How Much Does a Website Cost in Ontario? (2026)

A small business website in Ontario costs between roughly $150 and $12,000 to build, and the gap has almost nothing to do with how many pages you get.

That range is uselessly wide, which is why most articles about this stop at "it depends" and move on. So here are actual numbers — ours and everyone else's — plus the part nobody quotes you upfront: what it costs to still have a working website three years from now.

All prices are in Canadian dollars, before 13% HST.

What Ontario businesses are actually quoted in 2026

Here's the real spread across the market right now.

What you're buying	Upfront	Ongoing
DIY site builder (Wix, Squarespace)	$0	$20–$160/mo
Subscription studio	$149–$600	$65–$200/mo
Freelancer, brochure site	$1,000–$5,000	Hosting only, ~$15–$50/mo
Small agency, lead-gen site	$3,000–$12,000	$75–$500/mo maintenance
Agency, e-commerce or booking	$7,500–$30,000	$150–$500+/mo
Custom platform build	$25,000–$100,000+	Varies wildly

For reference, Webbies' Ontario cost guide puts the "realistic planning range" for a lead-generation website at $3,000–$12,000. That's the number most Ontario business owners hear when they start asking around, and it's why a lot of them never start.

It's also not wrong. It's just answering a different question than most small businesses are asking.

Why the range is so wide

Three things drive the number, and page count isn't really one of them.

Who builds it. An agency with a project manager, a designer, and a developer has to bill for three people's time. A solo freelancer bills for one. A studio running a productized process bills for a repeatable system. Same five pages, wildly different cost structures.

Whether anything is genuinely custom. A restaurant that needs a menu, hours, photos, and a contact form is a solved problem. A restaurant that needs table reservations synced to a POS system, multi-location inventory, and a loyalty program is software. The second one costs ten times the first because it is ten times the work.

How much strategy is bundled in. A $9,000 quote usually includes discovery sessions, competitor research, copywriting, a content strategy, and a few rounds of stakeholder review. Sometimes that's worth every dollar. Sometimes you're paying $9,000 for a five-page site because the process assumes you're a company with a marketing department.

Notice what's missing from that list: the number of pages. Going from five pages to eight adds maybe a few hours. It's not what moves a quote from $500 to $5,000.

The number that actually matters: three-year total

Sticker price is the wrong thing to compare, because almost nobody quotes you the full picture.

Say you're an Ottawa contractor who needs a five-page site. Here's what three years actually costs, running the math honestly.

	Upfront	Monthly	3-year total (pre-HST)
DIY on Wix, built yourself	$0	~$40	$1,440 + your weekends
Freelancer build, you host it	$2,500	~$25	$3,400
Kove Standard	$299	$95	$3,719
Agency build + maintenance plan	$6,000	~$150	$11,400

Add 13% HST to any of those. The agency option lands just under $13,000 all in.

And here's the part where we'll argue against ourselves: over three years, we are not the cheapest option on that table. A freelancer build comes in slightly under us, and doing it yourself on Wix costs less than half.

That's real, and any studio telling you otherwise is hoping you don't do the arithmetic.

What the monthly actually buys is that someone is still responsible for the site in year two. The freelancer number assumes you never need a change, your hosting never breaks, and nothing needs updating — which is roughly never how it goes. The DIY number assumes your own time is free.

The comparison that matters isn't upfront versus upfront. It's who fixes it when it breaks, and what do they charge?

Where Kove fits

We build custom sites on a low-upfront, monthly model. Our packages are:

• Basic — $149 upfront, $65/mo. One custom page, mobile-responsive, contact form, basic SEO. Live in 5 days.
• Standard — $299 upfront, $95/mo. Five custom pages, social integration, simple custom features. Live in 7 days. This is what most businesses take.
• Premium — $449 upfront, $189/mo. Eight pages, online booking and inventory integration, a matching mobile app, monthly newsletter sends. Live in 10 days.

Hosting, security updates, and support are in the monthly — not billed separately, not an upsell later. There's a 12-month minimum, then it goes month-to-month with 30 days notice.

And the part most subscription providers bury: your domain stays in your name, and if you leave, we hand over the code. You're renting our time, not access to your own website. Ask every other monthly provider you're considering to put that in writing.

Every site is hand-built. No templates, no page builder, no theme with your logo dropped in.

The reason the upfront number is $149 and not $3,000: we build to a defined process rather than reinventing one per client, and we make our margin over the life of the relationship instead of on day one. That's the whole trick. It's the same trade every subscription business makes, and it works well for the businesses it fits — and badly for the ones it doesn't.

When you should pay $3,000 or more

Sometimes the expensive quote is correct. Pay it when:

• You're running real e-commerce. Hundreds of SKUs, inventory sync, variable shipping, tax rules across provinces. That's a build, not a website.
• You have multiple locations with separate inventory, staff, and hours. The complexity compounds fast.
• You need integration with software you already run — a specific POS, a booking platform, a CRM, a legacy database. Integration work is where hours disappear.
• Your website is the product. If customers transact inside it rather than contacting you through it, you need a development partner, not a web studio.
• You need a brand built from scratch. Naming, identity, photography, and messaging are separate disciplines and they're worth paying for properly.

If you're a barbershop in Hintonburg who needs people to find you, see your prices, and book a cut, none of the above applies to you. You're being quoted for a process you don't need.

The ongoing costs nobody mentions

Whatever route you pick, budget for these. They're the ones that surprise people in month four.

• Domain — $20–$50/year for a .ca or .com. Small, but it renews forever, and letting it lapse is genuinely painful.
• Hosting — $15–$150/month depending on what you're running. Included in our monthly; usually not included in a freelancer build.
• SSL certificate — usually free now via Let's Encrypt, but confirm it's actually set up. A browser warning on your site costs you customers silently.
• Maintenance and updates — $75–$500/month at most agencies. This is the line item that turns a $6,000 project into a $12,000 three-year cost.
• Email hosting — $8–$12/user/month if you want you@yourbusiness.ca rather than a Gmail address. Worth it.
• Content changes — ask what a small edit costs. Some shops bill hourly at $100–$175. Ours are included.

Four questions to ask before you sign anything

Whoever you're talking to, including us:

1. What's the three-year total, all in? Upfront, monthly, hosting, and the cost of a typical content change. If they can't answer quickly, that's information.
2. Do I own the site if I leave? With one-time builds you generally do. With subscription models it varies enormously — some providers keep the domain, some keep the code, and some will only export you a PDF. Ask specifically about all three and get it in writing. Ours: domain in your name, code handed over.
3. What happens when I need a change? Included, hourly, or a support ticket into the void? This is the difference between a website that stays current and one that quietly rots.
4. Can I see something before I pay? Any studio confident in its work can show you a direction first. We do a free mockup in 48 hours — no cost, no commitment — because it's a faster way to find out if we're a fit than a discovery call.

So what should you budget?

If you're a local service business that needs to be findable, credible, and easy to contact: $150–$500 upfront and $65–$200/month covers it comfortably, whoever you go with.

If you need e-commerce, real integrations, or multiple locations: start at $7,500 and be skeptical of anyone quoting well under that, because the shortfall shows up later as work you have to pay someone else to redo.

And if someone quotes you $9,000 for a five-page brochure site, ask them what the other $8,000 is for. There may be a good answer. You should hear it before you sign.

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Want to know what your site would actually look like before spending anything? Get a free mockup — we'll send you a real design within 48 hours. See how the process works or browse what we've built.