A good website costs anywhere from $3,000 to $15,000 for most small to medium businesses in Canada. That range buys you custom design, mobile responsiveness, basic SEO setup, and a content management system like WordPress. If you're a solopreneur or startup willing to use a template, you can get functional sites for $500 to $2,000. Enterprise sites with advanced integrations, custom applications, or e-commerce catalogs over 100 products routinely hit $25,000 to $100,000. The biggest cost drivers are design originality, custom functionality, and content creation. A five-page brochure site with stock photos and templated layouts is cheap. A site with original brand strategy, custom illustrations, interactive elements, or third-party API integrations costs more because you're paying for specialist hours. Content writing adds $100 to $200 per page if done professionally. E-commerce adds another layer—expect $5,000 minimum for a proper WooCommerce or Shopify Plus setup with payment gateways and inventory management. Monthly costs matter as much as the build. Hosting runs $20 to $200 per month depending on traffic and whether you need managed support. Maintenance and updates cost $100 to $500 monthly if you outsource them. Security, backups, and plugin updates aren't optional—they're the difference between a site that works in two years and one that gets hacked or breaks. At Ottawa SEO, we typically scope projects in the $4,000 to $12,000 range for local businesses because we're building for search performance and conversion, not just aesthetics. That includes technical SEO architecture, schema markup, and page speed optimization. Cheaper sites often skip these, which means you're paying twice—once for the site, again to fix it when it doesn't rank. The worst deal is a $1,500 site that needs a $6,000 rebuild in six months because it wasn't done right. Pay for strategy and solid infrastructure upfront, or pay more later.