How much does a website cost in Canada?

How much does a website cost in Canada? Quotes run from a few hundred dollars for a website builder to five figures from a Toronto agency, and both can be fair, because they pay for very different amounts of work. Here's what Canadian businesses pay in 2026 by who builds the site, with sources, what keeps costing after launch, how GST/HST and French pages change the comparison, and how to read a quote before you sign, ours included.

Website cost in Canada in 2026: what small businesses pay

The figures come from two Canadian agencies' guides: Marvel Marketing's website design cost guide from Calgary and Shift8's web design pricing for Toronto. They differ at the edges, and Toronto prices sit higher (Shift8 puts a 6 to 20-page small business site at CA$7,500-CA$20,000), but they agree on the middle: a proper small business site from a Canadian agency starts in the low thousands.

GST/HST on website quotes: compare like with like

Most Canadian quotes are shown before tax, and the tax added depends on the province: 5% GST in some, HST of 13% or more in others (CRA). A freelancer below the small supplier threshold may not charge it at all. If your business is registered for GST/HST you can usually claim it back as an input tax credit, so the figure that matters is the one before tax; if you aren't, compare the totals with tax. Our prices are shown before GST/HST, which is added on the invoice.

Website builder, WordPress or custom: what each one costs

A website builder like Wix or Squarespace

You pay a plan that includes hosting (CA$300-CA$1,200/year a year according to Marvel Marketing), pick a template and add your text. It's the cheapest in dollars and the most expensive in time: several evenings to build it and a regular slot to keep it current. It suits you if you're just starting or the site is only a digital business card.

WordPress, built by you or by someone else

WordPress itself is free; you pay for the domain, the hosting and often a premium theme and plugins. Built by a freelancer or an agency, you pay for the design, the copy and the setup, and you get a site you own and can move to another host whenever you like.

Custom design and development

A design made for your business with features of its own (online booking, a client portal, a link to your inventory system). That's where prices climb toward the top of the ranges above. A local service business rarely needs it; it pays off when the site has to do something no template does.

What raises or lowers a website quote

Copy is often the slowest part, and the one that decides whether the site brings in calls. Two Canadian details move the price as well. If you do business in Quebec, the province expects commercial websites to be available in French (CFIB summary of Law 14), so a bilingual site is more work. And in Ontario, businesses with 50 or more employees must make their public website meet WCAG 2.0 Level AA (Ontario.ca). Speed counts too: Google considers loading good when the main content appears within 2.5 seconds (web.dev).

What a website costs each month and each year after launch

Cheap shared hosting can make a fast site slow, and a maintenance plan is only worth what it includes: updates tested first, backups kept off the server and someone checking that your form still sends. If you'd rather not deal with it, that's website maintenance.

What an online store costs in Canada

A store is a bigger project than a service website: a catalogue, payments, shipping rules for a very large country and GST/HST, PST or QST depending on where each buyer is. Marvel Marketing puts ecommerce sites at CA$5,000-CA$40,000, and Shift8 puts a standard Toronto store of around 500 products at CA$15,000-CA$60,000. A small store with a defined catalogue on Shopify or WooCommerce sits toward the bottom of those ranges, plus Shopify's monthly plan if you use it. How we build them is on ecommerce website design.

What a Canadian website quote should spell out

1. Every page, one by one, and who writes the copy for each.
2. Whether French pages are included, and who writes them.
3. What the site has to do: call and text buttons, forms, booking, a store.
4. Whether it's built for Google (titles, structure, speed) or only designed.
5. Whether the price includes GST/HST.
6. The delivery date, and whether it's in the contract or only an estimate.
7. When you pay, and which monthly or yearly costs come after launch.
8. That the domain, the site and the content are in your name.

Red flags to watch for in a website quote

• A total with no list of pages behind it.
• Most of the price paid up front, before you've seen anything working.
• A monthly “website plan” with a long contract and the site in the provider's name.
• No mention of copy: you'll be asked for it once the design is done, and the site waits.
• Promises of first place on Google. No one controls that.

If you also want ongoing work to rank higher once the site is live, that's a separate service with its own price; we cover what it costs in how much SEO costs in Canada.

How we price your website

It starts with a free website audit: how your customers search, what they find today and how your current site works on a phone. In under a week you get a page-by-page plan and a fixed quote with a signed delivery date (usually about 6 weeks). You know the exact amount before deciding, and you pay nothing until everything in your proposal is live. How we price is on how we price. Want to run the numbers first? Our free calculators can help, and you'll find more guides like this on the blog.