Website costs break into three buckets: initial build, hosting infrastructure, and ongoing maintenance. For a standard business site with 5–15 pages, expect CAD $3,000–$8,000 if you hire a competent agency or freelancer for custom WordPress or similar. E-commerce adds $5,000–$20,000+ depending on product count, payment integration, and inventory systems. Template-based builders like Squarespace or Wix run $200–$500/year but limit SEO control and scalability. Monthly costs include hosting ($20–$200 for shared to managed VPS), domain registration ($15–$40/year), SSL certificates (often free via Let's Encrypt), and maintenance ($100–$500/month for updates, backups, and security patches). If you skip maintenance, expect plugin conflicts or security vulnerabilities within 6–12 months. Hidden costs that catch people: content creation (copywriting at $100–$300/page), stock photos or custom photography ($500–$3,000), ongoing SEO work ($800–$5,000/month for competitive markets), and conversion rate optimization. A $5,000 site without traffic strategy is a brochure, not an asset. At Ottawa SEO Inc., we separate site builds from SEO retainers because most clients need the infrastructure first, then systematic optimization. We've seen $50,000 sites rank worse than $4,000 ones because budget went to animation instead of technical foundation and content. The right cost depends on your customer acquisition model—if each lead is worth $2,000, a $12,000 site that converts 2% better pays for itself in 100 visitors. DIY routes (WordPress with a premium theme) can work for $500–$1,500 if you have 20–40 hours to learn, but most business owners underestimate the time cost. Cheap offshore developers ($500–$2,000) often deliver sites that need complete rebuilds within a year. Pay for structure and speed upfront or pay more fixing it later.