Ask three people what a small business website costs in Canada and you'll get three numbers that seem to describe three different products. Usually, they do. One is quoting a template you'll fill in yourself, one a custom site with five pages of copy, and one an online store with shipping and sales tax set up. None of them is wrong. They're just answering different questions.
So before comparing numbers, it helps to know which kind of website you're actually being quoted for, what moves the price, and what the quote quietly leaves out.
The three kinds of website you'll be quoted for
A template site you build yourself. Squarespace, Wix, or Shopify if you're selling. You pay a monthly platform subscription and your own evenings. It's the cheapest option in cash and the most expensive in time. Each platform publishes its plans on its own pricing page, and they change, so check there rather than trusting a number in an article.
A custom small site built for you. A designer or studio builds it on a platform or content management system, with your copy, your photos and your booking or contact setup. Most small and medium-sized businesses end up here.
An online store. Everything in a custom site, plus a product catalogue, payments, shipping rules, sales tax for the provinces you sell into, and inventory that has to stay accurate.
For transparency: on my own pricing page, a full website or e-commerce build is scoped as a project milestone and starts at $3,500, and the scope decides where it goes from there. You can see what a build includes on the services page.
What actually drives the price
Page count matters less than people think. These matter more:
Unique layouts, not pages. Twenty service pages that share one template cost far less than eight pages that each need their own design.
Who writes the copy. If the quote assumes you'll supply every word, the price is lower and the launch date is later.
Photography. Your own photos of your own space beat stock every time, and they cost something to get.
Integrations. Online booking, forms that feed a CRM, payments, a menu or price list that has to stay in sync.
Moving from an old site. Redirects, content migration and keeping what already ranks (more on that below).
Speed and accessibility. A site that loads quickly and works for everyone takes deliberate effort, and it's worth paying for. Most customers will meet it on a phone first.
The running costs a quote leaves out
A build quote is a one-time number. A website keeps costing a little every month after launch. Ask for a year-one total, not just a build price, and make sure it covers:
The domain. A .ca domain is only available to registrants who meet the Canadian Presence Requirements, such as Canadian citizens, permanent residents and Canadian corporations (sourced from CIRA).
Hosting or the platform subscription. Monthly or annual, and it rises with features.
Paid themes, plugins and apps. Often small individually, and they add up.
Maintenance. Updates, security, backups, and someone to call when the contact form stops sending.
Professional email on your own domain, if it isn't already set up.
Privacy basics. A contact form collects personal information, so a privacy policy belongs on the build list. The Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada explains what PIPEDA expects of businesses.
Why a build is a project, not a monthly fee
A website is a fixed deliverable: it gets scoped, built, approved and launched. Folding it into a monthly retainer usually does one of two things. It hides a long commitment inside a small monthly number, or it blurs what you own when you stop paying. Pay for the build as a project, then decide separately whether you want ongoing help with SEO, content or ads.
Whichever route you choose, the domain, the hosting account and the platform login should all be in your business's name from day one.
If you're replacing an old site
A redesign can quietly undo years of search visibility if old addresses stop working. Google recommends permanent redirects, such as 301 or 308, from every old URL to its new home, kept in place generally for at least a year, and warns that search visibility can fluctuate temporarily during a move before settling down (sourced from Google Search Central). A quote for a rebuild that doesn't mention redirects is missing something important.
And if you're still deciding whether you need a website at all, this is worth reading first.
Red flags in a cheap quote
No mention of who owns the domain and hosting. If it's registered to the designer, it's theirs.
"SEO included" with no definition. Ask what, specifically, is being done.
A low build price tied to a long hosting or maintenance contract. The real cost is in the contract.
No redirect plan for an existing site.
No mobile testing mentioned anywhere.
No list of what you'll need to supply, which usually means the timeline is optimistic.
A cheap quote isn't automatically a bad one. It just needs to answer all of these clearly. So, of the quotes in front of you, which one tells you what your website will cost in its first full year?