About Shinobi Media

Shinobi Media is an Ottawa web design and social media management company. It builds custom websites for Ottawa businesses from $449, priced 15 to 20 percent under comparable published Ottawa packages, with local SEO built in, prices published as the final amount with no tax added, and a promise to beat any written quote by up to 20 percent. It also manages social media at $99 per platform per month, and offers e-commerce, local SEO, Google and Meta ads, branding, video, and digital menu boards for restaurants.

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What Shinobi Media is

A small, deliberately lean company rather than a large agency or a solo freelancer. There are no account managers, no project managers and no office overhead, so the person you brief is the person who does the work.

That structure is the whole explanation for the pricing. A larger agency is not overcharging you out of greed; it is passing on a downtown lease, a sales team on commission, and a layer of account management that exists to keep several people in sync. We do not carry those costs, so we do not have to bill for them, which is why a custom six-page site here is $799 rather than the $1,000 to $2,500 the same scope is published at elsewhere in Ottawa.

The trade-off is real and worth stating: we take on fewer projects at once than a twenty-person shop, and we are not the right call for an organisation that needs a dedicated account team and a procurement process. For a small or medium business that wants the work done well and wants to talk to whoever is doing it, the trade goes the other way.

Where we work

In person across Ottawa, Kanata, Nepean, Barrhaven, Orléans, Stittsville, Gloucester and Gatineau. For restaurant work in particular that matters, because scoping a digital menu board properly means standing in the room and looking at the counter, the queue and the sightlines.

Remotely across Ontario and the rest of Canada, worked remotely. We are careful not to claim a local presence we do not have: a business in Hamilton is a remote client, and saying so is more useful than pretending to be around the corner.

Work is done in English and in French. Bilingual builds matter across the Ottawa-Gatineau region, and doing them properly means translated metadata and hreflang, not a translation widget bolted onto an English site.

How the work actually runs

  • A free consultation first, with no obligation attached. We look at the site you have, the competition you are actually up against, and what the project needs to do.
  • A written scope and a firm number before anything starts. If the scope changes, the number is renegotiated in writing rather than absorbed quietly and billed later.
  • Design direction for your approval before the build. If the first direction misses what you asked for, you do not pay for it.
  • The build, with the technical SEO and structured data done as part of it rather than added afterwards as a line item.
  • Launch, then measurement. Conversion tracking configured so you can see which marketing produced calls, because without it every claim about performance is an opinion.

What is built into every site

These are checkable rather than promised. View the source of any page on this site and you will find each of them.

  • Every page is prerendered to static HTML, so crawlers that do not execute JavaScript read the full content rather than an empty container.
  • Schema.org structured data on every route: Organization, Service, FAQPage, Article, BreadcrumbList and more, generated from one source so the markup cannot drift from the copy.
  • A generated sitemap and llms.txt, kept in step with the route table by the build.
  • Semantic HTML, mobile-first layout, and Core Web Vitals treated as part of the build rather than as an upsell.

The five promises, and their limits

These are the same five, in the same words, on every page that carries them. A promise stated five different ways is a promise nobody can hold you to.

  • At least 20% under any written quote. Send us a verified written proposal from any agency or freelancer, anywhere. We match the scope line for line and come back with our best price, up to 20 percent under it, in writing. If we cannot do that honestly, we tell you to take their offer.
  • Don't like the first design? You don't pay. Every price here is the final price. Nothing is added at the invoice, and the scope with its number is agreed in writing before any work starts.
  • You own everything, outright. The code, the domain and every account are in your name from the first day. Nothing is rented back to you. If you ever leave, the handover is a published $150: your code packaged to deploy, your domain released, and a written setup document. One flat figure you can read before you sign, not a number you find out on the way out.
  • Hosting included, management month to month. Website Care is $99 a month from launch and covers hosting, SSL, daily backups, security patching, uptime monitoring and the technical SEO upkeep that keeps you indexed and fast. Month to month, no contract, no notice period.
  • You talk to the person who builds it. No account manager, no sales layer, no offshore build team. The person you brief is the person writing the code.

What the price promise does not cover

The limits are as important as the promise. It has to be a written proposal from an operating agency or freelancer, because we are matching a documented scope rather than a number, and without the scope there is nothing to match. We match the scope line for line first so the comparison is honest. The offer holds for 14 days. And if we cannot beat it honestly, we say so and tell you to take their offer.

There is also a floor. We do not take a project below the hours it genuinely needs, so a quote that would require that gets the honest answer rather than a lower number. In practice this comes up rarely, because our published prices already sit 15 to 20 percent under the cheapest comparable published packages in Ottawa: a custom six-page website is $799, final price, nothing added.

What we will tell you not to buy

A studio that never talks anyone out of anything is a sales operation. There are several jobs we routinely decline or redirect.

  • If you are pre-revenue and testing whether an idea works, a well-configured Squarespace site is the correct decision and we will say so.
  • If you have one menu board and a stable menu, a printed sign and a good QR menu is the honest answer rather than three screens.
  • If your website is fine and your Google Business Profile is empty, the profile is where the money is. That work is cheaper than a rebuild and it moves more.
  • If another agency has quoted you fairly for the right scope, taking their offer is the right decision and we would rather say that than win the job badly.

What we work on

Areas we serve

Frequently asked questions

Is Shinobi Media an agency or a freelancer?

A small, deliberately lean company rather than a large agency or a solo freelancer. There are no account managers, no project managers and no office overhead, so the person you brief is the person who does the work.

Where is Shinobi Media located?

Ottawa, Ontario. We work in person across Ottawa, Kanata, Nepean, Barrhaven, Orléans, Stittsville, Gloucester and Gatineau, and remotely across Ontario and the rest of Canada, worked remotely.

How many people work on my project?

Usually one, with specialists brought in for photography, video or translation where a project needs them. What does not happen is a hand-off: the person you brief is the person who builds it, so nothing is lost in translation between a salesperson, an account manager and a developer.

Do you publish your prices?

Fixed prices are published for fixed scopes, and the published figure is the final figure with no tax added at the invoice: a custom six-page website is $799, social media management is $99 per platform per month, and the website plus all 4 platforms is $399 a month. The full tier list, add-on rates and plans are published at /web-design-ottawa-pricing with the date they were last reviewed against the market. Work that is genuinely bespoke — booking platforms, marketplaces, integrations — is scoped and quoted individually, because a brochure site and a booking platform are not the same product. Every published build price sits 15 to 20 percent under the cheapest comparable published package from an Ottawa studio, and any written quote from another agency is beaten by up to 20 percent on matched scope.

What happens if I want to leave?

You take everything with you, and the code, the domain and every account were in your name from the start. There is no contract and no notice period. The handover itself is a published $150: your complete code packaged ready to deploy, your domain released to the registrar you choose, and a written setup document so any developer can put it live. We publish that number rather than leaving it to be discovered, because an unknown exit cost is the thing worth worrying about.

Do you work with businesses outside Ottawa?

Yes, remotely, across Ontario and the rest of Canada, worked remotely. We are straightforward about which kind of client you are: in-person work happens across Ottawa, Kanata, Nepean, Barrhaven, Orléans, Stittsville, Gloucester and Gatineau, and everywhere else is remote.