Fast answer
For a Canadian contractor, owning a website becomes cheaper than a typical $800-plus-$99-a-month plan after about 17 months, and cheaper than a $500-a-month all-in bundle within about four — but a $999 template with a $29-a-month hosting fee stays cheaper than an owned build at every point on paper, by roughly $1,000 over five years. So price alone doesn't settle it. The deciding question is what stops working the day you stop paying: whether you keep the site files, whether the domain is registered to your business, whether your Google rankings survive the move, and whether your lead history leaves with you. A monthly plan that hands all four over on cancellation is a fair way to pay for ongoing work. One that keeps any of them is rent.
Here is a quote pair a lot of Nova Scotia contractors are looking at right now: $800 to set up and $99 a month, or one payment to own the site outright. The monthly one is easier to say yes to. The one-time one sounds like it should be cheaper eventually. Neither quote tells you when "eventually" is, or what you are left holding if the monthly one ends.
For a Canadian contractor, owning a website becomes cheaper than a typical $800-plus-$99-a-month plan after about 17 months, and cheaper than a $500-a-month all-in bundle within about four — but a $999 template with a $29-a-month hosting fee stays cheaper than an owned build at every point on paper, by roughly $1,000 over five years. So price alone doesn't settle it. The deciding question is what stops working the day you stop paying.
Fast answer. Owning overtakes a $99/month plan at about 17 months, but a $999 template stays cheaper. Decide on what you keep if you cancel — the site files, the domain, your rankings and your leads — not on the monthly number.
I sell owned builds, and one of them is in the table below at our real price, so read this with that in mind. I have tried to write it so the math works the same whichever option it points you to — including the case where it points away from us.
The Four Ways Contractor Websites Are Sold in Canada
Almost every quote you will get fits one of four shapes. The monthly fee means something different in each, which is why comparing the monthly numbers directly misleads.
| How it's sold | Typical published price (CAD) | What the monthly fee is paying for |
|---|---|---|
| Template + hosting fee | ~$999 build + ~$29/month | Hosting a theme-based site, usually around five pages |
| Setup fee + monthly plan | ~$800 setup + $99–$399/month | Hosting, backups, changes; higher tiers add lead tools |
| All-in monthly bundle | ~$500/month and up, no setup fee | The site plus ongoing marketing services, bundled |
| Owned build | $1,950 to $5,000+ once, plus hosting | Nothing, except hosting you choose and pay for |
Prices read from the public pricing pages of Canadian contractor web studios, September 2026. Individual studios aren't named here because their prices change; check the current figure before you compare.
The monthly fee is not always rent. On a plan where somebody is actually making changes, watching backups and fixing things, the fee pays for work. The question is whether it also pays for access to your own site — because that part stops when the payments do.
The Math Over One, Three and Five Years
Here is what each shape costs in total. Domain registration is left out because every option pays it — roughly $10–$20 a year for a .ca.
| Option | 1 year | 3 years | 5 years |
|---|---|---|---|
| Template: $999 + $29/month | $1,347 | $2,043 | $2,739 |
| Plan: $800 + $99/month | $1,988 | $4,364 | $6,740 |
| Bundle: $500/month | $6,000 | $18,000 | $30,000 |
| Owned: $1,950 + $30/month hosting | $2,310 | $3,030 | $3,750 |
Hosting for the owned build is assumed at $30 a month, inside the usual $20–$60 range for a lean contractor site. If yours costs more, the crossover moves later.
Read it honestly, because the answer isn't the same across the rows.
Against the $99-a-month plan, owning wins at about month 17. By year three the gap is $1,334; by year five it is $2,990. If you expect to be in business and using the site in two years — and most contractors do — this is the comparison that matters most.
Against the $500-a-month bundle, owning wins within about four months — but that's not a fair fight. The bundle includes marketing work an owned build doesn't. The fair comparison is an owned build plus whatever marketing you'd actually buy, month to month, from someone you can drop without losing the site.
Against the $999 template, the template wins at every point. It is about $1,000 cheaper over five years. If price were the only question I would tell you to buy it. What the extra money buys is a different product — pages written around the jobs you want rather than a theme filled in — and a different answer to the next section.
What Actually Stops When You Stop Paying
This is the part no quote puts on the front page, and it's where the real cost of a monthly plan lives. Four things can stop, and a fair plan hands over all four.
The site files. Some plans say in writing that you keep your website files when you cancel, because the setup fee paid for them — then you need somewhere to host them, and that is fair. Others say nothing. Some platforms can't export the site at all: cancel a Wix plan and the site reverts to a free wixsite.com address with Wix ads on it. Your content stays; your business address doesn't.
The domain. If your domain is registered to the web company rather than your business, cancelling can leave the address your customers, your truck and your business cards point to in someone else's account. This is the single most expensive thing to get wrong, because everything below depends on it.
Your Google rankings. A site that goes dark stops ranking — Google can't rank pages that no longer exist. A site that moves keeps most of its standing if it's done properly, but Google's own guidance is that any significant change can cause "ranking fluctuations while Google recrawls and reindexes your site," and that redirects from the old addresses should stay in place "generally at least 1 year." You can only set up those redirects if you control the domain.
