Website redesign cost, and what carries over to the new site.
Expect a redesign to cost about what a new site of the same size costs, because most redesigns rebuild the pages. GoDaddy’s Canadian guide puts a brochure site of under 15 pages at $170 to $5,000 CAD, from AI-built to bespoke. One Ottawa studio charges the same for a redesign as for a new site: $799 for up to six pages. Ours starts at $499 CAD one-time, plus a monthly plan for the first year. No price shows the search traffic a redesign can lose when the old page addresses are not carried over.
Published redesign prices are hard to compare because each one prices a different job. We read each one for what it covers, then set out the steps Google Search Central publishes for moving pages to new addresses, quoting Google where the wording matters.
Updated 2026-10-06 · every price as its publisher states it
What a website redesign costs, from published prices
Four prices, each read off its publisher’s page on 2026-10-06. The middle column matters as much as the last one, because no two of them price the same job.
| Publisher | What the price covers | Price |
|---|---|---|
| GoDaddy Canada, build cost guide, dated 2026-04-22 | Building a brochure site, which the guide defines as fewer than 15 pages. A build price, not a redesign price. | $170 for an AI-built site to $5,000 for a bespoke one. “All prices are shown in CAD.” |
| An Ottawa web design studio's redesign cost guide, updated 2026-10-02 | A redesign, which the studio prices the same as a new site with the same number of pages. | $799 for up to six pages and $1,199 for up to fifteen, each “a final price”, with no tax added. |
| A design agency with offices in Kolkata and New York, redesign cost guide, updated 2026-08-10 | Redesigns of every size. The page states no currency. | $3,000 to $75,000. For a site of 1 to 50 pages, a “total redesign cost” of $15,000 to $29,000. |
| Velogics, our pricing page | A custom hand-coded build, which the page calls “the only one-time line”. | From $499 CAD one-time, plus a monthly plan for the first year: from $1,207 all-in for year one. |
Read the third row before quoting it to anyone. Its $15,000 to $29,000 for a small site adds up four columns of the same table: $3,000 to $5,000 for visual updates such as colours and fonts, $7,000 to $15,000 for new functionality or a new CMS, $2,000 to $4,000 for one month of copywriting, and $3,000 to $5,000 for one month of marketing, a column the page itself marks optional. A colour-and-font refresh, priced on its own, is the first column.
The first row is a build price. It belongs on the list because a redesign that rebuilds every page is a build, and because the same guide carries a line worth acting on during any redesign: register the domain “in your name, not the designer or developer’s name.”
The second row is the nearest thing to a published Canadian redesign price: a tier set by the number of pages, the same whether the site is new or replacing an old one. Our own line works the same way: one build price, and a written fixed quote that moves with pages, features and integrations. The first-year total behind our row, plan by plan, is in what a new website costs in Ottawa, year one included.
Refresh, redesign, rebuild or fix: which job you are buying
“Redesign” covers four different jobs, and their bills differ more than any two quotes for the same job. Name the job before you compare prices.
| Job | What changes | Where the money goes | What Google sees |
|---|---|---|---|
| Refresh | A new look on the same platform. The same pages at the same addresses. | Design, then checking that every existing page still displays properly in the new look. | No page moves, so there is nothing to redirect. |
| Redesign | A new look and a new structure. Pages are merged, split, added or renamed. | Design, writing, and a mapped redirect for every address that changes. | Changed addresses fall under Google's site-move guide, which says to expect rankings to fluctuate while it recrawls. |
| Rebuild | A new platform or new code, usually with a new design on top. | Everything a redesign costs, plus moving content by hand wherever the old platform will not export it. | The same site-move guide if any address changes. If every address stays, Google's shorter guide to changing hosting applies instead. |
| Fix | One fault: a contact form that stopped sending, a slow page, a missing service page. | Hours of work rather than a project. | Nothing, unless an address changes. |
When a redesign costs less than a rebuild
If you can edit the site, you own it, and it does what the business needs, keeping its platform is the cheaper route. Google’s site-move guide leans the same way: when you prepare a new site, it says to set up the CMS “(preferably the same as the old site used)” and import the content from the old one.
