If you sell products in person and want to sell them online too, the first question is a practical one: how much does an online store cost in canada? Published guides put a Canadian online store anywhere from about $5,000 into the tens of thousands — because “a store” can mean five products or five thousand. What the price actually depends on is four things, set out below — and below them, one flat price for a store a small business can actually start with.
Online store cost in Canada, November 2026: published guides put a Canadian online store from about $5,000 into the tens of thousands. NityNet builds online stores for a flat $1,500 CAD — hosting and .com domain free for year one, no monthly fees.
Why store quotes run from $5,000 to $54,000
How many products — and how many versions of each? A store with twelve products in one size each is a small, tidy job. A store with two thousand products, each in five sizes and four colours, is a data project before it is a design project: every variant needs a price, a stock count and usually a photo. Quotes grow with the catalogue, not with the owner’s ambition.
Which custom features are in the list? Subscriptions, wholesale pricing for trade customers, gift cards, complex shipping zones and tax rules for selling into several provinces — each one is real work, and each one is sometimes quoted as if every store needs all of them. A first store rarely does. The honest question is which features your customers will actually use in the first year.
Who builds it? A do-it-yourself platform looks cheapest and charges you in hours instead of dollars. A freelancer can be good value, with the usual question of what happens if they disappear. An agency brings a team — and a team’s overhead — which suits a large, custom build and prices a small store accordingly. The same store can honestly be quoted at three very different prices by three different kinds of builder.
What is bundled — and what is billed separately? Some quotes include the theme, the apps or plugins, the payment setup, product photography and the words on every page. Others price the build alone and add each of those afterwards. Two quotes that look far apart are often not quoting the same store at all. Before you compare numbers, compare the lists underneath them.
The costs that are not the build
The platform route: a monthly fee that never ends. Many stores are rented, not owned: a monthly platform fee, paid for as long as the store exists, and the store closes when the payments stop. That model can suit a business testing an idea — but run it over three years before you sign, the same way our guide to pay-monthly websites vs one-time cost runs the maths for websites. Renting forever and owning once are different products, even when the monthly number looks small.
Payment fees: every store pays them. Whoever builds your store and whichever platform it runs on, the payment provider takes a processing fee on every sale. That is normal, it is not a markup by your builder, and any comparison that leaves it out is flattering itself. Budget for it as a cost of selling online — the same way card fees are a cost of selling in person.
Year two: the normal renewals. A domain name renews every year, and hosting is a yearly cost once any included free period ends. These are standard rates every website owner pays; they are small next to a build price, but a fair quote tells you they are coming instead of letting the second year surprise you.
What a fair flat price looks like
A fair price is published before you ask, states what is included, and does not change when the sales conversation starts. If you do not need to sell online yet, our guide to how much a small business website costs in Canada covers the non-store prices; Toronto readers can also see how much a website costs in Toronto for the GTA picture. For a store, this is NityNet’s complete price list — every package is one payment in Canadian dollars, with no monthly fees, free hosting for 1 year and a free .com domain included:
| Package | Price (CAD, one-time) | For |
|---|---|---|
| Economy | $249 | One-page website — services, area, hours, tap-to-call |
| Starter | $600 | Up to 5 pages, contact form, tap-to-call + WhatsApp, Google Maps, free digital visit card |
| Business | $900 | Up to 10 pages, booking/order form, gallery, Google Business setup, blog, social links |
| Online Store | $1,500 | Up to 30 products with secure payments |
| Website redesign | $300 flat (separate offer, not a package) | Refresh of an existing website |
The Online Store package at $1,500 is for a small business selling a real product range online — product pages, a cart and secure checkout, on a site you own. You can see the standard of a finished store on our Komfort Killz sample store — a clearly labelled sample, built exactly the way a real client store is built. Full details are in the pricing section on our homepage.
Five questions to ask before you pay for a store
- Do I own the store and the domain, or am I renting them? Ownership decides what you still have if you ever stop paying.
- What happens to my products and my customer list if I stop paying? Get the answer in writing, before the first payment, not after the last one.
- Which fees continue every month, and which are one-time? Ask for the three-year total, not the first month’s price.
- Can I add a product myself, in plain steps? A store you cannot update without paying for help will quietly go out of date.
- Can I see a sample of MY store before I pay? A portfolio shows what a builder did for someone else’s budget. A sample shows what your products look like in your store.
Frequently asked questions
Is $1,500 a real store, or a starter that upsells?
It is a real store at a flat price: product pages, a cart and secure payments for up to 30 products, on a site you own. The table above is the whole price list — there is no second price list behind it — and the free sample comes first, so you judge the store itself before any money moves.
Do I still pay payment fees on top of the build price?
Yes — every online store does, whoever builds it. The payment provider takes a processing fee on each sale; that fee belongs to the provider, not to your builder. We state it here because an honest comparison includes it: the build is one-time, the per-sale payment fee is a normal cost of selling.
How many products should I start with?
Start with the products that already sell in person. A store that opens with your proven range beats a perfect catalogue that never finishes, and you can add products as online sales grow. Most small businesses do not need thousands of listings on day one — they need the right twenty, photographed well and priced clearly.
See your products in a store of your own — before you pay anything
Want to see what your products would look like in a store of your own — at a flat Canadian price? Get your free, personalized sample first: NityNet builds a sample of your store before you pay anything, with the exact package price confirmed in advance.
Start with the order form on our homepage: https://nitynet.ca/ — or email info@nitynet.ca or call +1 (647) 504-4646. Packages from $249 (one page) and $600 (full site); Business $900; Online Store $1,500; free hosting for 1 year, a free .com domain, and no monthly fees. Toronto & GTA based, serving small businesses across Canada.