How much does website maintenance cost in Canada?

Agencies typically sell care plans at $100 to $400 or more per month. Freelancers usually charge a few hundred dollars a year. FLXW charges a build fee once, with the first year of hosting included, then a flat yearly fee to host the site and keep it patched. Changes after launch are billed hourly and quoted in writing before any work starts.

What makes a small business website cost more?

Four things: the number of pages, booking and scheduling features, integrations with other tools like a CRM or an EHR, and how custom the design is. A five page site with no booking sits at the bottom of the range. A site that books appointments and talks to your other systems moves up.

Is a DIY website builder good enough for a small business?

If you just need a placeholder that proves you exist, yes. A builder plan finished in a weekend is fine. If you need a site that books appointments, shows up in search, or connects to your other tools, a custom build usually pays for itself.

FLXW · Pricing Guide · 2026

How much does a small business website cost in Canada?

Q: How much does a small business website cost in Canada?

A DIY builder like Wix or Squarespace costs a monthly plan fee that depends on the plan, your region and the billing term, plus the hours you spend building it. A freelancer or solo studio usually charges $2,000 to $6,000 to build it, plus a few hundred dollars a year to keep it running. An agency usually starts around $10,000 and climbs from there. FLXW builds small business websites from $2,500 CAD, fixed price in writing, with the first year of hosting included.

By Cole Matlock · Founder, FLXW · August 31, 2026 · Updated September 29, 2026

I build websites for small businesses for a living, so I'm going to give you the actual numbers instead of a sales funnel. Prices below are Canadian dollars, rounded, and honest about the part most pricing pages skip: what you'll have spent after three years.

The quick answer

A DIY builder like Wix or Squarespace costs a monthly plan fee that depends on the plan, your region and the billing term, plus the hours you spend building it. A freelancer or a solo studio usually charges $2,000 to $6,000 to build a proper site, then a few hundred a year to keep it running. An agency usually starts around $10,000 and climbs fast. I charge from $2,500 CAD for a custom website, fixed price in writing, first year of hosting included.

Route	Up front	Ongoing	3-year total
DIY builder Wix, Squarespace	$0, plus your evenings	The plan fee each month, set by plan, region and billing term, plus a domain	36 months of the plan fee, plus the domain and the hours you spent building it
Freelancer or solo studio	Typically $2,000 to $6,000	Usually $200 to $600/year for hosting and maintenance	Roughly $2,600 to $7,800
Agency	Typically $10,000 to $30,000+	Care plans usually $100 to $400+/month	Roughly $13,500 to $44,000+
FLXW that's me	From $2,500, fixed in writing, first year of hosting included	A flat yearly hosting fee after the first year. Changes billed hourly, quoted in writing first	$2,500 plus two years of hosting for a starting-price build, plus any changes you ask for

All prices CAD, rounded. Market ranges are typical, not promises. Builder plan fees change by region and billing term, so check them on Wix's plans page and Squarespace's pricing page before you do the math.

What actually drives the price up

Every quote you get, mine included, is really pricing four things. If a quote seems high or low, one of these is why.

Pages

A five page site is a five page site. A twenty page site with a service page for every town you serve is a different project, because every page needs design, writing, and a reason to exist. More pages is the most common reason two quotes for "a website" are thousands apart.

Booking

A contact form is cheap. A real scheduler that shows your live availability, takes the booking, sends reminders, and puts it on your calendar is real work, and it's usually the feature that actually pays for the site. If people can book you at 11pm without calling, the site is doing a job.

Integrations

Any time the site has to talk to another system, the price moves. A CRM, a payment processor, a medical records system, inventory. One honest note here: if what you actually need is the plumbing between tools you already use, that's an automation project, not a website project, and it's usually cheaper. I build those from $1,500, and I wrote about it on my Make.com consultant page.

Custom design

A template with your logo dropped in is fast and looks like it. A site designed around your business takes longer and costs more, and it's the difference between looking like every other plumber in town and looking like the one people remember.

What I charge, and exactly what you get

My from-prices are public on the pricing page: websites from $2,500, apps from $7,500, management systems from $7,500, automations from $1,500, all CAD. Every project gets a fixed price in writing after a free 30-minute discovery call. Not an estimate, not a range, a number. If the build runs long that's my problem, not yours.

The website number includes the design, the build, the launch, and your first year of hosting. You own your domain and your code from day one, so if you ever want to leave, you can, with everything.

What the yearly fee covers

My model is simple: build fee once, with the first year of hosting in it. After that it's a flat yearly fee to host the site and keep it patched. You can pay me for that or move the hosting somewhere else, because the domain and the code are already yours.

Changes after launch are billed hourly, quoted in writing before I start. Small jobs usually take an hour. New pages and new features get quoted the same way, so nothing lands on your invoice that you didn't agree to.

Website maintenance cost in Canada

This is the part of the industry I like least, so here's how it usually works. Agencies typically sell care plans at $100 to $400 or more a month, and some of them make more on maintenance over three years than they did on the build. Freelancers usually charge a few hundred a year, which is fair, but some disappear, and then you're paying someone new to figure out what the last person did. DIY maintenance is free until the day your builder changes something and your booking page quietly breaks.

Mine is the flat yearly hosting fee above, and changes are billed hourly when you ask for them. The full terms are on the pricing page. And because you own the domain and the code, the fee isn't a hostage situation. You can take everything and go, any year. I'd rather you stay because the site works.

Does the province matter?

No. My prices are the same in Ontario, BC, Alberta, or Nova Scotia, and so are most builders' prices, because this is remote work. What changes by location is competition: big-city agencies in Toronto and Vancouver carry big-city overhead, and you pay for it. A solo builder charges the same whether you're in Kelowna or Kingston.

When you should not hire me

Honestly: if all you need is a page that proves your business exists, a phone number, hours, an address, do it yourself. A builder plan finished over a weekend is the right answer, and anyone who quotes you thousands for that is quoting for their benefit, not yours. I wrote a whole comparison at Wix vs hiring a web designer if you're deciding. Come back when you need the site to book appointments, show up in search, or talk to your other systems. That's when a custom build pays for itself.

What would yours cost?

Book a free 30-minute call and I'll tell you the exact number, in writing, before any work starts. No pitch. If DIY is the right answer for you, I'll say so on the call.

Book a discovery call

Free · 30 minutes · you talk to the person who builds it · flxw.ca