Frequently asked questions

Most Curio projects fall into one of two packages. The Starter package runs $2,500–$4,000 CAD for a five-to-eight page marketing site. The Professional package runs $5,000–$8,000 CAD for a ten-to-fifteen page site with a CMS, lead capture, and performance optimization. E-commerce builds and custom web apps are quoted separately based on scope. US clients are billed in USD, converted from the CAD price at the prevailing exchange rate. We tell you the actual number on the discovery call, never after the proposal.

A Starter site takes about four to six weeks from kickoff to launch. A Professional site takes six to ten weeks. E-commerce and custom apps run longer – usually eight to fourteen weeks, depending on the catalog size and integrations required. The timeline goes in writing in the proposal, with weekly check-ins so you can see progress as it happens.

Yes. The standard schedule is 25% deposit to start, 25% at design approval, and 50% on delivery. We also offer a monthly subscription model – $300–$400 per month on a 24-month commitment – that includes the build, hosting, and maintenance with no large upfront payment. The subscription is the right pick when predictable monthly costs are easier on cash flow than a milestone schedule.

The package price covers design, development, content integration, mobile responsiveness, accessibility (WCAG AA), technical SEO setup, schema.org markup, contact form, analytics, and one year of Basic maintenance – hosting, SSL, and security updates. Maintenance is optional; you can self-host instead. Specific feature counts are listed on the pricing page. Logo design, photography, and ongoing SEO content are add-ons, priced separately.

Maintenance plans cover everything you need to keep the site running: $150 per month (Basic) includes hosting, security updates, and uptime monitoring; $250 per month (Standard) adds monthly content updates and analytics reporting. Both are optional – if you'd rather skip the plan, you can take over hosting on your own accounts (the $1,200 deployment-setup add-on configures that for you) and only call us when something needs changing – we bill that by the hour.

Email and shared documents for most things. A weekly 30-minute call to review progress and answer questions. We share work as we build it – not at the end – so you can correct course while changes are still cheap. You'll have a single point of contact throughout the project.

Two rounds on the Starter package, three rounds on Professional. A round means a batch of feedback you give in one go, after reviewing the work. Small tweaks during the build don't count as a round – those are part of normal iteration. If a project genuinely needs more revisions, we'll talk about it before billing more.

Small changes mid-project – copy edits, swapping an image, adjusting a layout – are normal and don't change the price. Adding a new section or feature that wasn't in the original scope is a change order: we tell you what it costs and how it affects the timeline before doing the work. No surprises.

Yes – and this is usually the longest part of the project. We give you a content brief that lists every page's headlines, body copy, and image needs. You can write it yourself, hire a copywriter, or buy our copywriting add-on at $250 per page. If you're stuck, we'll tell you what good copy looks like for your industry.

Custom code gives you a faster site (typically 2–4× faster on Core Web Vitals), full ownership of the code, no monthly platform tax, and no platform-imposed limits when your business needs something unusual. The trade-off is higher upfront cost and longer initial build time. If you need a five-page brochure live in a week and never plan to grow past it, Squarespace is a fine answer – and we'll tell you that on the call.

Next.js is a framework built on React, used by companies including TikTok, Hulu, OpenAI, and Notion to build their websites. It produces sites that are fast (server-rendered, with progressive enhancement), SEO-friendly out of the box, and easy to extend. It matters because it's the same toolchain large tech companies use – your small business gets the same engineering quality, without paying enterprise rates.

No. The code is plain Next.js and React – no proprietary framework – and the hosting, CMS, and DNS we use (Vercel, AWS, Sanity, Contentful) are industry-standard, so any developer can pick the project up. During the engagement, Curio operates the deployment on our own accounts. When the code transfers (at launch for one-time packages, at term-end for the subscription), you take the Git repository wherever you want. If you'd rather run hosting yourself from day one, we offer a $1,200 deployment-setup add-on that configures your own accounts.

Most content edits – text, images, blog posts, page additions – go through the CMS, which is built to be edited by people who don't code. We walk you through it before launch. Code-level changes (new features, layout changes, integrations) usually need a developer; you can hire us, or anyone else.

Yes. We build on Shopify when the catalog is large or the workflow needs Shopify's ecosystem (apps, payment plans, multi-channel). We build custom Stripe checkouts when you sell a small number of products and want full design control. For mid-size catalogs, we sometimes use headless commerce (Shopify or Medusa as the backend, custom Next.js front-end). We help you choose based on catalog size and margin, not on what's trending.

Yes – both technical SEO (built into every site) and ongoing SEO campaigns. The technical work is part of the base package: schema.org markup, fast Core Web Vitals, semantic HTML, clean URLs, and proper meta tags. Beyond that, we offer 3-month SEO engagements ($1,500–$3,000) covering keyword research, on-page content, and structured link work. We don't sell vague "page-one rankings" or guaranteed positions – anyone who does is selling you something they can't deliver.

Yes. We do one-time campaign setup ($750–$1,500): account structure, conversion tracking, audiences, and the first set of campaigns. From there, you can either run the campaigns yourself or hand them off to us for monthly management. Monthly management includes weekly optimization, bid management, A/B testing, and a real monthly report on what your spend bought you – not a deck full of impression counts.

Yes. Two plans: Basic at $150 per month covers hosting, SSL, security updates, dependency updates, monthly backups, and email support. Standard at $250 per month adds content updates (up to two hours per month), performance monitoring, and priority response. Both are optional – you can also pay hourly for ad-hoc work, or take the site fully in-house at any time.

Easy. Custom code is built to be extended. Most feature additions get scoped as small follow-on projects with a fixed price and timeline, separate from your maintenance plan. Examples: adding a booking system, integrating with a new CRM, building a member portal, adding a blog. We give you the cost upfront before any work starts.

Yes – the code, with no proprietary export format. On a one-time package (Starter, Professional, e-commerce, or custom build), the Git repository transfers to you at launch, after final payment. On the monthly subscription, the same code handover happens when the 24-month term completes. During the engagement, Curio operates the deployment on our own hosting, CMS, and DNS accounts; the credentials stay with us while we're running the site. If you'd rather we set up your own accounts and hand you a working live site, that's a $1,200 deployment-setup add-on. Either way, the code is yours and any developer can pick it up.

Curio Web Design is registered in Victoria, BC, on Vancouver Island. We work with clients across the United States and Canada – most communication is by email and shared docs, with weekly video calls during a project. Pricing is in CAD; US clients are invoiced in USD at the prevailing exchange rate. Geography rarely affects how a website project goes; we've worked with clients we've never met in person without any difference in outcomes.

We turn down SEO content farms, MLM and dropshipping fronts, sites we can't test or that won't pass WCAG AA accessibility, enterprise RFPs that require formal procurement, and anything we don't think we can build well. If we say no, it's not because we're full – it's because we're being honest. We'll usually refer you to someone who does the work better than we would.