What a small-business website costs in Halifax (2026)

A quick disclosure first: we’re a small web studio in Halifax, so we have an obvious interest in this question. We’ve tried to write the guide we’d want to read from the other side of the table. Where we use real numbers, they’re our own published prices, clearly labelled, because a worked example with actual figures is more useful than a vague range.

Published prices from studios serving the Halifax area vary widely, and scopes vary even more. Use this guide to ask better questions and compare like with like, not as a quote.

What actually drives the price

Most quotes are built from the same handful of ingredients. When two quotes for the “same” website are far apart, check whether they assume different amounts of the work below, and ask each designer to spell it out.

How many pages, and how different they are

A page is a separate screen with its own job: home, services, menu, about, contact. More pages mean more design, more writing and more testing. But pages aren’t equal. Five pages that share one layout take less time than five that each need their own structure, such as a menu, a gallery and a booking page. For reference, our packages include up to 3, 7 or 10 pages, and an extra standard page is $175.

Who writes the words

Words are easy to underestimate. A designer can make a page look good, but someone has to decide what it says, and that takes real time. If you supply finished text, the price goes down. If the designer writes it from scratch, interviewing you, drafting and revising, expect it to be quoted as a separate line. Every one of our packages includes editing help with the text you supply; full professional copywriting is from $150/page.

Photos

Photos do a lot to set the tone of a site, and they’re often the missing piece. Your options are photos you already own, new photos from a photographer (paid to them), or stock images. Stock can fill a background, but it can’t show your actual shop, team or product. Whatever you use, make sure you have the right to use it. A photo you found online isn’t automatically free to use.

Booking, ordering and other integrations

Anything that connects your website to another service adds work: online booking, food ordering, reservations, newsletter sign-ups, payments. For most small businesses, the sensible approach is to link to or embed a platform you already use rather than build something custom. That still takes time (matching the look, testing on phones, making sure notifications reach the right inbox), so expect to see it as a line item. Custom-built booking or ordering software is a much bigger project, and few small businesses need it. Our Harbour and Beacon packages include one standard booking integration; on its own, a booking-system integration is from $250.

Editing it yourself (a CMS)

A content management system, or CMS, lets you log in and change text and photos yourself. It sounds essential, but it adds setup, training and ongoing updates. Be honest with yourself about how often you’ll actually log in. If you’ll change things weekly and someone on your team enjoys it, a CMS can be worth paying for. If you’d rather send an email and have it done, you may not need one. We quote a CMS separately, from $350, and include it in Beacon when a project needs it.

Custom functionality

Features beyond standard pages, such as an online shop, a members’ area, a quote calculator, several languages or advanced search, are where prices climb, because each one has to be designed, built and tested for your business. If a quote looks high, check whether it includes something like this. If it looks low, check it doesn’t leave out something you need. Ecommerce setup with us is from $1,200, and larger custom work is quoted separately.

Timelines and rush work

Timelines depend as much on you as on the designer: the build can’t finish until the words, photos and feedback arrive. Our typical delivery is 1–2 weeks for Cove, 2–4 weeks for Harbour and 4–6 weeks for Beacon once content is ready. If you have a fixed date, like an opening or the start of a season, say so at the beginning. Rush work costs more because it means moving other projects around; ours is a 25% project surcharge.

The ongoing costs people forget

A website isn’t a one-off purchase in the way a sign is. Some costs come round every year, whoever builds it. When you compare quotes, ask which of these are included and for how long, and which you’ll pay directly to someone else.

• Domain registration. Your web address is renewed every year through a domain registrar. It should be registered in your name, on an account you can log in to, with auto-renew switched on. A lapsed domain can take your website and your email down with it.
• Business email. An address at your own domain usually comes with a subscription from an email provider, often charged per mailbox. It’s separate from the website, even when the same person sets up both.
• Hosting. The service that keeps your site online around the clock. It’s sometimes bundled for the first year and billed separately after that, so ask what year two costs.
• Maintenance and updates. Software, security settings and forms need checking. Someone has to do it: you, a care plan, or an hourly bill when something breaks.
• Third-party subscriptions. Booking, ordering, reservation, newsletter and review tools usually charge their own monthly fees, paid to the provider rather than to your web designer.
• Transaction fees. If you take payments or online orders, the payment processor keeps a fee from each sale. Check the platform’s current pricing before you choose one.
• Your time. Supplying content, answering questions and approving changes takes hours, especially in the first month. It’s a real cost, even though it never appears on an invoice.

We don’t quote third-party prices here because they change and depend on the provider you pick. Our own prices exclude domain registration, third-party subscriptions, transaction fees and paid advertising unless stated.

Three ways to pay for a website

Broadly, you can build it yourself, pay a designer once, or pay monthly for a site someone else builds and looks after. None of them is right for everyone.

Do it yourself with a website builder

Website builders let you pick a template and fill it in. The cash outlay is the lowest of the three: a subscription to the platform, plus any paid extras. The real cost is your time, spent learning the tool, writing, finding photos and keeping it all current, and the result depends on the care you put in. Your site also lives on that platform, so moving away later usually means rebuilding it. It’s a sensible choice if your budget is tight, your needs are simple and you enjoy this kind of work.

