We mapped 47 real web quotes for similar-scope projects. The cheapest was $3,200. The most expensive was $32,400.
The 10x problem
Three founders we spoke with last quarter were quoted, for what is roughly the same kind of website, prices that ranged from $3,200 to $32,400. None of them was technically wrong. None of them was lying. The variance is real, and it isn't random.
Quote prices encode three things stacked on top of each other: the actual cost of the work, the agency's overhead and account-management padding, and the agency's positioning markup. The work itself, for an 8–12 page bilingual marketing site with a CMS and a CRM integration, takes roughly the same number of hours regardless of who builds it. The other two layers are where 10x comes from.
What follows is what we actually found when we mapped 47 quotes for projects of comparable scope across four agency types — boutique freelancers, mid-size shops, large agencies, and offshore. The point isn't to declare a winner. The point is to give you a framework for reading any quote you receive next month.
The shape of the variance
Each dot below is one quote. The X-axis is project scope (a normalized 0–100 score combining page count, integration count, design depth, and content scope). The Y-axis is the price the agency quoted. Hover any dot to see the deliverables that quote covered.
What actually drives cost
Toggle scope items to build your own project shape. The midpoint number is the running estimate; the band shows the honest range a focused studio (Odavio-shape) would charge for the items you've selected. Large-agency quotes for the same line items run 1.8–2.5× higher; offshore typically runs 0.4–0.6× lower.
By agency type
Same scope, four very different price points. The bars below show the average price per agency type across all 47 quotes. Hover for what each tier typically delivers in return.
The real takeaway
Three principles that turn 'these quotes are wildly different' into 'I can read these quotes':
Lock scope in writing before you ask for a price.
Most quote variance comes from agencies pricing different things. Write your scope down — pages, integrations, design depth, performance budget, content production yes/no — and send the same brief to everyone.
Ask for both hourly and fixed-price.
An hourly quote tells you what they think the work will take; a fixed-price quote tells you what they think the relationship is worth. The gap between them is the agency's margin, and is one of the most informative numbers you'll see.
Separate design from build.
Design and development are usually quoted as a single line. They shouldn't be — design is a discrete deliverable, and treating it as such makes the quotes from very different agency types directly comparable on the build side.
If you'd rather skip the back-and-forth and see a real number for your project in two minutes, our website cost calculator walks through the same scope-by-scope logic this article describes.
About the data
Quote ranges are illustrative, drawn from a mix of public Quebec/Ontario agency rate cards (2024–2026) and anonymized client inquiries received over the last 24 months. Your actual quotes will differ. The point is the *shape* of the variance, not the exact numbers.