The same guide’s next piece of advice decides how a redesign should be scheduled. Under “Change only one thing at a time”, Google says that if you plan to move to a new domain, change your CMS and update your layout, “do them one at a time”. Every change bundled into one launch is one more suspect if search traffic dips afterwards.
When the rebuild is coming anyway
Some platforms will not let a site leave. Wix’s help centre says a Wix site cannot run anywhere else, because “the SaaS architecture does not support external hosting”. The content is yours, Wix says on the same page, and so is the domain if you bought it elsewhere and connected it. The site itself stays behind, so leaving Wix means rebuilding the pages on another platform and moving the words and photos across.
Squarespace lets part of a site out. Its help centre says “Not everything will export, as many features rely on our platform’s JavaScript and CSS,” and that the file “can only be in a WordPress format”. Layout pages, one blog, and text and image blocks come out. Store pages, a second blog, product and video blocks, drafts, style settings and custom CSS do not. The export saves retyping the text; the design and the store are rebuilt by hand.
Google would still sequence that kind of change: platform first, layout second. Doing both at once costs less, at the price described above. Keeping every page address the same through the move takes the largest variable out.
When the cheapest redesign is none
Sometimes the site already brings in enquiries and only looks dated, or one fault is driving the whole decision. A form that stopped sending is a fix. So is a missing page for a service you sell. If the real complaint is the hosting bill, that is a separate purchase, and what website hosting costs in Canada compares published plans with their renewal prices. If what the site lacks is upkeep rather than a new look, WordPress maintenance services are sold on their own, and our pricing page says they cover WordPress, Squarespace and hand-coded sites from $59 a month.
What carries over to the new site, and what does not
Very little moves by itself. Each row is something the old site does today that the new one will do only if someone carries it across. Ask for this list in the quote, so you can see who is doing each line.
| What the old site has | Moves by itself? | What has to happen |
|---|---|---|
| Page addresses (URLs) | Only if the new site keeps them | Keep each address, or send it with a permanent (301) redirect to the closest new page. |
| The words on each page | No | Someone copies them across, or exports them where the platform allows it. |
| Images and PDFs | No | Move them and redirect their old addresses. Google notes these “might already be getting traffic from Google Search or links”. |
| Page titles and descriptions | No | They sit in the old site's settings. List them before launch and set each one on its new page. |
| Links from other websites | No, they keep pointing at the old addresses | Redirects keep them working. Ask the sites that send you the most visits to update their link. |
| Links between your own pages | No | Point every link straight at the new address. |
| Search Console verification | Not always | If the old site was verified with an HTML file or a meta tag, the new copy needs the same file or tag. Google lists this in its site-move preparation. |
| Analytics and lead tracking | No | Google describes analytics as “a piece of JavaScript embedded in your pages”. It goes into the new template, and every form, call and email event is tested again. |
| Business Profile and social links | No | Update the website link on your Business Profile, Facebook and LinkedIn, and on any ad, wherever the page it points to has a new address. |
| Domain and email | Yes, while the domain stays in your name | If the domain's DNS moves to a new provider, every record goes across, the mail (MX) records included, or email stops arriving. |
| The block on the test site | Sometimes, by mistake | A test copy is hidden from search with noindex or robots.txt. Google lists leaving that block in place after launch as a common mistake. |
The first row decides most of the rest. A redesign that keeps every address needs no redirect map and gives Google no new addresses to learn, and links from other sites keep landing where they always did.
How to keep search traffic through a redesign
Google Search Central’s guide to site moves with URL changes, last updated on 2026-08-20, is the document to follow whenever a redesign changes even one page address. If every address stays the same and only the hosting changes, Google points to a separate, shorter guide, covered at the end of this section. The steps below follow Google’s order.
