Do it yourself
$20–$40/month for a builder like Wix or Squarespace — plus your weekends. The tool is cheap; your time isn't, and the result usually looks like the template it is. Fine for a hobby. Costly for a business whose phone should be ringing.
GUIDE — PRICING, IN PLAIN NUMBERS
How much does a website cost in Ontario?
Short answer: somewhere between $200 and $10,000+, and the range is that wide because "a website" can mean three very different things. Here's what actually drives the price, what each route really costs once you count your own time, and the red flags that mean you'll pay twice.
THE THREE WAYS PEOPLE BUY
Same words, three different products.
A freelancer or small studio
Roughly $500–$3,000 for a proper small-business site. This is the sweet spot for most trades: real design, copy written for you, your domain in your name. Prices vary wildly, which is why a written, all-in quote matters more than the number itself.
A full agency
$5,000 and up, often far up. Worth it when you need branding, a big catalogue, or a marketing team. For a 3–6 page trades site, you're mostly paying for their office and their account managers.
WHAT DRIVES THE NUMBER
Four things move a quote.
- Pages and features. One strong page costs less than six. Booking, payments, and portals cost more than a gallery and a form — get them quoted as line items, not vibes.
- Who writes the words. "Content to be provided by client" is where cheap quotes go to die. If copywriting is included, the price is higher and the project actually finishes.
- Photos. Your own job photos sell better than stock. Sourcing and cleaning up images takes time; ask whether it's in the quote.
- What happens after launch. Hosting, updates, and small edits run $0–$100/month in the wild. A site nobody updates quietly rots — budget for the care, not just the build.
RED FLAGS
Walk away if you hear these.
- "We can't give a price until a call." For a standard small-business site, a price range should survive an email. Ours is on our homepage.
- The domain is registered in their name. Your domain is your business's address. If they hold it, they hold you. It should always be yours.
- Hourly billing with no cap. Open-ended hours on a fixed-scope job means the risk is all yours.
- No draft before full payment. A deposit to start is normal. Everything up front, sight unseen, is not.
For reference, our own founding prices are public: a one-page Landing site is $199, Starter $299, Standard $499 — 50% deposit, balance at launch, domain in your name. The full estimate is here, including what every package leaves out.
Why so low, honestly? We’re a new studio building its first roster of client sites, and founding prices are how we earn our first examples. There’s no office and no sales team to feed, the prices are printed on our homepage for everyone, and the work itself is the same work the regular prices ($299 / $599 / $1,499) will buy once the founding roster is full. What’s not included is printed too — the exclusions are on the estimate, in the open, before you pay anything.
THE WHOLE BILL
What your first year actually costs.
No asterisks: the build, the care plan, and the total — for our three founding packages.
- Landing — $199 to build. Care plan $59/month with the first 2 months free: $590 in year one. First-year total: $789.
- Starter — $299 to build. Same care plan: $590 in year one. First-year total: $889.
- Standard — $499 to build. Same care plan: $590 in year one. First-year total: $1,089.
- After year one: $59/month if you keep the care plan (hosting, updates, small edits) — cancel anytime. The site is yours: your domain, registered in your name, and if you ever leave the plan we hand over the site’s files so it can live wherever you like. If you don’t own a domain yet, expect roughly $15–$25 a year paid to the registrar, in your name.
- How long it takes: deposit to first draft in about 48 hours for Landing, Starter and Standard; most sites are live within about a week once we have your words and photos.