same four questions: what's included in the price and what's extra, who registers the domain and in whose name, what hosting and maintenance cost after year one, and what a small text change will cost you two years from now.
Vague briefs get padded quotes, because the builder prices in the unknowns. A tight brief gets you a tight number, and the way each company answers question four tells you more about them than their portfolio does.
A $30 a month builder site is genuinely fine for some businesses
If you're brand new, money is tight, and you mostly need an address, hours, photos, and a phone number that works on a phone screen, build it yourself on Wix or Squarespace and spend your first marketing dollars elsewhere. That's the right order of operations for a lot of new businesses, and any builder who tells you otherwise is selling.
The math changes when the website has a job to do: ranking on Google, converting ad traffic, taking bookings or orders. DIY sites tend to stall there, partly on speed and partly because nobody's watching the details that make search engines and buyers trust a site. That's the point where paying for professional web design stops being an expense and starts being the thing that pays for the rest. Our case studies show what that looks like on real local businesses, and if you want a scope and a real number instead of a range, book a call and we'll give you one.
Frequently asked questions
Can I get a decent business website for under $1,000 in Canada?
Yes, if you build it yourself. A year of Wix or Squarespace plus a domain runs $300 to $800, and for a simple brochure site that's a fair deal. Under $1,000 for a custom professional build, though, usually means a template with your logo dropped in.
Why did I get quotes ranging from $500 to $20,000 for the same site?
Because they're not quoting the same site. The $500 quote is a template filled with your text, the $20,000 quote includes strategy, copywriting, custom design, and support. Neither is a scam. Make everyone itemize what's included and the spread suddenly makes sense.
How much does it cost to keep a website running each year?
The domain is $15 to $25. Hosting runs anywhere from $50 to $600 a year depending on the platform. Add maintenance and small updates and Canadian guides put realistic upkeep between $1,000 and $5,000 a year for a professionally managed site, though a static site sits at the very bottom of that range.
Do websites really cost more in Canada than the US?
Not meaningfully. The ranges are similar once you convert currency; you're paying for the builder's skill, not their postal code. Plenty of businesses still hire local, because someone who knows your market and answers in your time zone is worth something.
What should I be most careful about in a cheap website deal?
Ownership. Confirm the domain is registered in your name, you have logins for hosting, and you're allowed to take the site with you if you leave. A cheap build you own beats a cheap build you rent, and some $500 deals are structured so you can never leave.