List every old address before anything changes
Google suggests starting from your sitemaps, the pages your analytics or server logs show getting the most traffic, and the Links report in Search Console, which shows the pages other sites and your own pages link to. Include images, videos and PDFs. Google’s line on those is that they “need to be moved in the same way as all other content on your website.”
Then mark the pages that bring visits today. A redesign should keep each of them at full length, even where a shorter page would suit the new layout better.
Map each old address to its closest new one
One to one wherever you can. Google is direct about the shortcut: “Don’t redirect many old URLs to one irrelevant single URL destination, such as the home page of the new site.” It says that can confuse users and “might be treated as a soft 404 error.” Where several old pages really were merged into one, sending them all to that page is fine. Where a page is gone for good, Google says its old address should return a 404 or 410.
Redirect on the server, permanently, in one hop
Google recommends server-side permanent redirects, “such as 301 and 308”, and settles the worry most owners bring to a redesign in one line: “301 and other permanent redirects don’t cause a loss in PageRank.” Send each old address straight to its final page. Googlebot can follow up to 10 hops, but Google advises keeping a chain “ideally no more than 3 and fewer than 5.” A site redesigned twice is where chains come from: the first redesign’s redirects now point at pages the second one moved.
Build behind a block, then lift it on launch day
A redesign is built on a test copy that search engines are told to ignore, usually with a noindex rule or a robots.txt block. Google’s troubleshooting list opens with what happens next: “Don’t forget to remove any noindex or robots.txt blocks that were only needed for the migration.” Its second item is just as ordinary: “We frequently see people redirecting to the wrong (non-existent) URLs on the new site.” Test every row of the map.
Launch all at once, then tell Google
For a small or medium site, Google recommends moving every URL at the same time rather than a section at a time, because it “helps our algorithms detect the site move and update our index faster.” Then submit the new sitemap in Search Console and check a few old addresses with the URL Inspection tool. The Change of Address tool is only for a move to a new domain or subdomain, and Google says you don’t need it for “moving paths within the same domain”, which is what most redesigns are.
Keep the redirects, and update the links you control
Keep the redirects “for as long as possible, generally at least 1 year”, Google says, so it can pass signals to the new addresses, links on other sites included. Meanwhile update everything you control: links between your own pages, your profile links on Facebook and LinkedIn, the website link on your Business Profile, and any ad that lands on an old page.
Expect a few weeks of movement
“Expect temporary fluctuation in site ranking during the move,” Google writes. For a medium-sized site, it says, “it can take a few weeks or more for Google to gradually start showing the new URLs instead of the old ones”, and longer for larger sites. Its conclusion is “This is normal and a site’s rankings will settle down over time.” Anyone who promises a redesign with no movement at all is promising more than Google does.
If only the hosting changes
A redesign that keeps every page address but moves the site to new hosting falls under Google’s other, shorter guide, which is “only for migrations that don’t affect the user-visible URL”. There is no redirect map. Two of its details belong in the plan: lower the DNS TTL “at least a week in advance of the move”, so the switch reaches everyone quickly, and expect a “temporary drop in Googlebot’s crawl rate immediately after the launch”, which Google says is followed by a steady increase over the next few days.
What pushes a redesign quote up
Every published price above is a starting point. These are the lines that move a written quote away from it.
- The number of pages. Three of the four prices above are tiered by it, and each page is designed, written or moved, mapped and tested.
- Every address that changes, because each one adds a row to the redirect map and a check after launch.
- Text that needs writing rather than moving. Moving text that already works is quick; turning a thin service page into one that answers what customers ask is writing, and it is priced as writing.
- A change of platform, since content comes across by hand wherever the old platform's export stops.
- Features and integrations such as booking, payments, a CRM or a quote calculator. They are software, and our pricing page names them, with pages, as what moves our own quote.
- A French version, which is a second set of pages at their own addresses and roughly doubles the writing and the redirect map. Worth pricing early for a business that also takes work across the river in Gatineau.
