The honest pricing summary
Canadian web design pricing in 2026 spans three orders of magnitude. Templated builds: C$2,500–C$8,000. Custom Webflow or WordPress for SMBs: C$8,000–C$30,000. Mid-market custom design with proper UX, SEO, and CMS work: C$25,000–C$80,000. Enterprise custom Next.js or headless: C$60,000–C$300,000+. Shopify themes are C$1,500–C$5,000; custom Shopify storefronts run C$15,000–C$120,000+. The biggest cost drivers are not platform choice but page count, content production, custom functionality, and integration work.
Pricing by platform: Webflow, WordPress, Custom, Shopify
Platform choice drives some of the cost — but less than most clients expect. A custom Webflow build and a custom WordPress build at equivalent quality for the same project will quote within 15–20% of each other. The bigger cost drivers are page count, custom functionality, content production, and integration complexity.
Where platform really matters is at the extremes. Templated builds are cheaper on WordPress because the theme ecosystem is mature and broad. Enterprise custom builds are cheaper on Next.js or headless because they avoid the maintenance overhead of large WordPress installations. The middle of the market is platform-neutral on price.
| Platform | Templated (C$) | Custom SMB (C$) | Mid-Market (C$) | Enterprise (C$) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Webflow | C$3,500–C$8,000 | C$10,000–C$30,000 | C$30,000–C$80,000 | C$60,000–C$200,000 |
| WordPress | C$2,500–C$6,000 | C$8,000–C$25,000 | C$25,000–C$70,000 | C$50,000–C$180,000 |
| Custom (Next.js / Astro) | Not typical | C$15,000–C$40,000 | C$40,000–C$120,000 | C$80,000–C$300,000+ |
| Shopify | C$1,500–C$5,000 (theme) | C$10,000–C$35,000 (custom theme) | C$30,000–C$80,000 | C$60,000–C$200,000+ |
| Squarespace / Wix / Framer | C$1,500–C$5,000 | C$5,000–C$15,000 | Rare | Not appropriate |
What actually drives the line items on your quote
Most web design quotes look opaque because the line items don't match where the time actually goes. Here's the breakdown that matches reality.
- Page count and content production30–45% of typical project cost. Each unique page template adds 8–25 hours of design and 4–12 hours of content production. Most clients underestimate this.
- Custom design system and brand work15–25% of cost on serious projects. UX research, brand discovery, design tokens, component library, and accessibility patterns.
- Custom functionality and integrations10–30% depending on requirements. CRM, marketing automation, payments, booking, calculators, member portals — each integration is 12–60 hours of work.
- SEO and AEO architecture5–15% on quality builds. Schema architecture, internal linking patterns, programmatic page generation, AI-friendly content structure, performance optimization.
- QA, accessibility, browser testing8–15%. WCAG 2.2 AA compliance, cross-browser testing, mobile responsiveness, performance budgets.
- Project management10–15%. Senior PM time, client communication, timeline management, scope control.
Redesign vs new build pricing
Redesigns of existing sites cost 60–110% of equivalent new builds. The bottom of that range applies when you're keeping the same platform, same CMS structure, and same URL architecture, and only changing the design layer. The top applies when you're replatforming or restructuring URLs — both of which require migration work, redirect mapping, and SEO recovery planning.
The most expensive type of redesign is the one that ignores SEO during the rebuild and then has to recover lost organic traffic afterwards. We've seen Canadian businesses lose 30–60% of organic traffic on poorly executed redesigns and pay another C$15K–C$50K to recover it over the following 6–12 months. Building SEO oversight into the redesign budget upfront is consistently 2–4× cheaper than recovering from a botched migration.
Ongoing cost: hosting, maintenance, content
Build cost is only the start. Plan for ongoing investment in three buckets.
- Hosting and platform feesWebflow: C$33–C$300/month depending on plan. WordPress: C$0–C$500/month depending on managed hosting. Shopify: C$40–C$500/month depending on plan. Custom Next.js: C$30–C$2,000+/month on Vercel/Cloudflare/AWS depending on traffic.
- Maintenance and updatesTemplated sites: C$0–C$200/month. Custom WordPress: C$200–C$1,500/month for proper security, plugin updates, backups. Custom Next.js: C$1,000–C$5,000/month for an engineering relationship that keeps things shipping.
- Content and ongoing SEOC$1,500–C$15,000/month for any business that takes organic acquisition seriously. This is where most of the long-term ROI from a well-built site comes from.
What to spend by company stage
There's a real risk in over-investing in a site that doesn't yet need to do the work, and a real risk in under-investing in a site that's the front door to a serious business. The framework below maps spend to stage.
- Pre-revenue / soft launch (C$2,500–C$8,000)Templated build, focus on speed-to-market, validate the offer before investing in design depth.
- Early-stage business (C$8,000–C$25,000)Custom Webflow or WordPress, 10–20 pages, real brand work, basic SEO foundation, conversion-focused design.
- Established SMB (C$25,000–C$60,000)Full UX work, custom design system, 25–50 pages, programmatic CMS for location/service grids, integrated SEO and AEO architecture.
- Mid-market scale-up (C$60,000–C$150,000)Custom design system, hundreds of pages, full integration work, dedicated CMS strategy, performance and accessibility budgets.
- Enterprise (C$150,000+)Headless or custom Next.js, design system across multiple brands, multi-language and multi-region, full engineering relationship for ongoing iteration.
Red flags in Canadian web design quotes
- Quotes under C$2,500 for 'custom' workAlmost always a template with light customization. That's fine if it's what you need, but it should be priced and described as a template build.
- Quotes that don't itemize content productionContent is 30–45% of real cost. Quotes that hide it usually mean the agency expects you to write everything, or plans to use AI without editorial review.
- No SEO or AEO architecture line itemSites built without SEO architecture lose 30–60% of organic traffic on launch. SEO oversight should be a named line item, not an afterthought.
- No accessibility scopeWCAG 2.2 AA compliance is now table stakes in Canada. Quotes that don't mention it produce sites that fail audits and need expensive remediation.
- Vague 'maintenance plans'Insist on specifics. What's covered, what's hourly, what's the response SLA, who is the named primary contact.
Frequently Asked Questions
The questions Canadian operators ask before commissioning work.