Your lead history. This one gets missed. One Canadian plan states outright that its lead dashboard and quote estimator are the studio's own software and stay with the studio when you cancel. That's honest, and it's a reasonable way to run a product — but it means every quote request you've received lives in a system you lose access to. If leads only exist in someone else's dashboard, you can't see which month was good, which page brought them in, or who you still owe a callback. I make the case for keeping them somewhere you control in why your website should store every lead in a database.
Why this matters: a monthly plan that keeps your domain or your leads isn't just more expensive over time. It makes leaving expensive — which is a different problem, and one that grows every month you stay.
What Makes a Monthly Plan Fair
Monthly isn't the problem. Plenty of contractors are better off paying monthly for work they'd never do themselves. These are the things that separate a fair plan from a rental.
You can leave without a penalty. Month to month, or a short minimum term stated up front. A long minimum with the build cost rolled into it is a loan, and should be priced like one.
The site files come with you. In writing, before you sign — not "we'll work something out."
The domain is registered to your business. You hold the registrar login, or at the very least your business is the registrant and the web company is only a technical contact.
The monthly fee buys work you can see. Changes made, backups taken, pages added, a report of what the site produced. If you can't name what happened last month for the fee, it's paying for access.
Your leads are exportable. Form submissions are stored somewhere you can download, not only in a dashboard that belongs to someone else.
Tips for Checking a Quote Before You Sign
You don't need to understand hosting to protect yourself. You need to ask four questions and get the answers in an email.
Tip 1: Look up your domain before you talk to anyone. Search it on CIRA's WHOIS lookup for a .ca address. It will at least show which registrar holds it; your account with that registrar is where you confirm the registrant is your business and not your web company. If you can't log in to it, fix that first.
Tip 2: Ask "if I cancel in month 13, what do I receive and what stops?" A specific month forces a specific answer. "You'd keep everything" is a good answer; "that depends" means read the contract again.
Tip 3: Price every quote at 36 months. Setup fee plus 36 monthly payments, against the one-time price plus 36 months of hosting. Most contractors keep a website at least that long, and it's the horizon where the difference becomes obvious.
Tip 4: Ask where your leads are stored. If the answer is a dashboard you can't export from, you're renting your own customer list. That's worth knowing before the first lead arrives, not after the hundredth.
Sources: Google Search Central — site moves with URL changes, Wix Help Center — canceling a Premium plan, CIRA WHOIS lookup, CIRA for .ca domain pricing, and the public pricing and cancellation terms of Canadian contractor web studios. Prices in CAD, read September 2026.
Where Lightly Coded Sits
We sell the owned build, so here is our row in plain terms. A coded contractor site is $1,950 and a service-area build covering several towns is $2,950 — one-time, live in 3–4 weeks, and you own the code, the domain and the accounts. Hosting is yours or ours; if it's ours, it's a separate line, and if you stop paying it you move the site, because you have everything needed to do that.
We also sell something monthly: ongoing SEO, from $850 a month, month to month. The difference is what stops. Cancel it and the site keeps running, the leads stay in your hands, and every lead still says which page produced it.
For the wider price picture — what drives a $1,500 site versus a $15,000 one — read how much a contractor website costs in Canada. If the monthly option on your desk is a builder, is Wix good enough for a contractor website? covers where a closed platform holds a contractor back. And if you'd rather talk it through than read, get in touch — or see what three of our builds actually produced first.
Frequently asked questions
- Is a monthly website subscription worth it for a contractor?
- It can be, if the monthly fee buys ongoing work you would otherwise pay for — changes, backups, monitoring, new pages — and the contract lets you leave with your site files and domain. It is poor value when the fee exists mainly to keep a simple site online, because that is rent on something you could own. Against a typical $800 setup plus $99 a month, an owned $1,950 build with about $30 a month of hosting is cheaper after roughly 17 months. Price the plan at 36 months, then ask in writing what you receive if you cancel.
- Do I own my website if I pay monthly?
- It depends on the contract, not on the payment schedule. Some Canadian monthly plans state plainly that you keep your website files when you cancel, because the setup fee paid for them; others say nothing, and some platforms cannot export the site at all. You own a website when the domain is registered to your business, you can get the hosting and registrar logins, and the site files can be moved to another host. If a plan cannot confirm all three in writing, assume you are renting.
- What happens to my Google rankings if I cancel a website subscription?
- If the site goes dark, the rankings go with it — Google cannot rank pages that no longer exist. If you move the site, Google says any significant change can cause ranking fluctuations while it recrawls and reindexes, and recommends keeping permanent redirects from old addresses in place for generally at least a year. You can only set those redirects if you control the domain. That is why the domain being registered to your business matters more than any other line in the contract.
- How long until owning a website is cheaper than paying monthly?
- Against published Canadian prices in September 2026, a $1,950 owned build with about $30 a month of hosting overtakes an $800-plus-$99-a-month plan at about 17 months and a $500-a-month bundle at about four months. It never overtakes a $999 template with $29-a-month hosting, which stays roughly $1,000 cheaper over five years. The template's lower price buys a different product — usually five pages on a theme — so compare what is on the page, not just the total.
- What should a monthly website contract say about cancelling?
- Four things, in writing: how much notice you must give and whether there is a minimum term; that you receive the site files or an export on cancellation; that the domain is registered to your business and stays yours; and what happens to your leads — whether form submissions are stored somewhere you can export. If any of those is missing, ask before you sign. A studio that runs a fair plan will answer in one email.