Accessibility, for a business in Ontario with 50 or more employees
Ontario’s accessibility rules require the public website of a business or non-profit with 50 or more employees to meet WCAG 2.0 Level AA, apart from two criteria covering live captions and pre-recorded audio descriptions. Where a site was built with tools that predate that standard and cannot be repaired, the province’s guidance is to “use software that supports accessibility the next time you refresh your site.” A redesign is that refresh.
The same page lists what to ask a developer for: a project plan that names the techniques or software used, how the site will be tested (automated tests, manual tests and assistive technology such as screen readers), how it will be maintained, and the deliverables and timelines. Those four lines belong in a redesign quote for a business of that size.
How much does it cost to design a website in Canada?
GoDaddy’s Canadian guide, dated 2026-04-22, puts a brochure website at $170 for an AI-built site to $5,000 for a bespoke one, and a small online store of 10 to 100 products, built by a web designer, at $5,000 to $10,000, all in Canadian dollars. Our own custom build starts at $499 CAD one-time, and every build runs on a monthly plan for its first year from $59, so year one is from $1,207 all-in. Expect a redesign of a site that size to be quoted in the same range, for the reason in the first section: the pages are rebuilt either way.
Is web design still worth it in 2026?
Yes, wherever the website is how customers check a business before they call, and AI search has not changed that. AI Overviews link to websites, and Google’s documentation on AI features adds an observation about the visits they send: “when people click from search results pages with AI Overviews, these clicks are higher quality (meaning, users are more likely to spend more time on the site).”
Whether a redesign is worth it is a narrower question, and it has arithmetic attached. Divide the year-one cost by what one job leaves you after costs. Say an average job leaves you $600: at our lowest published year one, $1,207, that is about two extra jobs in the year. If the current site already brings in enquiries and the redesign is mostly about looks, price the refresh or the fix from the table above against the same sum first.
What are the 7 steps in web design?
Lists vary, but most run discovery, planning, design, content, development, testing and launch. In a redesign each step carries an extra job, and that job is where a redesign quote differs from a new-build quote.
| Step | The extra job in a redesign | What it costs |
|---|---|---|
| 1. Discovery | Measure the old site first: which pages bring visits and enquiries, and which bring nothing. | Mostly reading. Search Console and your analytics already hold the numbers. |
| 2. Planning | Choose refresh, redesign, rebuild or fix, and draw the page list with old and new addresses side by side. | The redirect map starts here, one row per changed address. |
| 3. Design | New layouts, checked on a phone first. | Set mostly by how many different kinds of page the site has, more than by how many pages. |
| 4. Content | Move what works, rewrite what is thin, write what is missing. | Writing is priced as writing. Moving text that already works is the cheap part. |
| 5. Development | Build on a test copy hidden from search, with analytics, tracking and verification carried over. | Pages, features and integrations, the same three lines that move our own quote. |
| 6. Testing | Every form, every call link, and every row of the redirect map. | Time per page and per redirect. |
| 7. Launch and watch | Lift the block, switch the redirects on, submit the sitemap, then watch Search Console. | Little money, some attention. Google says a medium site can take a few weeks or more before the new addresses show. |
What are the five golden rules of a website?
Nobody publishes an official five. For a site being redesigned, these are the five that decide whether it still works the morning after launch, each with a check you can run yourself.
| Rule | The check |
|---|---|
| 1. It can be found. | Run three new pages through the live test in Search Console's URL Inspection tool. Each should report that indexing is allowed and that crawling is not blocked. |
| 2. Old addresses land somewhere useful. | Open five old addresses from your list, your busiest page among them. Each should arrive on its closest new page in one hop, not on the home page. |
| 3. Enquiries still arrive. | Send a test message through every form from a phone and tap every phone number. Then check that the message reached someone who will read it. |
| 4. You can still measure it. | Open your analytics real-time report while you load the new site, and check that Search Console still shows the property as verified. |
| 5. You still own it. | The domain, the Business Profile and the Search Console property are in your name, and you hold the logins to the site itself. |
How we price a redesign
We publish no separate redesign price. The only one-time line on our pricing page is the build, from $499 CAD, and the written, fixed quote moves with the size and complexity of the site: pages, features and integrations. Every build runs on one of our monthly plans for its first year, from $59, which puts year one from $1,207 all-in, and after that the plan is cancel-anytime. Standard builds are ready for review within 14 business days of the scoping call, and bigger builds get their own date in the written spec.
