What Does a Custom Website Cost in Montreal? (2026 Honest Pricing)

Why agencies hide pricing

Most Montreal web agencies don't publish their prices. The official reason is "every project is different." The real reason is lead qualification + price discrimination — they want to know how much money you have before they quote.

It works like this: you fill out a contact form. A sales rep schedules a 30-minute discovery call. They ask about your business, your goals, your budget, your timeline. Based on that, they quote you a number that's near the top of what they think you'll say yes to. The actual cost of the work doesn't change project-to-project as much as the pricing does.

A studio that won't give you a ballpark price range before a sales call is signaling that pricing is negotiable based on perceived budget. That should make you cautious, not impressed.

Real-cost breakdown: 5-page custom site at a Montreal agency

For a typical 5-page brochure site (Home, About, Services, Blog, Contact) at a small-to-mid Montreal agency, expected pricing in 2026:

• Low end (small studio, junior team): $4,500 – $8,000
• Mid (established mid-size agency): $8,000 – $18,000
• High end (big-name boutique): $18,000 – $40,000
• Ongoing monthly retainer (most charge): $300 – $1,500/month for "maintenance"

For an e-commerce build (Shopify storefront with 25–50 products), add roughly 50–100% to those numbers. For a SaaS or web app with custom backend, you're typically looking at $25,000 minimum, often $60,000+.

DIY costs: Wix Pro / Squarespace over 3 years

Templates feel cheap at first. The 3-year math is less flattering. Typical small-business DIY breakdown:

• Wix Pro / Squarespace Business plan: $300/year × 3 = $900
• Stock-photo subscription: $120/year × 3 = $360
• Domain + email: $40/year × 3 = $120
• Premium template purchase: one-time $89
• Apps + plugins (booking, forms, SEO): $20/month × 36 = $720
• Total 3-year cost: ~$2,200 — for a site that looks like every other one on the platform.

AI-assisted custom code: the new third option

AI-assisted development changed the agency math (see our previous post on this). What it changed in practice: custom code is now affordable for the businesses who used to be priced out. At DeLuxe Studio our public tiers go from $199 (Launch) to $4,500+ (Platform). The price drop isn't a discount — it's the cost structure being legitimately lower because we ship more with fewer hours.

For a fair side-by-side: a 5-page brand site that an agency quotes at $8,000–$15,000, we ship as our Pro tier at $499. Same scope. Different cost structure.

The hidden costs everyone forgets

When comparing quotes, ask explicitly:

• Hosting — included, or recurring? (Vercel free tier is fine for most sites; some agencies will charge you $50/month to host on their server.)
• Maintenance — what does it actually cover? Many "maintenance retainers" just cover plugin updates that take 10 minutes a month.
• Edits — included for X months, or pay-per-edit? Get this in writing.
• Code ownership — do you own it, or is it locked to their CMS / hosting?
• SSL, domain, email — included in the quote or extra?
• SEO setup — title tags, descriptions, sitemap, schema. If they say "extra," they're not really shipping a finished website.

What you should actually pay

For a Montreal small business in 2026, the honest market price for an actually custom website (not a template):

• 1-page launch site: $200 – $500 (was $2k–4k pre-AI)
• 3–5 page brand site: $500 – $1,500 (was $8k–18k pre-AI)
• E-commerce storefront, ~50 products: $1,000 – $3,000 (was $15k–35k pre-AI)
• Custom SaaS / web app: $4,500 minimum, typically $4,500 – $20,000

Anything significantly above these and you're paying agency-overhead premium. Anything significantly below and you're probably getting a template with a custom skin (which Wix already does, for less).