Guides · Kyle · St. Thomas and Area

AI Tools for Trades in Canada (2026): What to Use and What to Skip

Prices checked 20 Oct 2026 on each vendor's own pricing page. Prices exclude HST. Figures are as of Oct 2026.

Updated 20 Oct 2026.

A missed call on a job site is often a quote that went to the next shop. AI can help with the words, the follow-up, and the phone. It does not replace the person who shows up and does the work.

This page is a short list for plumbers, HVAC techs, electricians, and other contractors in Canada. It is general, not your shop’s plan. Prices are the ones I could read on each vendor’s own pricing page. Where a page did not show a dollar amount, I say so.

Start with the job, not the tool

Write down four jobs before you open a pricing page:

  1. Quotes that go out the day the customer asks.
  2. Calls you miss while your hands are full.
  3. Follow-ups that currently live in your head.
  4. Invoices that wait until Sunday.

If a tool does not touch one of those four, leave it. A second chat app, a video studio, and an ad platform can wait.

The assistant writes. Jobber, QuickBooks, or Wave sends the quote and keeps the record. Asking the chat app to be your books is how amounts drift.

Your free start

One assistant on the free plan. ChatGPT, Claude, and Gemini all have a free plan. ChatGPT’s pricing page lists Free, Go, Plus, Pro, Business, and Enterprise. On 20 Oct 2026 it did not show dollar amounts, so I am not printing a ChatGPT price. See chatgpt.com/pricing. Claude’s free plan includes chat, file creation, and Claude Slides. Use one free assistant for two weeks on real quotes. If you never open it, a paid plan will not fix that.

Google Business Profile. Google’s own page says creating a Business Profile and listing your business on Google is free. Hours, services, service area, and photos of finished work are the local item with the most leverage. Keep the name, address, and phone identical everywhere they appear.

Review requests you send yourself. A short text after the job, with the Google review link, is enough until the volume hurts. Finish the profile, rewrite one real quote, and send two requests. That is the habit.

Picks by budget

Budgets here are Canadian dollars a month, before tax. A US-dollar price is turned into a Canadian estimate only when the vendor labels the currency as US dollars, or when I say the estimate is conditional. The Bank of Canada daily rate I used is 1.4097 Canadian dollars per US dollar, published for 19 Oct 2026. That was the latest figure on the daily rates page when I checked on 20 Oct 2026. The Bank calls the rate indicative. Your card issuer may add a foreign exchange fee. Ontario HST is 13% in the Canada Revenue Agency’s place-of-supply examples. Other provinces differ. Nova Scotia’s HST is 14% on that same CRA page. None of this is tax advice.

Under C$30

Stay on a free assistant, or pay for one small plan, plus Wave and a finished Google profile.

Google AI Plus is C$6.99 a month on Google’s Canadian page, with 400 GB. Ontario HST at 13% makes that about C$7.90. Google AI Pro is C$26.99 a month with 5 TB, about C$30.50 with the same illustration. Pro is the edge of this band.

Claude Pro is $20 a month, or $17 a month if $200 is billed up front for the year. Tax is extra, and the page does not mark those dollars as Canadian. Enterprise on the same page is US$20 per seat a month, billed annually, plus usage. If Pro bills in US dollars, US$20 is about C$28.19 and US$17 is about C$23.96 before tax and before a card fee. Confirm the currency at checkout.

Wave Starter has no subscription price on the page and covers unlimited estimates, invoices, and bookkeeping records. Pro is US$19 a month or US$190 a year. Wave’s FAQ also states the monthly Pro fee as $19 USD or $25 CAD, plus applicable taxes. Ontario HST on that C$25 is about C$28.25. Use Wave’s CAD figure.

C$30 to C$100

Add one workflow tool.

QuickBooks Canada’s page lists EasyStart at a “was” price of $30 a month and also shows $3. Plus shows $110 and $11. Advanced shows $220 and $22. Lite is labelled save 90% for 6 months, from $20 to $2. Treat the higher EasyStart, Plus, and Advanced figures as list prices and the lower ones as promotions that may expire. Budget the list price and confirm checkout. Ontario HST on a $30 list price is about $33.90. EasyStart is one user and includes invoicing.

