The questions Toronto small business owners ask before working with us: pricing, process, services, fit. Honest answers, no sales pitch.
What things really cost and how engagements typically work.
For most Toronto small businesses, $5,000-$15,000 is the sweet spot for a substantive custom website. Under $3,000 typically means templated work. Over $20,000 starts buying features (custom development, complex integrations) most small businesses don't need until they've validated the model.
Most small businesses we work with spend $300-$1,000 per month on ongoing SEO once the foundation is built. The foundational work (GBP setup, citation cleanup, on-site SEO basics) is usually a $3,000-$7,000 one-time project. Spending less than that gets you nothing useful; spending more is rarely worth it for businesses under $5M in revenue.
Setup projects run $3,000-$15,000 depending on scope. Ongoing tool subscriptions run $300-$1,500 per month for most small businesses. Payback period is typically 60-90 days from productivity improvements alone.
No. Project work is scoped per project. Ongoing engagements typically have a 30-day rolling termination clause. We earn renewals rather than locking clients in.
Fixed-fee for projects with clear scope. Monthly retainer for ongoing engagements. We don't bill hourly except for very small scope clarifications or out-of-scope additions, where we agree on hours upfront.
Projects: 50% deposit at kickoff, 50% on launch. Larger projects ($15K+): 40%/40%/20% across three milestones. Retainers: monthly in advance. We accept e-transfer, ACH, and credit card (with a small processing fee on credit).
How we work, what to expect at each stage, and how long things take.
Templated sites: 1-3 weeks. Custom small business sites: 6-12 weeks from kickoff to launch. E-commerce sites with custom features: 12-20 weeks. Anyone promising a 'custom' site in under 4 weeks is either using a template or cutting corners on discovery and design.
Discovery (1-2 weeks) → strategy and wireframes (1-2 weeks) → design (2-4 weeks) → build (3-6 weeks) → review and refinement (1-2 weeks) → launch and handoff. Each stage has clear deliverables you sign off on before moving forward.
The founders and senior team. We don't farm out client work to junior staff or offshore vendors. The person who scopes your project is the person you'll be talking to throughout it.
A 60-90 minute kickoff call to understand your business, customers, goals, and constraints. Sometimes a follow-up call to clarify specifics. We produce a written discovery summary you sign off on before design starts. Discovery is included in project pricing and not billed separately.
Small changes within scope: handled, no extra cost. New features or significant scope expansion: we pause, write a change order with new cost and timeline, you approve before we proceed. No surprise invoices.
30-60 days of post-launch support included to fix bugs and handle small adjustments. After that, ongoing care plans available for $300-$1,000 per month if you want continued partnership. Otherwise you own everything and can take it elsewhere.
What we offer, what's included, and where we don't operate.
Websites, SEO and AI search optimization, AI implementation, brand and strategy, data and analytics, social media management, and consulting. Each is offered as standalone work or as part of an integrated engagement.
Sometimes, as part of broader engagements. We're not primarily a paid media shop, and specialist agencies usually outperform us on pure paid media. For most small businesses, the right approach is organic SEO and content first, with paid ads layered on selectively.
Not in-house. For clients needing video, we coordinate with trusted Toronto-area videographers and producers. Same for professional photography: we arrange it through partners when the project needs it.
No. PR is a different discipline. For clients with PR needs, we refer to Toronto PR firms we trust.
Yes. Many of our engagements are improvements to existing sites: performance, SEO, conversion optimization, content additions, accessibility remediation. Full rebuilds are sometimes the right answer, sometimes not. We're upfront about which is right for your situation.
Who we work best with and where we might not be the right fit.
Primarily professional services (law, accounting, financial advisors, mortgage brokers, insurance), trades and home services (electricians, plumbers, HVAC, roofers), and hospitality (restaurants, cafes, bars, catering). Plus growing tech and consulting clients.
Mostly Toronto and GTA small businesses in the $500K-$10M revenue range. Founders, family businesses, growing service practices. We're not the right fit for very large enterprise or pre-revenue startups.
Primarily, but not exclusively. Most of our work is GTA-focused because the local SEO and in-person dynamics work better that way. We do some remote work for Canadian small businesses in other cities (Vancouver, Calgary, Halifax, Ottawa) particularly for AI implementation and brand work.
Yes. We work with law firms (within Law Society of Ontario rules), accounting firms (within CPA Code of Conduct), mortgage brokers (within FSRA rules), and therapists (within CRPO/CPO rules and PHIPA). Compliance review is built into our process for these engagements.
When you need an enterprise agency with deep specialization in a single discipline, when you're pre-revenue and need MVP development, when PR is the primary need, or when you want lowest-cost-possible work over substantive partnership. We're honest about it in the first conversation.
Local market questions that come up in nearly every first call.
Yes. Based in Toronto, working primarily with GTA-based small businesses across Toronto, Mississauga, Markham, Vaughan, Brampton, Richmond Hill, Oakville, Hamilton, Burlington, and the broader GTA.
Yes. PIPEDA for general privacy, PHIPA for health information, AODA for accessibility, CASL for commercial email. We build to these standards by default and don't ship work that's obviously off-side.
The mechanics are similar to local SEO anywhere: GBP, NAP consistency, reviews, citations, neighbourhood content. What differs is competitive density. Toronto is saturated in most service categories, so the bar for content quality and review velocity is higher than smaller markets.
We work from a Toronto-based virtual office and meet clients at coffee shops, co-working spaces, or their offices for in-person sessions. Most client work happens via video call. If in-person matters for the engagement, we make it happen.
Practical questions about AI in small business operations.
Depends on the tool. Free consumer tools (ChatGPT free, Claude free) typically use inputs for model training and aren't appropriate for client data. Enterprise tiers (ChatGPT Team/Enterprise, Claude for Work, Microsoft Copilot Business) with zero-retention agreements are appropriate. For sensitive data, Canadian-hosted infrastructure (Azure OpenAI Canada Central, AWS Bedrock ca-central-1) is safest.
No. AI replaces specific repetitive tasks (drafting, summarizing, categorizing). Roles stay. Most small businesses using AI grow without hiring proportionally: same staff, more capacity.
For most: meeting capture and summary (Granola, Fireflies, Otter). For trades and service businesses: quote drafting from intake. For professional services: AI-drafted client communication with human review. Document extraction is the highest-ROI workflow in accounting and bookkeeping.
Setup projects run $3,000-$15,000 depending on scope. Ongoing subscriptions and infrastructure run $300-$1,500 per month. Most small businesses recover the cost in productivity gains within 90 days.
How to engage, what to expect, and how decisions get made.
Send a message via the contact form. We'll book a 30-60 minute discovery call to understand what you're dealing with. From there, we'll send a proposal within a few days if we're a fit, or refer you elsewhere if we're not.
Mostly listening. We want to understand your business, your customers, what's working, what's frustrating, and what success looks like. We're not pitching capability you don't need.
Yes. Especially for first-time clients and ongoing engagements, you'll work directly with the principals. We don't hand client relationships off to junior account staff.
Yes. Single audits (SEO, website performance, AI readiness, brand) are scoped as standalone work. We'll send a written audit with prioritized recommendations. If you want us to implement, we can; if you want to take it to another vendor or do it in-house, that's fine too.
Mostly access and decisions. Access to your existing site, analytics, CRM, ad accounts, and other relevant tools. Decisions on key questions during discovery. Timely feedback during review cycles. A clear primary contact who can approve work as we move forward.
Send us a message. We'll respond within one business day with a real answer, never a sales pitch.