The quotes came back at $2,400, $6,500 and $14,000, and none of them explain the gap. That is not because one studio is honest and the others are gouging you. It is because all three are quoting different work and calling it the same thing.
You cannot compare prices until you have made the quotes describe the same project. Most of the work is in the questions below, and you can send every one of them to all three studios tonight.
Why are the numbers so far apart?
Almost always because of scope you cannot see in the document.
The $2,400 quote is a template with your logo dropped in, five pages, your text pasted where you send it, and no one thinking about what the site is supposed to do. The $14,000 quote might include original design, custom functionality, someone writing the copy, and a month of work after launch. Both documents say "website".
There is also a quieter reason. Some quotes assume you will supply things you have no idea you are supposed to supply. That assumption is not a lie, it is just invisible, and it usually surfaces six weeks in when the project stalls because nobody has the photos.
So the first job is not choosing. It is making the three documents describe the same thing.
What is actually in scope, page by page?
Ask for a page list. Not "about five pages", an actual list with names.
A quote that says "5-8 pages" is a quote that will argue with you later about whether the services page counts as one page or four. A quote that lists Home, About, Services, three individual service pages, Contact, and a blog index is a quote you can hold someone to.
Then ask what is on those pages that is not just text. A booking widget, a quote calculator, a filterable listing, a members area, a payment form, an inventory feed. Every one of those is a separate piece of work, and every one of them is a place where a cheap quote quietly said no while looking like it said yes.
Who is writing the words, and who is finding the photos?
This is the single most common reason projects sit unfinished for months.
Most quotes assume you provide the copy and the images. Most owners assume the studio handles it, because designers keep showing them mockups full of finished-looking text. Then the design is approved, the developer is ready, and the project stops for eleven weeks while you try to write an About page on Sunday nights.
Ask directly, and get the answer in writing. Who writes the page copy. Who sources or shoots the photography. Whether stock images are included or billed separately. If the answer is "you provide it", that is fine, but now you know the real timeline includes your own writing time, which is the part nobody schedules. This is the main reason projects take longer than the quoted number of weeks.
How many rounds of changes are included, and what counts as one?
"Two rounds of revisions" means nothing until you know what a round is.
One studio counts a round as a batch of feedback delivered in one go. Another counts every individual email you send. The difference decides whether you get a workable process or a bill.
Ask what happens after the included rounds are used, and what the hourly rate is for extra work. A studio with a clear answer has done this before. A studio that says "don't worry, we'll take care of you" is a studio you will be negotiating with in March.
What happens the day after launch?
The quote ends at launch. Your website does not.
Find out what is included in the weeks after go-live, and for how long. Bug fixes, small content changes, the things you only notice once real customers are using it. Then find out what the ongoing arrangement looks like: hosting, platform and plugin updates, backups, security patches, and who to call when the site is down on a Saturday.
If a quote is silent on all of this, the site is being handed to you as a finished object rather than something that keeps running. That is a real difference between two numbers that otherwise look similar, and it is the difference the annual cost of a website is made of. Our own care plans start at $129 a month and scale with the site.
Who owns the result?
Get this in writing before you sign, not after you fall out.
Whose account is the domain registered in. Whose hosting account is it. Do you get the source files. Do you get admin access, or only editor access. If you left tomorrow, could another developer take over the site without rebuilding it.
Some studios keep everything on their own accounts by default, not maliciously, just because it is easier for them. It becomes your problem the day you want to move. We wrote a whole post about who owns your website, and the short version is that ownership is a paperwork question you settle at the quote stage or not at all.
Fixed price or hourly?
Both are honest. They fail differently.
Fixed price puts the risk on the studio, so the scope has to be tight. If the scope is vague, either the studio pads the number or you get change orders. Hourly puts the risk on you, which is fine if you trust the estimate and get regular reporting, and expensive if you do not.
What matters more than the model is the payment schedule. Deposit, milestones, and a final payment tied to something specific. Be careful with a quote that asks for the full amount before work starts, and equally careful with one that has no deposit at all, because that studio has nothing invested in finishing.
What does the cheapest quote usually leave out?
Not always corners, sometimes just line items. The pattern repeats:
- Copywriting and photography, assumed to be yours.
- Mobile behaviour, treated as automatic. It is not. A layout that reflows badly on a phone is a design decision that costs time to get right.
- Speed. A fast site takes deliberate work, and the difference shows up in real use. If nobody in the quote mentions performance, expect a slow site.
- Redirects and search rankings, if you already have a site. A rebuild that ignores the old URLs can undo years of visibility in one afternoon.
- Analytics, form testing, and a live check that enquiries actually arrive.
- Accessible markup, which is ordinary craft rather than an extra, but only if someone builds it in from the start.
None of these are exotic. They are the difference between a site that looks finished and one that works.
The questions to send tonight
Copy these into one email and send it to all three studios. The replies will tell you more than the quotes did.
- Can I have the exact page list?
- Who writes the copy and provides the photos?
- What counts as one round of revisions, and what is the rate after that?
- What is included in the first month after launch?
- Who owns the domain, the hosting and the source files?
- What is the payment schedule?
- What happens to my existing URLs and rankings?
The studio that answers all seven clearly, in a day, is showing you how the project itself will go. That is the real signal in a proposal, more than the number at the bottom.
For reference, our website work runs from $1,200 to $8,000 depending on scope, and Shopify or B2B builds start at $2,900. The ranges are on pricing, and what shapes the number is explained in what a website should cost in Ontario. How we scope a build is on web design.
If you have quotes in front of you and want an outside read, send us the site and the proposals for a free teardown. We will tell you what each one is really including and what to ask before you sign, whether or not you work with us.