Ask around Montréal for a website quote and the numbers land all over the map, same as anywhere in Canada. But two things change the math here, and the national pricing guides never mention either one. In Quebec your website has a legal obligation the rest of the country does not have, and the taxes stacked on top of a quote are among the highest in the country. Here is what a business website really costs in this province, and what belongs in a fair quote.

What Quebec businesses actually pay

The market splits the same four ways here as everywhere. Do it yourself platforms run 200 to 500 CAD a year, plus your own evenings. Freelancers and small studios charge roughly 1,500 to 7,000 CAD for a complete business site. Montréal agencies typically land between 8,000 and 25,000 CAD once project managers and meetings enter the budget. Above that you are paying for real software, booking systems, client portals, online stores, which most service businesses do not need. I break down what pushes a quote up or down in the full pricing guide; the short version is that who does the work, and how much of the behind the scenes groundwork is included, matters far more than the page count.

What is specific to Quebec is that most of those quotes quietly assume one language. Which brings us to the real local question.

The French requirement changes the math

If you sell to customers in Quebec, the Charter of the French Language expects your business to serve them in French, and that includes your website. This is not new, but enforcement has real teeth now, complaints are easy to file, and the Office québécois de la langue française does follow up on them. The French version cannot be a token gesture either. It has to be as complete and as easy to reach as the English one.

So the honest question for any Quebec quote is “how much for a website in both languages.” Done properly, the second language adds real work: every page written by someone who actually writes French, forms and confirmation messages included, and the technical wiring that tells Google which version to show which visitor. Done cheaply, with an automatic translation plugin bolted on, it produces the kind of half-French site that irritates customers and can still leave you exposed. A bilingual build should cost more than a unilingual one, but nowhere near double, because the design and the structure are shared. If a provider treats French as a paid afterthought, or does not raise the question at all, that tells you something.

Taxes and the lines quotes leave out

Prices are almost always given before tax. In Quebec that means GST and QST on top, close to 15 percent combined. On a 5,000 CAD project that is roughly 750 CAD more, so confirm whether a number includes tax before comparing two quotes side by side.

Then come the recurring lines. A domain is about 20 CAD a year and must be registered in your own name, not the provider’s. Hosting for a well built business site should be modest, and any monthly care plan should say plainly what it covers. Be careful with cheap monthly bundles where you never own anything: if leaving the provider means losing your site and your address, the low price is a leash.

The French side is also your best opportunity

Here is the part most owners miss. The same French version the law requires is also the least crowded room you can walk into. Far fewer businesses take French search seriously, so the same quality of work goes further there, and if your customers are in Montréal, Laval or Québec City, the French page is often the one that makes the phone ring. The groundwork that makes it pay is the same local visibility work I describe in the local SEO guide. Treat the French site as a growth channel, and the legal obligation turns into the best value line on the quote.

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, taxes extra like everyone. I build by hand, in Montréal, in both languages, and clients own their domain and their site outright. The full detail is on the services page.

If you already have a site and want to know where it stands, in either language, I offer a free audit with no obligation attached. It will tell you what a fair quote should actually fix.