What to budget for a business website in Canada

Reviewed September 6, 2026.

Nobody in this industry likes publishing prices. The standard line is "it depends," followed by a form. It does depend. But "it depends" is not an answer you can budget against, and a business owner asking what a website costs is asking a completely reasonable question that deserves a number.

So here are numbers. Canadian dollars, 2026, for an ordinary business site, not an online store doing ten thousand orders a month, not a startup burning a seed round.

What you are actually paying for

Almost every quote you receive is some mix of four things, and confusion about pricing is usually confusion about which of the four you are buying.

Design. Somebody deciding what goes on the page, in what order, and what it looks like.

Build. Somebody turning that into a working site that loads fast and does not break on a phone.

Content. Words and photos. Missing material can hold up a project even when the design and code are ready.

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 excludes two or three of those and hands them back to you. That is fine if you know it. It is a nasty surprise if you do not.

Planning ranges, not a market average

These are broad budgeting examples, not a survey of Canadian providers or fixed quotes. Scope, taxes, subscriptions and currency can change the total. Compare written proposals for the same deliverables.

Do it yourself. A free plan may be enough to test an idea. A paid builder, domain and business features can cost hundreds of dollars a year or more. Check the provider’s current Canadian pricing, billing term and feature limits. The less visible cost is your evenings spent on design, writing and maintenance.

Freelancer on a template, $800 to $3,000. Someone installs a theme, drops your content in, hands you a login. Fast, usually fine, and the result looks like every other site built on that theme. Quality varies enormously and so does whether they answer the phone in six months.

Small studio, custom build. A site designed around your business instead of a theme, with the systems your business actually needs. At BSS, our published starting ranges are $1,500 to $2,500 for a focused landing page, $3,000 to $5,500 for a business website, and $5,500 to $9,500 for an advanced website. All are CAD before tax. A one page site and a site with booking and payments are different jobs; complex software is scoped separately.

Agency, illustrative budgets of $15,000 to $60,000 and up. A larger engagement can include brand development, research, content and coordination across teams. Those services can be valuable when the scope needs them. Smaller studios also do strategic thinking; an agency label alone tells you neither the quality nor the right price.

For a local business, the middle two bands are sensible places to compare proposals. Team size alone does not settle it. Multiple locations, a complex catalogue or a difficult integration can justify a larger project.

Compare what each quote includes, who owns the result, and what it will cost to keep working.

What moves the number

Five things, roughly in order of how much they matter.

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 plus a deletion.

Whether your content exists. If you have real photos of your real work and can answer questions about your services in writing, your project is cheaper and faster. If somebody has to interview you, write it, and chase you for photos, that is real work and it gets billed.

Integrations. Connecting your site to a calendar, payment processor, POS, CRM or inventory system takes investigation. Available APIs, permissions, mapping, testing and recovery matter as much as the number of connections. One awkward integration can take longer than several straightforward ones.

Custom features. A portal, a dashboard, a quoting tool, a members area. This is software, priced like software.

Ecommerce. Selling online adds product data, tax rules, shipping logic and payment handling. The extra scope can materially increase the quote, especially with a large catalogue or complicated shipping. There is no dependable doubling rule.

The costs that show up after launch

The build price is not the whole number. Use these as rough budget allowances, then confirm current prices with each provider. Monthly charges need multiplying by twelve:

• Domain, $15 to $30 a year.
• Hosting, $0 to $60 a month depending on how the site is built. A static, well built site can host for almost nothing. A heavy platform cannot.
• Maintenance and updates, from your own time to a paid support agreement. A hosted platform may maintain its core software; a self hosted system needs someone responsible for updates, security and backups. A custom build also needs an agreed care plan, whether you handle it or hire help.
• Payment processing, charged per transaction. As one example, Stripe’s Canadian standard pricing lists 2.9% plus CA$0.30 for successful domestic card transactions. Other cards, currencies, methods and providers can cost more or less.
• Booking or scheduling software, $0 to $100 a month if you use a third party rather than building it in.
• Business email, around $8 to $12 per person per month.

Ongoing costs can range from modest hosting and domain bills to substantial software, usage and support fees. These examples are not BSS monthly care prices. Ask for the recurring costs and responsibilities for your actual stack before approving a build.

The questions that change your quote

Ask these before you sign anything. The answers move the price more than any negotiation will.

What do I own at handover? Ask who controls the domain and data, what custom code transfers to you, and which tools or assets remain under someone else’s licence. A platform subscription and a custom build have different ownership boundaries. Both should be explained before you buy.

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 when it will be ready.

What is not included? Photography, copywriting, logo work, ongoing SEO, and content migration are the usual exclusions.

What does a change cost after launch? Hourly, included, or a new quote each time. All three are fine. Not knowing is not.

The pricing shapes worth avoiding

A $99 a month arrangement with no ownership adds up to $3,564 over three years before tax or extras. Compare that with a scoped build plus hosting and maintenance, and ask what happens when you leave. A subscription can be useful; the ownership and exit terms should be clear.

A quote with no scope is not a quote. If the document does not say how many pages, what features, and what happens when you want changes, the number is decoration.

A quote that is dramatically below everyone else deserves a scope check. It may cover fewer pages, less content work or a different technology. Ask what is included and how support works before assuming either a bargain or poor quality.

Where to start if you are just trying to budget. Write down the job: calls, bookings, orders or quote requests. List the pages, content, integrations and workflows required, then use our estimator for a planning range. Page count alone is not a reliable price formula. The final quote comes from an agreed written scope.

What we charge, since it would be strange not to say

Our published website starting price is $1,500 CAD before tax. A focused landing page may take two to three working days and a business site one to two weeks once scope, content, access and approvals are ready. Complex work is scheduled separately. Automation can also be commissioned without a website, with price and timing set by the workflow and connected tools. After all project invoices are paid, custom deliverables transfer under our project terms; reusable tools and third party licences retain their existing ownership. Ongoing support is optional and agreed separately.

You can also work out a range for your own project without talking to anybody, or ask for a free mockup: a private, live homepage sample you can explore before deciding whether to commission a finished build. It is free to request and view, with no obligation to buy. The sample remains studio property unless a written agreement says otherwise.