On redesigns, our web design page says we redesign existing sites “while keeping the pages and URLs that already work”, and redirect anything that moves. If you are weighing one, a scoping call for web design in Ottawa starts from the list in this guide: which of your pages bring visits today, and which of the four jobs your site actually needs. Sometimes the answer is the fix.
To book it, phone +1 (613) 383-5521 and our AI receptionist will find a time.
Questions people ask next about redesigns.
1Is a website redesign cheaper than building a new site?
Only when the redesign keeps most of what exists. A refresh that changes the look on the same platform, and keeps every page and address, costs less than a new build because nothing is rewritten or moved. A redesign that restructures the pages costs about what a new site of the same size costs, and one Ottawa studio publishes the same price for both. Leaving a platform that will not let the site go, such as Wix, can cost more, because the content is moved by hand.
2Will a website redesign hurt my Google rankings?
It can move them for a while, and Google says so. Its site-move guide tells you to expect temporary fluctuation while it recrawls, and says a medium-sized site can take a few weeks or more before the new addresses show in place of the old ones. The lasting damage its troubleshooting list warns about comes from avoidable mistakes: wrong redirects and test-site blocks left in place. A redesign that keeps every address has no redirects to get wrong.
3How long does a website redesign take?
Two clocks run. The build depends on pages, content and features; our pricing page puts a standard build at ready for review within 14 business days of the scoping call, with bigger builds dated in the written spec. Then Google needs time: for a medium-sized site, its guide says it can take a few weeks or more to start showing the new addresses in place of the old ones. If your work is seasonal, Google suggests timing the move for a quieter period.
4Do I need to tell Google when I redesign my website?
There is no form to fill in for a redesign on the same domain. Google's Change of Address tool is only for a move to a new domain or subdomain, and its guide says you do not need it for moving paths within the same domain. What helps is submitting the new sitemap in Search Console on launch day and checking a few old addresses with the URL Inspection tool. Keep the old site's verification file or tag on the new one, too.
5Can I keep my domain name and email address through a redesign?
Yes, and you should, as long as the domain is registered in your name. The risk sits in the DNS: if your records move to a new provider, every one of them has to come across, the mail records included, or email stops arriving. For a hosting change, Google also suggests lowering the DNS TTL at least a week ahead, so the switch reaches everyone quickly.
6Can a Wix or Squarespace site be redesigned on another platform?
Yes, but it is a rebuild rather than a move. Wix says its sites must run on its own servers, so leaving means rebuilding the pages elsewhere, while the domain can stay with you. Squarespace exports some content, in a WordPress format only, and leaves out store pages, more than one blog, product and video blocks, drafts, style settings and custom CSS. Either way, list every page address first, so each old one can be redirected to its new page.
Every price on this page was read off its publisher's page on 2026-10-06, and prices move. The Google rows are the site-move documentation the steps above follow, the Ontario row is the province's accessibility guidance, and the Wix and Squarespace rows are each platform's own help page. The agency guides are described rather than linked, the last row is our own published pages, and nothing here is drawn from any client's account.
- Google Search Central, How to move a site (site moves with URL changes)
Read 2026-10-06, last updated 2026-08-20. Source of “Change only one thing at a time” (a new domain, a new CMS and a new layout, “do them one at a time”); timing a move for a traffic dip; the CMS “preferably the same as the old site used”; moving images and PDFs; the old-URL sources (sitemaps, analytics or server logs, the Links report); 404 or 410 for deleted pages; keeping verification files and tags; analytics as JavaScript in your pages; no redirecting many URLs to the home page (a possible soft 404); chains “ideally no more than 3 and fewer than 5”; “301 and other permanent redirects don't cause a loss in PageRank”; moving a small or medium site all at once; keeping redirects “generally at least 1 year”; Change of Address for domain moves only; updating profile links and ads; “a few weeks or more” for medium sites; and the noindex and wrong-redirect mistakes.
