What it costs
Custom website vs Wix or Squarespace: five-year cost in Canada
Five-year totals in CAD for a hand-coded site, Wix, Squarespace, and a WordPress build in Canada, plus July 2026 speed data on what each one really ships.
A template plan is cheaper than a hand-coded website over five years, and that is the wrong reason to pick one. Squarespace Basic runs $1,260 CAD over 60 months, Wix Core runs $1,980 CAD, an $895 CAD hand-coded build plus its $20 CAD a month fee runs $2,095 CAD, and WordPress on managed hosting runs $2,280 CAD for the hosting alone. All prices were retrieved 2026-08-30, with sources in the table below.
The genuinely expensive option is neither of them. An agency build at $1,995 CAD setup plus $129 CAD a month reaches $9,735 CAD over five years. So the decision is not about price, but about what you own at the end.
The short version
- Five-year totals on published prices retrieved 2026-08-30, cheapest first: Squarespace Basic $1,260 CAD, Wix Core $1,980 CAD, a hand-coded build plus its monthly fee $2,095 CAD, WordPress on managed hosting $2,280 CAD, an agency retainer $9,735 CAD.
- The hand-coded line sits mid-table, just under the WordPress line. Its $20 CAD a month covers hosting, security, updates, and content changes for the life of the site. The WordPress line is hosting only, with theme, plugin, maintenance, and change costs on top of it.
- Hosted builders are not slow any more. 80.4% of Wix origins passed all three Core Web Vitals on mobile in July 2026, against 49.5% of WordPress origins (calculated from the HTTP Archive Core Web Vitals Technology Report, July 2026 dataset).
- Price is not the deciding number. A builder plan rents you a layout you cannot take with you, so the second build costs what the first one would have.
- Canada is still desktop-majority, at 55.95% of page views in July 2026 (Statcounter, read 2026-08-30), so desktop speed carries more weight here.
The five-year totals, side by side
Over 60 months the four realistic options land within about $1,000 CAD of each other, cheapest first below. The fifth costs more than four times the dearest.
| Option | What you pay | Five-year total | What you own at the end |
|---|---|---|---|
| Squarespace Basic | $21 CAD a month, billed annually | $1,260 CAD | Your content and your domain, not the layout |
| Wix Core | $33 CAD a month, billed yearly | $1,980 CAD | Your content and your domain, not the layout |
| Hand-coded build, one-time | $895 CAD once, plus $20 CAD a month for hosting and support | $2,095 CAD | The code, the design, and the domain |
| WordPress on managed hosting | $38 CAD a month, theme and plugins on top | $2,280 CAD and up | The files and database, tied to the theme |
| Agency build on a retainer (archived) | $1,995 CAD setup plus $129 CAD a month | $9,735 CAD | Depends on the retainer terms |
How this table was built: five options, each priced from the vendor's own public page on 2026-08-30, on annual billing wherever it is offered, counting 60 hosting months from the first charge. It covers brochure and lead-generation sites, not online stores, and five vendors is a sample rather than a market average.
The WordPress row prices hosting only, at WP Engine's annual-billing monthly equivalent, because theme and plugin renewals vary by build. WP Rocket and Gravity Forms each publish $59 a year for one site, neither with a currency code, on top of the $2,280 CAD. Maintenance and the changes you want made are on top of that again, usually billed by whoever does them.
The hand-coded row prices the whole arrangement, so the $2,095 CAD is the finished number. The $20 CAD a month is hosting, the certificate, security, updates, and content changes for the life of the site, and nothing is added underneath it. Read the two middle rows as different things: one is a server, the other is a server plus the person who maintains what is on it.
Disclosure: Samro Studios sells custom websites and competes with every tool in this table. Every third-party figure is quoted from that company's own pricing page on the retrieval date.
For the full Canadian price range across agencies, builders, and freelancers, see how much a website costs in Canada in 2026.
What the monthly price does not cover
The plan fee buys software, not a website. Three costs sit outside it.
- Your hours. Somebody chooses the template, writes the pages, crops the photos, and wires the form. On a builder that person is you.
- The design. A template is a layout drawn for nobody in particular. Paying a designer to make it yours is a separate invoice, and the usual reason a $21 CAD a month site becomes a $2,000 CAD project.
- The rebuild. Template sites get replaced rather than upgraded, because the layout is the product.
The plan fee does cover hosting, the certificate, and platform updates. The $20 CAD a month on the custom row covers those and the first two bullets with them: the hours are ours, so a new page or a changed price is made by the people who built the site rather than quoted as a project. That is what the custom row buys, and its five-year total still lands $185 CAD under the managed WordPress line.
$9,735 CAD over five years: the agency row, more than four times the hand-coded build.
Speed: what actually separates them in 2026
Hosted builders now beat the average WordPress install on speed, and the margin is wide. That is not what most comparison articles claim.
Google publishes three pass or fail thresholds, each measured at the 75th percentile of page loads (web.dev, October 2024):
- Largest Contentful Paint within 2.5 seconds.
