Web Design & Development in Montreal
WebBizora designs and develops websites for businesses in Montreal, with the same AI-enhanced process used everywhere else — delivered fully remotely.
Quebec is the one market on this site where the language your website is written in is a legal question rather than a marketing one — and the rule has nothing to do with how many people you employ. WebBizora builds for Montreal businesses fully remotely, from $149.
Building for
Montreal
The Rule Has Nothing to Do With Your Headcount
This is the single most misunderstood thing about doing business online in Quebec. You will read repeatedly that Bill 96 kicks in at 25 employees. That threshold is real, but it governs registering for francisation with the Office québécois de la langue française — a separate process. The obligation on commercial, consumer-facing content applies whatever your size. A two-person shop in Rosemont and a firm with two hundred staff are in the same position as far as the website is concerned.
Presence Is Not the Standard. Equivalence Is.
A French version that exists is not automatically a French version that complies. The Charter’s expectation is that French content is a genuine equivalent — complete rather than a summary, and not subordinate to the English. A fully English site with a small language switch tucked into the footer is the pattern most commonly flagged. If the English site has a chat widget, a booking flow or a returns page, the French one is expected to have them too. Worth adding: the OQLF has publicly cautioned about machine translation, partly because it tends to produce perfunctory French and partly because automated tools skip the parts nobody thinks of — form labels, checkout steps, error messages.
Enforcement Is Real, and Smaller Than the Headlines
Both halves of that matter. The penalty range for a business runs CAD $3,000 to $30,000 per offence, doubling on a second and tripling after that, with each day capable of counting separately — which is where the alarming figures in most articles come from. Against that, the actual record is modest: Quebec courts imposed CAD $29,500 across fourteen businesses for eighteen violations from January 2023, and recent web-content cases have landed near the bottom of the range at around $3,000. The direction is the useful signal. The OQLF is now acting on websites rather than only on storefront signage, and it can inspect on its own initiative rather than waiting for a complaint.
It Follows the Customer, Not the Address
Selling to Quebec consumers brings you into scope whether you operate from Montreal, Toronto or outside Canada entirely — warehousing stock in Ontario does not put a Quebec-facing site outside the Charter. The practical consequence for a build is that bilingual has to be a structural decision at the start. Retrofitting a second language into a finished English site is consistently the expensive route, and here it is also the one most likely to produce the subordinate French the rule is aimed at — which is why we treat it as a design decision rather than a translation task bolted on at the end. The Canada page covers the federal picture, including how CASL and provincial privacy law sit alongside this.
Website Packages for Montreal Businesses
Typical agency cost: $2,200+
A clean, professional site for a small business getting online.
- Up to 5 Pages
- Custom Responsive Design
- Contact Form
- Mobile Optimized
- Basic Business Integrations
- Speed Optimization
- 1 Revision Round
- 7 Days Support
Typical agency cost: $3,200+
More pages and integrations for a growing local or regional business.
- Up to 10 Pages
- Advanced Custom UI
- Responsive Development
- Enquiry Forms
- WhatsApp Integration
- Google Maps Integration
- Useful Business Integrations
- Speed & Security Optimization
- 2 Revision Rounds
- 15 Days Support
Typical agency cost: $4,800+
Booking, payments and advanced design for established businesses.
- Up to 20 Pages
- Advanced Custom Design
- Controlled Animations
- Booking / Appointment System
- Advanced Forms
- Payment Integration
- Performance Optimization
- 3 Revision Rounds
- 30 Days Support
Typical agency cost: $6,500+
A complete online store, built to sell from day one.
- Up to 50 Products
- Custom Store Design
- Cart, Checkout & Orders
- Payment Gateway
- Inventory Features
- Coupons / Discounts
- Responsive Development
- Performance Optimization
- 30 Days Support
Questions, Answered Directly
Yes. The 25-employee threshold governs francisation registration with the OQLF, which is a different obligation. Commercial content aimed at Quebec consumers is covered regardless of how many people you employ.
Not on its own. The French needs to be a real equivalent rather than a summary, and it should not be harder to reach or thinner than the English. A full English site with a small footer link is the pattern most often flagged.
It is risky. The OQLF has cautioned about it, and beyond the quality question, automated tools routinely miss form labels, checkout steps and error messages — exactly the functional content the rule covers.
WebBizora packages start at $149 and run to $399 for builds including booking or payment integration, delivered remotely. Bilingual scope is worth agreeing up front rather than later, since it shapes the structure of the whole site rather than adding pages to the end of it.