The short answer
Across the GTA, a contractor paying for Google Ads spends an average of US$12.76 per click on searches like these. A click is a visit, not a lead: if one visitor in ten gets in touch, each enquiry costs over US$100 before any work is quoted.
That is why ranking on Google without paying for each click matters so much in the GTA. Below, we break the cost down by trade and city, show where the search demand is, and when it peaks.
1. Basement and renovation clicks cost the most
Basement finishing clicks averaged US$32.69 across the GTA, and US$53.61 in Vaughan. Renovation contractors were next at US$16.93. Roofing, the busiest trade, averaged just US$10.34, and concrete and ICF was the cheapest at US$7.94.
Average cost per click by trade, GTA US dollars · weighted by searches
Basement finishing$32.69
Renovation contractors$16.93
Excavation$14.66
Custom home builders$13.07
Kitchen renovation$12.93
Landscaping & hardscaping$10.88
Roofers$10.34
General contractors$10.19
Foundation & waterproofing$9.36
Concrete & ICF$7.94
2. Mississauga and Oakville are the priciest GTA cities
Averaged across trades, Mississauga clicks cost the most at US$15.45, followed by Oakville and Vaughan. Markham was the cheapest GTA city at US$8.07. For comparison, Hamilton averaged US$11.16 and St. Catharines US$7.42.
Average cost per click by city US dollars · all 10 trades · Hamilton and St. Catharines for comparison
Mississauga$15.45
Oakville$14.79
Vaughan$14.29
North York$12.71
Toronto$12.43
Brampton$11.81
Hamiltonoutside GTA$11.16
Etobicoke$10.83
Scarborough$10.12
Markham$8.07
St. Catharinesoutside GTA$7.42
3. The same search costs different amounts in each market
Comparing the same searches naming Toronto, Hamilton and St. Catharines shows that the GTA isn't always the most expensive. Renovation clicks cost about the same in Toronto and Hamilton, and roofing clicks were actually dearer in St. Catharines.
Average cost per click (US dollars) for searches naming each city| Trade | Toronto | Hamilton | St. Catharines |
|---|
| Basement finishing | $31.54 | $35.91 | — |
|---|
| Concrete & ICF | $7.85 | $12.37 | $2.51 |
|---|
| Custom home builders | $13.78 | $7.30 | — |
|---|
| Excavation | $14.66 | $7.63 | $1.62 |
|---|
| Foundation & waterproofing | $10.59 | $9.19 | $5.41 |
|---|
| General contractors | $9.86 | $6.61 | $8.24 |
|---|
| Kitchen renovation | $8.27 | $9.54 | $8.52 |
|---|
| Landscaping & hardscaping | $11.55 | $8.34 | $4.82 |
|---|
| Renovation contractors | $18.92 | $18.79 | $9.97 |
|---|
| Roofers | $8.70 | $9.80 | $11.43 |
|---|
— means Google reported too few searches to give a cost.
4. Where the searches are
The searches we measured add up to about 37,920 a month across the GTA. Roofing was the most searched trade, followed by foundation and waterproofing. Searches naming Toronto itself made up 54% of the total, and Mississauga and Oakville were next.
Monthly searches by trade, GTA Searches that name one of 9 GTA cities
Roofers9,340
Foundation & waterproofing6,280
Landscaping & hardscaping5,060
Renovation contractors5,010
Kitchen renovation3,560
General contractors3,060
Custom home builders2,790
Basement finishing2,090
Concrete & ICF550
Excavation180
5. When GTA homeowners search
Demand rises and falls through the year, and each trade has its own busy season. For the trades with at least 3,000 monthly searches, here is the busiest and quietest month in the 12 months to September 2026, compared with that trade's monthly average.
Busiest and quietest month by trade, GTA (Oct 2025 to Sep 2026)| Trade | Busiest month | vs average | Quietest month | vs average |
|---|
| Roofers | March | +23% | December | -33% |
|---|
| Foundation & waterproofing | October | +65% | June | -48% |
|---|
| Landscaping & hardscaping | May | +91% | September | -41% |
|---|
| Renovation contractors | October | +49% | June | -41% |
|---|
| Kitchen renovation | October | +65% | June | -37% |
|---|
| General contractors | October | +23% | December | -40% |
|---|
Landscaping searches nearly doubled in May, and roofing peaked in March, early in the spring. Foundation, waterproofing, renovation and kitchen searches all peaked in October. Contractors who rank before their busy season get those searches without paying for each click.
6. What this means for GTA contractors
If an advertiser bought one click for every one of these searches each month at the average price, it would cost about US$482,000 a month. That is the scale of what's at stake in the free results below the ads: the map pack and the organic listings.
- Price your ads by trade and city. A budget that works for roofing in Markham won't go far for basement finishing in Vaughan.
- Rank for the searches that cost the most. Every click you earn in the map pack or organic results for a US$30 search is money you don't spend on ads.
- Get ready before your busy season. Rankings take months to build, so start on landscaping pages in winter and waterproofing pages in summer.
- Earn your way into the map pack. Our GTA Google Reviews Benchmark shows how many reviews it takes for your trade and city.
See our contractor SEO for Toronto page, or read how much SEO costs for contractors to compare.
How we did it
Searches. Three common wordings for each of 10 trades, such as "roofer", "roofing company" and "roof repair", each followed by the name of one of 11 cities: Toronto, North York, Etobicoke, Scarborough, Mississauga, Brampton, Vaughan, Markham and Oakville, plus Hamilton and St. Catharines for comparison. That is 330 searches.
Data. Google Ads keyword data for Canada (monthly searches, 12 months of history, average cost per click), collected on October 25, 2026 through DataForSEO. Costs are in US dollars, as Google reports them. Google groups some wordings together and reports the same numbers for them; we counted those once (50 duplicates removed).
Averages. A trade's or city's cost per click is weighted by searches, so busier searches count more. Search counts are Google's rounded monthly averages.
Limits. These are Google's averages. What you pay depends on your ads, bids, quality and competitors. Searches without a city name, such as "roofer near me", aren't included, so real demand is higher. Monthly figures for smaller trades are too small to show seasons reliably.
Our interest. BuilderBuzz sells SEO and local search services to construction companies.
Using this data. The results by trade and city are free to reuse under CC BY 4.0. Please credit "BuilderBuzz, GTA Contractor Search Costs 2026" and link to this page.
