In Quebec, an SMB website is priced at four fairly clear levels: roughly $800 to $2,000 for a single page, $2,500 to $6,000 for a brochure site of a few pages with the copy written for you, $8,000 to $15,000 for a site built to go after traffic, and from $12,000 for an online store. Add $100 to $300 a month for hosting and upkeep, which runs for as long as the site exists. All amounts are in Canadian dollars. The spread inside each level comes almost entirely from the content to be produced, never from the technology.
This piece explains what you are buying at each level and how to compare two quotes carrying different numbers. To place that spending inside your overall budget, see what web marketing costs in Quebec: a website is a one-off investment, not a monthly line, and it is reasoned about differently.
What actually drives the price
Three factors, in order. First, the number of pages genuinely written. Writing a service page that holds up — what you do, for whom, with what proof — takes several hours, and it is the line item that takes a quote from four pages to twelve. Second, visual production: photos of your own work, a shoot on site, retouching. Third, integration with your tools: a form wired to a CRM, booking, payment, accounting.
What does not drive the price, contrary to belief: the choice of technology. Time spent writing, photographing and structuring far exceeds time spent building. Which is why a quote that details features at length and stays vague about content should worry you — that is exactly where the project will go off the rails.
The four levels, plainly
The single page. One page: your offer, your proof, a form. The right call when the goal is to exist quickly, to have an address to give out and a destination for your ads. It is not a budget choice, it is a scope choice. With us that level is $800, fixed.
The brochure site. Home, services, work, contact, with the copy written and the search basics in place. This is the site your customers expect to find when they check who you are. $2,800 with us; on the market the range runs $2,500 to $6,000 depending on how much writing is included — and that is precisely the line to read in any quote.
The full site. One page per service, an optimised portfolio, a blog ready to publish, conversion tracking. The difference with the brochure site is not aesthetic: it is a site designed to be found, so it carries far more content. $8,500 with us. That level makes sense as soon as search is part of the strategy — see the SEO and GEO page for what follows on from it.
The online store. From $12,000, and the range climbs quickly with the number of products, variants, shipping rules and the link to your accounting system. A store is a different kind of project: the site is only part of what you are buying. The rest is on the e-commerce page, and the six leaks costing you sales are worth reading before you sign.
You are not paying for a website. You are paying for the number of pages somebody has to write on your behalf.
The recurring costs left out of the sum
The domain name, about twenty dollars a year. Hosting and the security certificate. Updates to the site and its plugins, backups, monitoring. Together that runs $100 to $300 a month for an SMB site — from $120 with us, as detailed on the WordPress maintenance page.
This is the line that gets cut easily and costs dearly. A site left without updates for two years eventually falls over, gets compromised, or simply stops displaying its forms properly — and nobody notices before realising the requests stopped arriving. A rebuild always costs more than upkeep.
What makes a quote go off the rails
Almost always the same thing: content that never arrives. The quote assumes you supply the copy and the photos, you have time for neither, the project stretches over five months and ends with an unplanned writing charge. The guard is simple: have the question written into the quote in black and white — who writes, who photographs, and what happens if the content does not come.
The other classic causes are additions along the way — one more page, one more language, online booking — and rounds of revision on the design when nobody on the client side has the final say. Naming a single decision-maker before you start saves more money than any negotiation on the rate.
What about the $30 a month platforms?
They are a legitimate choice in one case: you have the time and the appetite to do it yourself, and your site does not have to bring in customers through search. The apparent cost is low, the real cost is your time — allow several dozen hours for a decent result, and the writing stays entirely on you.
Two limits worth knowing: you are a tenant of the platform, with everything that implies if its pricing or its rules change; and the content structure search requires is harder to achieve there. If your site mainly has to exist, that is enough. If it has to produce requests, the question stops being price and becomes return — and that is judged differently.
How to compare two quotes
Four lines to isolate in each: how many pages are written and by whom, what is planned for photography, what happens after launch, and who owns the domain, the hosting and the site. That last line is the most important and the least read: a site you do not own is not an asset, it is a subscription.
Two method notes to close. The structure of a page that converts is broken down in the seven sections of a home page; and if you are in construction or renovation, the list of what the site must contain is more specific in our piece written for contractors.
Our four packages, with what each includes, are on the website design page. And if you are torn between rebuilding and fixing, the thirty-minute call exists precisely to settle that question.
When to redesign your website — before comparing quotes, check whether a rebuild is warranted.
Quebec digital grants — what part of a web project can be funded.
Brand identity for a small business — the decision that comes before the quote.