- Interaction to Next Paint at 200 milliseconds or less.
- Cumulative Layout Shift at 0.1 or less.
The HTTP Archive counts how many real origins clear all three, by platform, every month. Hand-coded sites carry no line there.
The sharpest gap is server response time, where Google's threshold is 0.8 seconds (web.dev, November 2025). Only 24.4% of WordPress origins met it on mobile in July 2026, against 81.5% of Squarespace origins (calculated from the HTTP Archive Core Web Vitals Technology Report, July 2026 dataset). That points to hosting and to what gets bolted on, not to the content manager itself.
So the honest case for hand-coding is not that builders are slow. It is that a builder's speed belongs to the platform and can change with it.
Who owns the site if you leave
You can export your words. You cannot export the site. That is most of the difference between a template plan and a build.
On a builder the content is portable and the design is not, so moving means rebuilding. On a hand-coded build the code, the design files, and the domain are yours, and another developer can pick it up. WordPress sits in between: the files are yours, but a page-builder theme carries its own markup.
In W3Techs' survey of more than 20 million sites, WordPress runs 40.7% of them, Wix 4.2%, and Squarespace 2.5% (read 2026-08-30). Ask before the deposit who holds the code, the domain, and the analytics, in writing. The Groom Room Vancouver build is one example: booking wired to the tool the owner already used, nothing rented.
Where a template is the right call
Two situations where a builder is right.
- A page nobody searches for. One address, hours, and a phone number, for a business that runs on referrals.
- An idea you are testing. If the business might not exist in six months, rent the site.
The moment the site is supposed to bring calls from search, a template becomes a floor: no service pages, no area pages, no structured data.
What we build, and what it costs
Samro Studios hand-codes these sites, and the price is published rather than quoted on request. A custom build is $895 to $1,795 CAD one time, set by scope: $895 CAD for a growth site and $1,795 CAD for a full e-commerce build. The growth site carries a standard $20 CAD a month hosting and support fee, the e-commerce build $40 CAD a month, and either one starts 30 days after payment.
The same build is available from $99 CAD a month, or $199 CAD a month for e-commerce, on a 12-month term with hosting bundled in. On both, support is included rather than sold as a retainer: daily backups, content updates at a 24 to 48 hour pace, and a person who answers. More builds are on the portfolio.
We build across Canada and the United States, in CAD or in USD. A bilingual English and French site is scoped inside the same price (Montréal). You approve the finished site before it goes live, and everything you have paid is refundable until it does.
How to decide in five minutes
| Your situation | What to take | Five-year cost |
|---|---|---|
| You need a page to exist and nothing more | Squarespace Basic at $21 CAD a month | $1,260 CAD |
| You want calls from search and will keep the business five years | A hand-coded build plus hosting and support | $2,095 CAD |
| An agency already maintains your WordPress site | Put the retainer on a 60-month line before you renew | $7,740 CAD in retainer alone |
The gap between the cheapest builder and the custom build is about $14 CAD a month. It buys code in your name, pages a builder has no template for, and somebody to make the changes.
If you want an exact figure instead of a range, tell us about the project on the contact form.
Frequently asked questions
Is Wix or Squarespace good enough for a small business?
For a single page nobody searches for, yes. For a business that wants calls from search, a builder is a starting floor: the layout is the product and it cannot be taken with you. Making it yours is a separate invoice on top of the $21 to $33 CAD a month.
Is a custom website faster than Wix or Squarespace?
Not automatically, and the data does not support the usual claim. In July 2026, 80.4% of Wix origins passed all three Core Web Vitals on mobile, against 49.5% of WordPress origins (calculated from the HTTP Archive Core Web Vitals Technology Report, July 2026 dataset). A hand-coded page competes with the top of that range.
Can I move my Wix or Squarespace site to a custom build?
Your text, images, and domain move, but the design does not because it belongs to the platform. Your rankings can move too, if every old URL redirects to its new address with a 301 and the page titles stay put. That redirect map is part of the build, not an extra.
Is WordPress a better middle ground?
It is the middle ground on ownership and the weak one on speed, and it is not the cheaper five-year line. Managed hosting is $38 CAD a month, or $2,280 CAD over 60 months, against $2,095 CAD for the hand-coded build. That $38 buys hosting and nothing else: theme and plugin renewals start at $59 a year each, and maintenance and every content change are your time or somebody's invoice on top. Only 24.4% of WordPress origins met the Time to First Byte threshold on mobile in July 2026 (calculated from the HTTP Archive report, July 2026 dataset).
Two questions to ask before you sign
Put both options on a 60-month line, then ask what the price cannot answer: who owns the code if you walk away, and what happens when the layout dates in year three. The builders win on cost by $14 CAD a month, and lose on both.
If the site is a placeholder, rent it. If it is supposed to produce work, buy it, and check that whoever builds it hands you the code.
Sami Bdeira is the founder of Samro Studios, which builds quoting agents and custom tools for service businesses in the United States and Canada.