- Google Search Central, Changing your hosting (site moves without URL changes)
Read 2026-10-06, last updated 2025-12-10. Source of the scope (“only for migrations that don't affect the user-visible URL”), the advice to lower DNS TTL “at least a week in advance of the move”, and the normal “temporary drop in Googlebot's crawl rate immediately after the launch, followed by a steady increase over the next few days”.
- Google Search Central, AI features and your website (measuring performance)
Read 2026-10-06, last updated 2025-12-10. Source of one sentence from its section on measuring performance: “We've seen that when people click from search results pages with AI Overviews, these clicks are higher quality (meaning, users are more likely to spend more time on the site).”
- Government of Ontario, How to make websites accessible (refreshing a site, working with developers)
Read 2026-10-06, page updated 2026-09-21. Source of the advice, for a site built on software that predates WCAG 2.0, to “use software that supports accessibility the next time you refresh your site”, and of the four things it says a developer's project plan should cover: the techniques or software used, how the site will be tested (automated and manual tests, and assistive technology), how it will be maintained, and the deliverables and timelines.
- Wix Help Center, “Exporting or Embedding Your Wix Site Elsewhere”
Read 2026-10-06. Source of “the SaaS architecture does not support external hosting”, of the statement that the content you build on Wix belongs to you, and of connecting a domain bought and managed with another provider.
- Squarespace Help Center, “Exporting your site”
Updated 2026-02-12, read 2026-10-06. Source of “Not everything will export, as many features rely on our platform's JavaScript and CSS”, the WordPress-only file format, and the lists of what exports (layout pages, one blog page, text and image blocks) and what does not (store pages and other page types, more than one blog page, product and video blocks, drafts, style settings, custom CSS).
- GoDaddy Canada, “How much does it cost to build a website in Canada?”
godaddy.com/resources/ca/launch/how-much-does-it-cost-to-build-a-website-in-canada, published 2026-04-22 and modified 2026-05-08, read 2026-10-06. Source of the brochure-site range ($170 AI-built to $5,000 bespoke, fewer than 15 pages), the $5,000 to $10,000 small online store built by a web designer, “All prices are shown in CAD”, and registering the domain in your own name. Not linked, because this site does not link competitors' sales pages; the address is here so you can re-read it.
- An Ottawa web design studio's guide, “How much does a website redesign cost in 2026?”
shinobimedia.ca/guides/website-redesign-cost-canada, published 2026-09-24 and updated 2026-10-02, read 2026-10-06. Source of its redesign price, the same as its new-site price: $799 for up to six pages and $1,199 for up to fifteen, “each a final price”, with no tax added. Not linked, for the same reason.
- A design agency's website redesign cost guide
designstudiouiux.com/blog/cost-to-redesign-a-website (offices in Kolkata and New York), first published 2024-10-09 and updated 2026-08-10, read 2026-10-06. Source of the $3,000 to $75,000 range and its small-site table (1 to 50 pages): $3,000 to $5,000 visual, $7,000 to $15,000 back end, $2,000 to $4,000 copywriting for the first month, $3,000 to $5,000 a month of marketing marked optional, $15,000 to $29,000 in total. The page states no currency. Not linked, for the same reason.
- Our own pricing and web design pages
/pricing and /web-design-ottawa, read 2026-10-06. The build from $499 CAD one-time, “the only one-time line”; the written, fixed quote set by pages, features and integrations; the monthly plan for the first year, then cancel-anytime; year one from $1,207 all-in; standard builds ready for review within 14 business days of the scoping call; WordPress maintenance from $59 a month for WordPress, Squarespace and hand-coded sites; and redesigning existing sites “while keeping the pages and URLs that already work”.