How Much Does a Small Business Website Cost in Ontario? (Published Prices for 2026)

Here is the answer most web designers will not put on a page: a small business website in Ontario costs somewhere between $700 and $15,000. The gap between those two numbers has more to do with who you hire and how they price than with what your business needs.

A range that wide is useless on its own, so this post breaks it down. What moves the price, what each way of buying gets you, and every price we charge, because you should not have to book a call to find out.

The short answer

For a typical small business, one that needs a handful of pages, a clear way to contact you and a site that shows up when someone in your town searches for what you do, the realistic ranges are:

• Do it yourself on Wix, Squarespace or Shopify: roughly $250 to $700 a year in subscriptions, plus your evenings and weekends.
• A freelancer or small studio: usually $1,000 to $5,000 for the build, depending on page count and whether your copy and photos exist yet.
• An agency: $5,000 to $15,000 and up, often with a monthly retainer attached.

At Second Coat, a one-page website is $760, a rebuild of up to six existing pages is $1,750 and a new six-page site from scratch is $2,250. Every other price is further down this page.

What actually moves the price

Five things decide most of the number.

Page count. A page is not just a page. Each one needs a purpose, copy, at least one decent image and a reason to be in the menu. Six well-built pages beat fifteen thin ones, and cost less.

Whether the copy exists. If you hand a designer a blank document, someone has to write the site. That is the most common hidden cost in web design. Writing is either in the price or it is not, and you should know which before you sign anything.

Photos. Stock photos are free and look like it. Real photos of your shop, your truck and your team, taken with a plan, do more for a site than most design decisions. A photo plan costs less than a photographer's minimum call-out, and it means the photos you take yourself are the right ones.

Selling and booking. Taking payments, running a store or letting customers book online each add real work. Each usually adds a monthly platform fee too, and that account belongs in your name, not your designer's.

The state of the old site. If you already have a website, the first question is whether the bones are worth keeping. Sometimes they are, and a rebuild costs less than starting over. Sometimes the site is compromised, sitting on a platform nobody supports, or built in a way that cannot be changed safely. Then starting over is cheaper than trying to save it. It is the same call I make with a dresser in my garage: strip and refinish, or admit the piece is done.

The three ways to buy a website, and what you actually get

A DIY builder. Wix, Squarespace, GoDaddy and Shopify will get a site online for a monthly fee. For a very simple business with time to spare, that can be enough. The catches: the templates all look like each other, the phone version is often an afterthought, local search setup is easy to skip, and you pay every month for as long as the site exists. If you already have a DIY site that is not bringing in work, the problem is usually the copy and the structure, not the platform.

A freelancer or small studio. This is where most small businesses should be. You get a person, a fixed price and a site built around your business rather than a template. The risk is in the unknowns: what happens when you need a change in six months, who owns the domain, what is included and what costs extra. Ask for all of it in writing. If someone cannot tell you what an extra page costs, they have not decided yet, and you will find out later.

An agency. Agencies bring strategy, a team and a process, and they charge for all three. If you run a multi-location business, a franchise, or you need custom software behind the site, that can be worth it. For a plumber, a florist or a physio clinic, most of that budget buys meetings.

What Second Coat charges

Every price below is published on our pricing page, in Canadian dollars, before HST. Founding client rates apply to projects booked by January 31, 2027. Third-party subscriptions, such as a booking platform or a store's payment processing, stay in your name and are approved before anything is bought.

The costs that never make it onto the quote

Whatever you spend on the build, budget for these. None of them are big. All of them are forgotten.

• Domain name: about $15 to $25 a year for a .ca. Register it yourself, in your own account. If your designer registers it for you, you have to trust them for as long as you are in business.
• Hosting: from included on some platforms to $10 to $30 a month for managed hosting. Ask what it is and who controls the account.
• Business email at your domain: Google Workspace or Microsoft 365 runs roughly $8 to $10 per person per month. An @gmail address on a business website costs you trust every day.
• Booking, store and payment platforms: $0 to $50 a month plus transaction fees, depending on what you sell and how.
• Changes: every site needs them. Know the price of an hour of your designer's time, or of a monthly care plan, before you need one.

What you should get for the money

At any price, a small business website should do all of this. If a quote does not cover it, the quote is not cheaper. It is incomplete.

• Works on a phone first, because that is where most of your customers will see it.
• Loads fast on an ordinary connection, not just on the designer's laptop.
• Says what you do, where you do it and how to reach you near the top of every page.
• Is set up to be found in local search: proper page titles and descriptions, and a Google Business Profile that points at it.
• Is yours. Domain, hosting and content sit in accounts you control.
• Comes with a written scope: what is included, what is extra, and what each extra costs.

One more test. Ask the designer what happens if you want a change six months after launch. A clear answer with a price is a good sign. A pause is not.

Where to start

If you already have a website, get the free Second Look. It is one page, five points, no login, and nothing on your site is touched. It tells you whether you need a small fix, a rebuild or nothing at all.

If you do not have a site yet, the pricing page has every option with its full scope. Pick the one that matches your situation and start a project. You will know the whole price before we ever speak.