Ask five providers what a website costs and you will get five numbers that differ by a factor of twenty. That is not because someone is lying. It is because “a website” can mean anything from a template filled in over a weekend to a six month agency project with a team of eight. Here is how the market actually breaks down, so you can place any quote you receive.
The four price bands
Do it yourself builders, roughly 200 to 500 CAD per year. Wix, Squarespace and similar tools. You pay a subscription and do the work yourself. This is a fine choice when you are testing an idea and have more time than money. The cost that never shows up on the invoice is your own evenings, and the result usually looks like what it is.
Freelancers and independent studios, roughly 1,500 to 7,000 CAD per project. One person or a small team builds the site for you. Quality varies enormously in this band. Some freelancers deliver work that outperforms agencies. Others install a heavy WordPress theme, change the colours and disappear. The questions further down this page are how you tell them apart.
Local agencies, roughly 8,000 to 25,000 CAD. You get project managers, meetings and a process. Some of that overhead buys real value on large projects. On a ten page service business site, most of it buys meetings. One of my own clients was quoted over 20,000 euros and several months by agencies in Paris. The site was delivered in days, for a fraction of that.
Larger agencies and custom platforms, 25,000 CAD and up. Justified when you need real software: booking systems, client portals, e-commerce with thousands of products. Not justified for a site whose job is to present a service business and bring in enquiries.
What actually drives the price
A quote is mostly a function of four things. The number of unique page designs, since ten pages that share a layout cost far less than ten pages designed from scratch. Whether the copy is written for you or you supply it. How much behind the scenes work is included, meaning the technical setup that gets you found on Google and by AI assistants. And who does the work, because a senior person billing directly is often cheaper than a junior person billed through three layers of management.
The last point matters more than people expect. When you pay an agency 15,000 CAD, the person actually building your site may be seeing a small fraction of it. When you pay an independent directly, the money buys work instead of structure.
What a fair quote should include
Whatever you pay, a finished business website should come with all of the following. Your own domain, registered in your name so you can leave with it. A site that loads fast on a phone. The technical groundwork done so Google can find and understand every page. Clear next steps on every page so visitors can become enquiries. And a straight answer about who owns what when the project ends.
If a provider hesitates on ownership, walk away. A surprising number of cheap monthly plans are cheap because you never own anything, and the site is held hostage if you try to leave.
Where I land, for honesty’s sake
At Studio Squalli a new build starts at 2,500 CAD, a full paid audit of an existing site is 350 CAD, and ongoing care is 250 CAD per month. Everything is built by hand, by me, in Montréal, and clients own their domain and site outright. I publish these numbers because I think the guessing game most of this industry plays serves nobody; the full case for publishing prices is its own article.
The real question is not the price
A website is not a cost, it is a piece of equipment that either produces enquiries or does not. A 1,500 CAD site that brings you two clients a year has paid for itself many times over. A 20,000 CAD site that nobody finds is expensive at any price. So when you compare quotes, ask each provider the same question: what will this site do to get found and to turn visitors into customers? The quality of the answer tells you more than the number does.
If you already have a site and want to know where it stands, I offer a free audit with no obligation attached. And if you are budgeting a new project, the services page shows exactly how I price mine.