Guides · Ontario · 2026
Contractor pricing guides
These are written by a renovation contractor who prices this work every week, not by a software company that read a blog post. Every figure is a 2026 southern Ontario market range — what a reputable mid-size renovation company actually charges, before HST.
They are not price lists to copy. They are the structure of a quote, so you can build your own and stop guessing.
How to price a bathroom renovation
Nine quote stages with 2026 Ontario ranges, a worked 5×8 example, and the four places bathroom jobs lose money.
How to price a kitchen renovation
Where the money actually goes — cabinets are 30–38% before your labour — plus the counter template gap and client-supplied cabinets.
How to price a basement finish
The two things to check before you quote anything, egress and permit costs, and why two basements on one street differ by $30,000.
How to price a deck build
Why per-square-foot quoting fails on decks, footing counts off beam spans, and the Ontario code items that fail inspections.
Why you need two estimates for every job
An internal estimate that shows markup, hours and profit, and a client-facing one that builds trust — and makes the change-order conversation painless.
What should a contractor charge per hour?
Wage, burden, overhead and profit with the arithmetic laid out — including the billable-hours step almost everyone skips.
Why these are free. Estimating properly takes hours, and those hours only exist after supper. The method below is the whole method — nothing held back to make you buy something. If it saves you an evening, that is worth more to us than a gated PDF.
Also worth reading
If you are comparing software rather than pricing a job:
Or let the app do the takeoff
Walk the job on your phone. Contrax writes the scope and prices every line off your own rate card.
See the live demo →$150 CAD a month for your whole company. Built in Oshawa, Ontario.
Ranges reflect the southern Ontario market in 2026 for a reputable mid-size renovation company, before HST. They are a starting point for building your own pricing, not a quote and not advice for any particular job. Code requirements vary by municipality — always confirm locally.