Thunder Bay is a city in Thunder Bay District, Ontario, with 108,843 residents at the 2021 Census. That shapes what a good website for a business in Thunder Bay should show first. For CA$119 a month, we set up a professional website with your brand, email on your domain and hosting, with no setup fee.
No setup fee: you only pay the CA$119 monthly fee after you approve your website.
Doing business in Thunder Bay
Thunder Bay includes communities such as Baird, Intola, Jumbo Gardens and Kivikoski. Naming the ones you serve on your website helps customers who search by their own community’s name.
Thunder Bay counted 3,308 businesses with employees in June 2026, and 41.7% of them had one to four employees. Most of your competition is small and local too, so a professional website is a real differentiator.
The people a Thunder Bay website talks to
Most people in Thunder Bay (79.9%) were born in Ontario. Mention the places around Thunder Bay you cover, so customers see their own town on the page.
39.6% of households are people living alone or with non-relatives. Smaller households look for convenience: delivery, flexible hours, quick replies.
Most workers (88.5%) commute by car, truck or van. Put your address and directions where they are easy to find.
Short commutes are the norm: 53.1% take less than 15 minutes. Customers are mostly local, so local details count.
Around Thunder Bay
Nearby municipalities include Oliver Paipoonge (19 km west), Neebing (28 km southwest), Conmee (31 km west) and O’Connor (32 km west). It is part of the Thunder Bay census metropolitan area. Thunder Bay is part of Thunder Bay District. If you work in O’Connor or Conmee as well, the site can say so on a service area page.
Oliver Paipoonge has 6,035 residents and a median age of 46.0, against 44.0 in Thunder Bay. In Oliver Paipoonge, 92.9% of households own their home; in Thunder Bay, 67.7%.
Industries that stand out in Thunder Bay
Thunder Bay had 3,308 employer businesses in June 2026. The sectors below are more common here than across Ontario, with what each one’s website should show:
- Clinics, dentists, physiotherapists and other health offices, 394 in Thunder Bay: the site should show the treatments offered and the practitioners and their credentials.
- Restaurants, cafés and bars, 212 in Thunder Bay: the site should show the menu with prices and how to book a table or a private event by email.
- Sporting goods, hobby, book and gift stores, 90 in Thunder Bay: the site should show an online shop and opening hours.
- Clothing, shoe and accessory stores, 56 in Thunder Bay: the site should show new arrivals with photos and an online shop for regular customers.
- Gyms, golf courses and recreation businesses, 42 in Thunder Bay: the site should show how to get in touch and memberships and prices.
In every one of these sectors, the website that wins is the one that answers questions before the customer has to ask.
Among residents who work, the largest sectors are health care and social assistance (21.7%), retail trade (12.6%) and educational services (9.3%).
The 2021 Census picture of Thunder Bay
With a median age of 44.0 (Ontario: 41.6), the population of Thunder Bay is older than Ontario overall. The median household income in Thunder Bay was $77,500 in 2020, below the Ontario median of $91,000, so clear prices matter. Of the 48,405 households in Thunder Bay, 67.7% own and 32.3% rent. The municipality covers 328 square kilometres of land, about 332.1 people per square kilometre.
Other numbers worth knowing
- Share of residents 85 or older: 3.0%
- Couples with children, share of households: 20.2%
- Private dwellings: 50,995
- Row houses: 2.9% of households
- High-rise apartment households: 5.3%
- Commutes of an hour or more: 2.6%
- College or CEGEP diploma (ages 25 to 64): 28.2%
How Thunder Bay compares with Ontario
The share of residents under 15 is 14.2% in Thunder Bay and 15.8% in Ontario. On home ownership, Thunder Bay (67.7%) compares with 68.4% for the province as a whole. Commuters who drive: 88.5% in Thunder Bay, against 83.6% across Ontario.
The population barely moved between 2016 (107,909) and 2021 (108,843). For comparison, Ontario as a whole grew 5.8% from 2016 to 2021.
Your website, built remotely for Thunder Bay
Aria is a web design team that has been building small business websites since 2008. Nothing needs to happen in person: you send what you have by email and see the whole website on a temporary link before it goes live.
- Fill in the sign-up form at cadastro.ariaserv.com; it takes about 5 minutes.
- We put the site together with your logo, colours and photos, and send you a temporary link within 3 business days.
- Approve the site and pay the first month: only then does it go live on your domain.
After it goes live, hosting, SSL and daily backups are on our side, and text and photo updates by email come with the plan.
- A business website or an online store, for the same monthly fee
- Your own domain: bring the one you have, or we help you pick one
- Email on your domain: unlimited accounts, 5 GB in total, webmail and spam filtering
- Hosting, an SSL certificate and a daily backup
- Text, photo and price updates whenever you email us
- Ready within 3 business days on a temporary link
What Ontario asks of a business online
Selling or advertising online brings no special licence, but a few rules often come up:
- The Ontario Business Registry lets businesses and not-for-profit corporations complete over 90 transactions online, including registering, incorporating and updating their information. Ontario Business Registry
- Depending on what you do, you may need licences and permits to run your business under federal, provincial or municipal regulations. Ontario.ca: licences and permits
- Consent is at the heart of Canada’s anti-spam legislation (CASL): express consent means someone has agreed, verbally or in writing, to receive a commercial electronic message from you, and senders should be ready to provide proof of that consent. Canada’s anti-spam legislation
General information, not legal advice. Each link goes to the official page, where the details for your situation are.
Web design in Thunder Bay: frequent questions
Who writes the text and picks the photos?
Phone photos of your real work often work better than stock images. Email them with your logo and a list of services.
I also work in Oliver Paipoonge. Can the website show that?
Yes. We add a list of the towns you serve, Oliver Paipoonge and Neebing included, with the contact form one tap away.
Am I tied in for a year?
You can stop the service whenever you need to; there is no setup fee and no long-term commitment.
Will the website work on phones?
Yes, it is built to work on phones first, with buttons that are easy to tap and pages that open fast.
What if I need to change something later?
Send the new prices or texts by email and we update the pages; it is included in the CA$119 plan.
How do we work together if I am in Thunder Bay?
We work online from start to finish. You email your logo, photos and texts, and you approve the site on a temporary link.
What is the website built on?
Your website runs on the Aria Platform, built on WordPress and maintained by us: hosting, SSL, daily backups and security updates included.
Do I pay anything to get started?
No. No setup fee: you only pay the CA$119 monthly fee after you approve your website. No long-term contract. You can stop the service whenever you need to.
Put your Thunder Bay business on the map online
Send your logo and photos once you have signed up; the temporary link follows within 3 business days.
- Statistics Canada, 2021 Census of Population (population and dwelling counts, age, income, housing, language, immigration, commuting, place of work and education tables) for Thunder Bay. Reproduced and distributed on an 'as is' basis with the permission of Statistics Canada.
- Business counts for Thunder Bay: Statistics Canada, Canadian Business Counts with employees, June 2026 (tables 33-10-1176 and 33-10-1174).
- Where Thunder Bay and its neighbours are: Natural Resources Canada, Canadian Geographical Names Database; contains information licensed under the Open Government Licence – Canada.
- Place names inside Thunder Bay: Statistics Canada, Standard Geographical Classification (SGC) 2021.
- Numbers come from the official sources above and are updated when new releases come out; distances are measured in a straight line.