What to budget for a business website in Canada

Most studios do not publish prices. The standard answer is "it depends," followed by a form. It does depend, but you cannot budget against "it depends," and an owner asking what a website costs deserves a number.

So here are numbers: Canadian dollars, 2026, for an ordinary business website. Not an online store doing ten thousand orders a month, and not a funded startup.

What you are paying for

Almost every quote is some mix of four things. Most confusion about price is confusion about which of the four is included.

Design. Deciding what goes on each page, in what order, and how it looks.

Build. Turning that into a site that loads fast and works on every phone.

Content. The words and the photos. Missing content stalls more projects than anything else.

Systems. Booking, payments, forms that go somewhere useful, automation behind the scenes. This is where a website stops being a brochure and starts doing work.

A cheap quote is usually cheap because it leaves two or three of those for you to handle. That is fine if you know it, and a nasty surprise if you do not.

The four ways to get a website, and what each costs

Do it yourself. A free builder plan can test an idea. A paid plan, a domain and the business features most companies need usually run to a few hundred dollars a year, plus your evenings spent designing, writing and maintaining it.

Freelancer with a template, about $800 to $3,000. Someone installs a theme, adds your content and hands you a login. It is fast and often perfectly adequate. Quality varies widely, and so does whether they answer the phone six months later.

Small studio, custom build. A site designed around your business rather than a theme, with the systems you actually need. Our published prices are from $1,500 for a focused one page site and $3,000 to $5,500 for a multi page business website, in CAD before tax. Larger builds and custom software are quoted on their scope.

Agency, often $15,000 to $60,000 and up. Bigger engagements can include brand strategy, research, content production and a team of specialists. That is valuable when the project needs it, and more than most local businesses need.

Compare what each quote includes, who owns the result, and what it costs to keep running.

What moves the number

How many pages you actually need. Not how many you have now. A twelve page site where nine pages are stale is a five page project.

Whether your content exists. If you have real photos of your work and can describe your services in writing, the project is faster and cheaper. If someone has to interview you, write everything and chase photos, that is real work and it is billed.

Integrations. Connecting to your calendar, payments, point of sale or customer records takes investigation and testing. One awkward connection can take longer than several easy ones.

Custom features. A customer portal, a dashboard, a quoting tool, a members area. That is software, and it is priced like software.

Online selling. Product data, taxes, shipping rules and payments all add scope, especially with a large catalogue or complicated shipping.

The costs after launch

The build is not the whole number. Budget for these too, and check current prices with each provider:

• Domain: about $15 to $30 a year.
• Hosting: anywhere from nearly nothing to $60 a month, depending on how the site is built. A lean, well built site costs very little to host. A heavy platform does not.
• Upkeep: software updates, security, backups and small changes, handled by you, paid as needed, or covered by a care plan.
• Payment processing: charged per sale. Stripe's standard Canadian rate is 2.9% plus 30 cents for domestic cards. Other providers and card types vary.
• Booking software: free to about $100 a month if you use a third party tool instead of building it in.
• Business email: roughly $8 to $12 per person per month.

Questions that change your quote

What do I own at handover? Who controls the domain and the data, what custom work transfers to you, and which pieces stay under someone else's licence.

What happens if I stop paying monthly? On some lease style arrangements the site goes dark. Find out before, not after.

Who writes the words? Agree who supplies, edits and approves the content, and by when.

What is not included? Photography, copywriting, logo work, ongoing search work and moving old content are the usual exclusions.

What does a change cost after launch? Hourly, included in a plan, or quoted each time. Any of those is fine. Not knowing is not.

Pricing shapes to watch for

$99 a month with no ownership. That is $3,564 over three years before tax, and you may own nothing at the end. Subscriptions can be good value. Just know the exit terms.

A quote with no scope. If it does not say how many pages, which features and how changes are handled, the number is decoration.

A quote far below everyone else's. Find out what is missing before assuming it is a bargain.

What we charge

Our prices are published at bootstrappedstudios.com. A one page site starts at $1,500 and usually takes two to three working days. A business website is $3,000 to $5,500 and usually takes one to two weeks, counted from when we have your content. If your current site works but has bugs or security worries, our one time Fix & Secure service starts at $349. Care, with hosting, updates and unlimited changes, is $349 a month or $3,499 a year, and the first 90 days come with every new build. Automation is quoted per task, with or without a new website. Every price is CAD before tax, and your final price is set in a written proposal before any work starts.

Or skip the reading and ask for a free mockup: a live homepage built for your business that you can click through before deciding anything.