Jobber’s page was a team-size picker with promotional prices. I am not printing a Jobber number. See getjobber.com/pricing.

A fair stack here is Google AI Pro at C$26.99, or Claude Pro, plus Wave Pro or QuickBooks EasyStart at the list price. Add field-service software when the schedule is the bottleneck, after you have read its current price.

C$100 and up

This band is a phone assistant or a heavier chat plan. It is not the default.

Rosie lists Professional at US$49 a month for 250 minutes, Scale at US$149 for 1,000 minutes, and Growth at US$299 for 2,000 minutes, with a 7-day trial. US$49 is about C$69.08 before tax and before a card fee.

Goodcall lists Starter at $79 a month for 100 unique customers, then 79¢ each, Growth at $129 for 500, and Scale at $299 for 2,000. The page does not name the currency, so there is no Canadian estimate. It counts different callers, not minutes.

Claude Max starts at $100 a month. Google AI Ultra is C$139.99 (5x) or C$279.99 (20x). With 13% Ontario HST, about C$158.19 and C$316.39. Move up when the cheaper plan actually stops you.

Missed calls: text first, receptionist second

Voicemail that becomes a text is the first step. An AI receptionist is the second. Use the text-back you may already have before you add a vendor.

Rosie counts minutes. Goodcall counts different callers. Those are different bills. If you already pay for Microsoft Teams Phone, look at Teams Phone Agent first. Microsoft bills it with Copilot Credits and does not publish a flat price per call. Without a spending policy, or when credits run out, it behaves as an auto attendant. Teams Phone Standard, the phone licence, is CAD $13.60 per user a month, paid yearly, plus applicable tax. That is not the usage bill. See the Copilot guide.

Hear it on real inbound calls before you trust a booking. The test plan for your line is in the paid report. I do not suggest outbound AI calling. The National Do Not Call List is a poor fit for a small shop.

Quotes and invoices

Let the assistant draft the wording. Let Wave or QuickBooks send the quote and keep the record.

A clear quote says the scope, what is outside it, the price, and when you can start. Check the numbers against your price book. The assistant will invent a part price if the notes are thin. The wording pack for your services and your deposits is in the paid report.

Canva is the usual place for a before-and-after post. I could not read dollar amounts on Canva’s Canadian pricing page on 20 Oct 2026, because the page asked for a newer browser. See canva.com/en_ca/pricing. Use photos of work you did. A generated picture of a furnace you did not install is a trust problem. This is not legal advice.

For the chat plans in Canadian dollars, read ChatGPT vs Claude vs Gemini.

What to skip

Skip a stack of three paid assistants. Keep one until it is a habit. The comparison guide walks through that choice.

Skip an AI receptionist you have not heard answer your own calls. A demo is not your after-hours caller.

Skip outbound AI calling. Skip a field-service subscription, a separate booking calendar, and a separate invoicing app in the same month. One place should hold the job.

Skip Claude Max and Google AI Ultra until the cheaper plan actually stops you.

Privacy and phone rules in Canada

This is a flag, not legal advice.

Do not paste customer lists, card numbers, or a homeowner’s alarm code into a free chat. Claude’s pricing page says model training on Free, Pro, and Max is opt-out, and on Team it is none by default. I could not confirm ChatGPT’s training setting on its pricing page, so check it in the product. PIPEDA covers a lot of Canadian businesses. Your province may add rules.

If a tool answers the phone, tell the caller it is an AI, and tell them if the call is recorded. The details depend on the province.

Review texts and marketing emails can be commercial electronic messages. CASL expects consent, identification, and an unsubscribe path when the message is commercial. A reply to someone who just asked for a quote is different from a blast to an old list.

If you hire in Ontario, read the current Employment Standards Act page before a tool screens applicants. A person should still make the hiring decision.

What the paid report adds

This page cannot see your call volume, the software you already pay for, or the monthly number you can live with. The business report names a receptionist for your line, the monthly total, the quote and follow-up wording, and the order to set things up. It also names what to skip in your shop.

Where these prices came from

Checked on 20 Oct 2026: