How Much Does an Ecommerce Website Cost in Canada? 2026 Price Guide for Shopify, B2B, and Custom Builds

01. The Quick Answer: What an Ecommerce Website Costs

• Starter stores: under $3,000 to about $10,000 CAD to launch on a template, with $50 to $500 a month to run.
• Growing brands: $8,000 to $60,000 for a customized or fully custom Shopify store, depending on design and integrations.
• B2B, manufacturers, and wholesalers: $40,000 to $120,000 when the store needs price lists, net terms, and an ERP or accounting sync.
• Running costs: platform, apps, payment processing, and maintenance recur every month and should be in the budget from day one.
• Demand signal: in our Ahrefs research, "how much does a website cost in Canada" is searched about 150 times a month in Canada with a keyword difficulty of 3, and "website development cost in Canada" about 90. In the US, "ecommerce website cost" draws about 900 searches a month and "Shopify website cost" about 600. Buyers are asking, and most answers they find are written for brochure sites, not stores.

02. Cost by Type of Build

These ranges are in Canadian dollars, before tax, and reflect typical Canadian freelance and agency pricing in 2026. Monthly figures include platform, apps, and support but not payment processing or marketing.

Not sure whether a platform or a custom-coded store is right for you? Our comparison of ecommerce platforms vs custom storefronts explains the trade-off, and our B2B ecommerce platform comparison covers the options for wholesale.

Why it matters: The right tier depends on what the store must do, not on what a competitor spent. Picking a tier first stops you from comparing a $5,000 quote to a $50,000 quote as if they were the same project.

03. What You Pay for Once: The Build

A build quote is a bundle of separate jobs. Knowing what is inside it is the fastest way to see why two quotes differ:

• Discovery and scoping. Requirements, integrations, catalog structure, and a written scope that every quote can be measured against.
• Design. From adapting a premium theme to a fully custom design system with mobile layouts for every key page.
• Development. Theme work, custom sections, apps, checkout rules, and any custom features such as quote requests or configurators.
• Product data and migration. Cleaning, structuring, and importing products, variants, customers, and order history, plus SEO redirects from the old site.
• Integrations. Connections to accounting, ERP, inventory, shipping, CRM, and marketing tools. Often the single largest variable in the quote.
• Content and photography. Product copy, specs, category pages, policies, and images. Frequently left out of quotes and left to the client.
• Testing, training, and launch. Order and tax testing, accessibility checks, staff training, and support through the first weeks live.

If you are moving from another platform, migration adds product, customer, and order data plus redirects to protect search rankings. Our guide to SEO-safe Shopify migrations explains what that work involves.

Why it matters: Integrations, data, and content are where low quotes cut corners. Those gaps come back later as change orders, launch delays, or lost search traffic.

04. What You Pay Every Month

The build is a one-time cost. These costs continue for as long as the store is live:

• Platform subscription, from roughly $40 a month on entry plans to US$2,300 or more on Shopify Plus
• Apps for reviews, subscriptions, B2B, search, shipping, and marketing, often $50 to $1,000 a month combined
• Payment processing, charged as a percentage of each sale plus a fixed fee per transaction
• Domain, business email, and any premium theme renewal
• Maintenance and improvement, from a few hours a month to a $1,500 to $6,000 agency retainer
• Marketing to drive traffic: email, ads, SEO, and content, which the website alone does not provide

Shopify plan prices change and differ between monthly and annual billing, so confirm current pricing in your admin before you budget. Many apps bill in US dollars, which means your monthly cost moves with the exchange rate.

Why it matters: Over three years, running costs often exceed the build. A cheaper build that relies on a stack of paid apps can cost more in total than a slightly larger build that handles the same needs natively.

05. Why B2B and Manufacturing Sites Cost More

Retail stores sell one price to everyone. Manufacturers and wholesalers sell different prices, terms, and catalogs to different accounts, and need the store to match the back office. Each of these adds scope:

• Customer-specific price lists, volume tiers, and minimum order quantities
• Net terms, credit limits, deposits, and invoicing for approved accounts
• Two-way sync with an ERP or accounting system for inventory, orders, and pricing
• Large catalogs with many variants, technical specs, and downloadable datasheets
• Quote requests, quick order forms, and reorder flows for repeat buyers
• Separate retail and wholesale experiences on one platform
• Freight and LTL shipping rates that standard checkout does not handle

Not every B2B store needs Plus. Many can start with Shopify B2B without Plus, and the integration cost depends on your system. See our guides to Shopify ERP integration and Shopify and QuickBooks for B2B.

Why it matters: A B2B store that does not sync with your ERP or price lists pushes the work back to your inside sales team. The integration is usually what makes the investment pay off.

06. Canadian Costs Most Quotes Forget

Selling online in Canada brings a few costs that generic US pricing guides do not mention:

• Sales tax setup. GST/HST, PST, and QST rules need to be configured and tested, especially for B2B exemptions. See our Shopify sales tax guide.
• French language. Selling in Quebec, or serving bilingual New Brunswick, means translated storefront content and its upkeep. See Bill 96 compliance.
• Accessibility and privacy. Accessible design and consent and privacy settings take time to do properly. See our guides to website accessibility and PIPEDA compliance.
• Currency. Platform fees, apps, and some vendors bill in US dollars, so build a currency buffer into the budget.
• Funding. Grants and loans for digital projects come and go. Check Atlantic Canada business funding and the BDC program that followed CDAP before you sign, since many programs exclude work that already started.

Why it matters: These items are small on their own but add weeks and dollars when discovered late. Putting them in the scope up front keeps the budget honest.

07. A Worked First-Year Budget

As an illustration only, here is a first-year budget for an Atlantic Canadian wholesaler with about 800 products, selling to both trade accounts and consumers on Shopify, with an accounting integration and HubSpot as the CRM:

• Build: about $30,000 for design, B2B setup, product data, and the accounting and CRM connections.
• Platform and apps: about $700 a month, or roughly $8,400 for the year.
• Maintenance and improvement: about $1,500 a month, or $18,000 for the year.
• First-year total: roughly $56,000 before payment processing, tax, and marketing. Years two and three drop to the running costs, about $26,000 a year in this example.

Connecting the store to your CRM, as covered in our HubSpot and Shopify integration guide, is often what lets a lean sales team handle more accounts without new hires.

Why it matters: A three-year view lets you compare the store against what it replaces, such as manual order entry, phone and email orders, and lost reorders, instead of judging it on the build price alone.

08. How to Compare Quotes

Quotes for the same store can differ by ten times. Before you compare numbers, make sure every vendor is quoting the same work:

• Share one written scope. List pages, features, integrations, catalog size, and who supplies content and product data.
• Ask what is excluded. Migration, redirects, training, accessibility checks, and post-launch support are common gaps.
• Ask for the monthly stack. Have each vendor list the apps and plan their build needs, so you can compare three-year cost.
• Check ownership. Make sure you own the store, theme code, domain, and data, with admin access in your name.
• Check relevant experience. Ask for stores like yours, especially for B2B, ERP integration, or migrations.

For more on choosing a partner, see our guide to choosing an ecommerce agency in Canada.

Why it matters: The lowest quote is rarely the lowest cost. Comparing equal scope protects you from change orders and from a store that has to be rebuilt in two years.

09. How AtlanticWorks Helps

AtlanticWorks is a Fredericton-based, certified Shopify, HubSpot, Google, and Salesforce partner working with manufacturers, wholesalers, retailers, and DTC brands across Atlantic Canada, the rest of Canada, and the US. We scope stores in writing before quoting, show the full monthly app and platform stack alongside the build price, and build the B2B, ERP, and CRM connections that make the store pay for itself. If you are still deciding what to build, our free assessment gives you a scope and budget range to take to any vendor.

10. Key Takeaways

• Most Canadian ecommerce sites cost $3,000 to $60,000 CAD to build, and B2B stores with ERP integration $40,000 to $120,000 or more.
• Monthly costs for the platform, apps, payments, and maintenance often exceed the build over three years.
• Integrations, product data, and content are the biggest variables and the most common gaps in low quotes.
• Price lists, net terms, large catalogs, and ERP sync are what make B2B and manufacturing stores cost more.
• Budget for Canadian specifics: sales tax setup, French content, accessibility, privacy, and US dollar billing.
• Judge the investment on a three-year total against the manual work and lost orders it replaces.
• Compare quotes only against one shared, written scope.