How Much Does a Website Cost in 2026? (Real Numbers)

The short answer, by who builds it

Four routes, four very different cost shapes. DIY builders (Wix, Squarespace) look cheap monthly but never stop charging and you never own the result. Freelancers are a one-time fee but quality and reliability vary widely. Traditional agencies deliver polish at a premium, often with a monthly retainer attached. A one-time custom studio build is a fixed price up front, then near-zero recurring cost, with full ownership handed to you.

• DIY builder (Wix / Squarespace): $16–$55/month CAD forever — $1,000–$3,300 over five years, no ownership
• Freelancer: $500–$5,000 one-time — quality and follow-through vary
• Traditional agency: $5,000–$30,000+ one-time, often plus a monthly retainer
• One-time custom studio (CodexWebLabs): $249–$999 for most small businesses, $0/month hosting, you own it

DIY builders: cheap monthly, expensive forever

Wix and Squarespace advertise $16/month, but the tier a real business needs lands at $26–$55/month CAD once you add commerce, remove branding, and get a proper domain. Multiply by 60 months and the "cheap" option is $1,560–$3,300 over five years — and at the end of it you own nothing. Cancel and the site disappears.

They earn their price for very light, non-technical projects. But for anything meant to rank or sell, the rendered HTML is heavy and mobile speed suffers, which quietly costs you Google rankings the whole time you are paying.

Freelancers and agencies: the one-time fee spread

A freelancer typically charges $500–$5,000 for a small-business site. It is a one-time fee and you usually own the result, but you are betting on one person’s availability, skill, and willingness to answer the phone in a year.

A traditional agency delivers real polish — and charges for it: $5,000–$30,000+ is normal, and many attach a monthly retainer for hosting and "maintenance." You get a team, but often the source code and accounts stay with the agency, which is its own kind of lock-in.

One-time custom: pay once, own it

Our model is a fixed one-time price with the agency-grade result and none of the rent. The tiers are $249 (Launch — single page), $499 (Pro — multi-page brand site), $999 (Store — e-commerce up to 50 products), and $4,500+ (Software — a custom platform). You own the code and every account; hosting is free on modern static infrastructure.

The catch worth naming: a one-time studio like this works because we build fast and lean, so we keep bespoke quality at a fraction of agency pricing. It is not a template — it is custom code you keep.

The recurring costs nobody quotes

Whatever route you pick, budget for the small ongoing items so the sticker price does not surprise you later:

• Domain name: $12–$15/year (unavoidable, and you should own it in your name)
• Email: $0 with Cloudflare Email Routing, or about $6/month for Google Workspace
• Hosting: $0 on a custom static build; baked into the monthly plan on DIY builders; often a retainer with agencies
• Transaction fees: DIY commerce plans frequently add fees on top of Stripe’s standard rate

A note on Montreal pricing

Locally, "creation site web" quotes in the Montreal market swing widely — from a few hundred dollars for a freelancer to five figures for an agency retainer. The right number depends on scope, not postal code. Price the scope, not the story: a one-page launch and a fifty-product store are different jobs with honest, different prices.

The fastest way to sanity-check any quote you receive is to run it against a fixed one-time price for the same scope. That is exactly what the calculator is for.