Price your website based on the business value it delivers and the technical scope required, not raw hours worked. A static brochure site for a local contractor might justify $3,000–$5,000 because it's straightforward and low-maintenance. A lead-generation site for a law firm with custom forms, CRM integration, and content strategy could warrant $15,000–$25,000 because it directly impacts revenue. E-commerce builds with inventory management, payment processing, and shipping logic start at $25,000 and scale with feature complexity. Break pricing into clear tiers. Entry-level sites (5–10 pages, template customization, basic SEO) sit in the $2,000–$8,000 range. Mid-tier custom builds (unique design, CMS setup, integrations, content migration) run $10,000–$30,000. Enterprise or product-focused sites (custom applications, API work, scalability planning) exceed $30,000 and often hit six figures. These ranges reflect Canadian agency rates; offshore providers undercut by 40–70% but introduce communication overhead and quality risk. Avoid hourly billing for fixed-scope projects. Clients hate uncertainty and hourly models penalize efficiency. Instead, define deliverables: design rounds, page count, integrations, training sessions, post-launch support duration. Build in a 15–20% contingency for scope creep, but communicate it as revision limits (e.g., two design rounds included, $500 per additional round). Consider ongoing value when pricing. If you're building a site that includes SEO strategy, analytics setup, and conversion tracking, you're delivering compounding ROI. Price that higher upfront or bundle it with a monthly retainer ($800–$2,500/month for maintenance, updates, and performance monitoring). At Ottawa SEO, we price based on competitive impact: a site that ranks in local pack and converts at 4% justifies premium pricing because it replaces $3,000/month in ad spend. Watch for red flags that justify higher pricing: tight deadlines (add 25–40%), unclear requirements (require discovery phase), or clients who've burned through previous agencies (risk premium). Conversely, long-term partnerships or portfolio-building projects can justify discounts, but never drop below your cost of delivery plus 30% margin.