Pay once for a build

You pay a designer a fixed price, often in instalments, and the finished site is yours once it’s paid for (check that the contract says so). Over several years this is generally the lowest total cost for a professionally built site, especially if your details rarely change. The trade-off comes after launch: hosting, updates and changes are either extra or up to you, and it’s easy for a site to drift quietly out of date.

Pay monthly for a managed website

Some studios build the site with little or nothing upfront and charge a monthly fee that covers the build, hosting, maintenance and a set amount of changes. It turns a lump sum into a predictable bill and puts someone on the hook for keeping things current. But over the term you’ll normally pay more than for the same site bought outright, because you’re also paying for the ongoing work. Read three things closely: the minimum term, what you owe if you leave early, and when (or whether) you end up owning the site.

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A worked example with real numbers

Here’s how it looks with our own packages. We offer three sizes, Cove, Harbour and Beacon, and each can be bought in two ways: Build, a one-time purchase, or Managed, with no upfront website fee and 12 monthly payments. All prices are in CAD, plus applicable tax.

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Take Harbour, our mid-sized package: up to 7 pages, with one booking integration included.

Harbour Build

$1,800$900 to start, $900 before launch

Harbour Managed

$229/month$2,748 over 12 months

Leaving Managed after 5 completed months

$1,050$1,800 × 7 ÷ 12

Harbour, paid once (Build)

With Build, you pay $900 to start and $900 before launch: $1,800 in total. The first 12 months of hosting and 30 days of post-launch support are included, and the website files are yours once the final payment is made. Content changes after launch aren’t included unless you’re on Steady Care; otherwise they’re billed at $90 an hour.

Harbour, paid monthly (Managed)

With Managed, there’s no upfront website fee. You pay $229 a month for 12 months, which comes to $2,748. Hosting, monitoring, backups, technical maintenance and up to 60 minutes of changes a month are included throughout. Ownership of the website files passes to you after the 12th payment.

That’s $948 more than Build over the year. It helps to see each $229 payment in two parts: $150 pays down the $1,800 build (the figure used if you leave early), and the other $79 is the same as the Harbour Care price, covering hosting, maintenance and your change allowance.

If you leave Managed early

If you stop before the 12 months are up, you pay only the part of the build you haven’t paid off yet, not the remaining maintenance. The formula is the Build price × remaining months ÷ 12. Leaving Harbour after 5 completed months, with 7 remaining, costs $1,800 × 7 ÷ 12 = $1,050. Once that and any outstanding invoices are paid, the website files are released to you. After all 12 payments, there’s no buyout charge.

After the first year

Whichever way you paid, year two is your choice. You can keep hosting with us for $149 a year (hosting only, with no content changes), move to Steady Care, or move the website to another provider. Steady Care is month-to-month and includes hosting, updates, backups, monitoring and a monthly change allowance, from $59 a month; Harbour Care is $79. Your domain is always yours, so moving on doesn’t mean starting from scratch.

So which is better? If your details rarely change and you’re comfortable paying $1,800 upfront, Build costs less. If you’d rather not pay a lump sum, or you know you’ll be sending changes most months, Managed puts that work on someone else’s plate for a predictable fee.

Questions to ask any web designer before you sign

Whoever you hire, these questions are worth asking, and the answers are worth getting in writing. A good designer will be glad you asked.

1. Who owns the website when it’s finished? When does ownership pass to you, and what exactly do you get: the files, the design, the content? Some arrangements mean you can never take the site with you.
2. Whose name is the domain registered in? It should be yours, on an account you can log in to. If a designer registers it for you, ask for it to be in your name from the start.
3. Where will it be hosted, and what does that cost after the first year? Ask whether you can move the site to another host later, and what that would involve.
4. What exactly is included? Number of pages, who writes the text, photos, forms, booking or ordering links, basic search setup and support after launch. Ask what’s quoted separately, and be wary of anyone who promises search rankings. No one controls those.
5. How many rounds of revisions do I get, and what counts as one? A revision should be feedback on the current design, not a new direction. Find out what an extra round costs. (Ours is $150.)
6. What happens if I cancel? Before launch, during a monthly term and after it ends. Ask what you’d owe and what you’d take with you.
7. Who will actually do the work? The person you meet, a team, or a subcontractor? None of those is wrong, but you should know who to contact when something needs fixing.
8. How quickly will you reply, and how quickly are changes made? A published reply time you can hold someone to is worth more than a promise to be “very responsive”.
9. What will I pay in total over the first year? Including tax, hosting, email, subscriptions and anything billed by the hour. The total is the number to compare.

Prices in this guide are Antrim Studios’ published prices on 22 September 2026. All prices are in CAD, plus applicable tax. Third-party subscriptions, transaction fees, domain registration and paid advertising are not included unless stated. Nothing here is a quote: your written proposal confirms the scope, schedule and price. Questions? Email hello@antrimstudios.com.