Christmas Light Installation Software in Canada (CAD, HST)

GlowBid is Christmas light installation software built in Ottawa by a working installer, and it costs $299 USD a year at the founding price, about $414 CAD at the Bank of Canada's September 4, 2026 rate of 1.3840. You type your rates in your own dollars, set the tax line to 13 percent HST once, and send follow-up texts that meet CASL. Here is what changes for a Canadian shop, with the CRA and CASL rules linked.

I run a permanent lighting company in Ottawa, and I built GlowBid to work the way an Ottawa shop quotes: in our own dollars, with a tax line on every quote, and with follow-ups that respect CASL. Billing is in USD at launch; I say so here and again below so nobody is surprised on a credit card statement. Every outside number on this page was checked on its source on September 7, 2026.

What does it cost in Canadian dollars?

Core is $299 USD a year at the founding price, which converts to about $414 CAD. The table gives every plan at the September 4, 2026 Bank of Canada rate, rounded to the dollar. Your bank does the conversion on the day it bills, so the CAD figure moves with the rate.

The founding price is for the first 100 companies and holds while the subscription stays continuous. There is a 7-day trial with no card and a 30-day money-back window. The subscription is a business expense, and the HST you pay on Canadian purchases is a separate matter from the USD charge; your accountant will tell you how to book a foreign software subscription.

How do you put HST on a Christmas light quote?

Set the tax percent and the label once on the rate card and every quote and invoice carries it. In Ontario that is 13 and "HST". Tax is calculated on the subtotal after the minimum job check, and the deposit percent is taken from the taxed total, so a 30 percent deposit on an Ontario quote already includes its share of the HST. The CRA's place-of-supply table, updated July 15, 2026, gives the rate for the province where the house is.

If you are new, the small supplier rule says you do not have to register or charge until taxable sales pass $30,000 in a single calendar quarter or over four consecutive quarters. Most lighting companies cross it in their first real November. Once you do, you register within 29 days and charge on the sale that crossed the line. Many installers register before their first quote so they can claim the HST back on product and the truck; that is a conversation for your accountant, not this page.

Can you text a customer in Canada?

Yes, inside CASL, and the rules are simpler than installers fear. A quote follow-up by text or email is a commercial electronic message. You need consent, and the government's own guidance gives you three kinds:

• Express consent: the person agreed, verbally or in writing, to hear from you. Lasts until they withdraw it. Get it on the quote form and on the signed agreement.
• Implied consent from an inquiry: someone asked for a quote. Valid for 6 months from the inquiry. This covers your follow-up sequence on every open quote.
• Implied consent from a purchase: an existing business relationship. Valid for 2 years from the purchase. This covers re-book and takedown reminders to last season's customers.

Every message must carry your business name, a current mailing address, and a phone number, email or website, plus an unsubscribe that you action within 10 business days at no cost to the customer. GlowBid's texting, through Twilio, sends appointment and job reminders and on-the-way texts with opt-out handling and consent built in, and the automated quote follow-up sequences on Pro stop when a customer replies STOP. Keep the date of the inquiry and the date of the last purchase in the customer record; that is your proof of the 6-month and 2-year windows if anyone ever asks.

What do Canadian installers charge, so the rate card starts right?

Higher than the US homeowner sites suggest, and published Canadian numbers are thin, so this table is every one we could verify on its source page. The US comparators are there because most Canadian installers have been quoting off them for years.

Two things stand out. Ottawa permanent quotes run above the national Canadian guides, because a permanent system here is installed in a short window before the ground freezes and serviced through minus 30. And nobody publishes a Canadian seasonal per-foot rate for Ontario at all. Do not copy any of these onto your card; the per-foot method shows how to build yours from your crew's feet per hour rather than from someone else's average, and the cost page shows what a $442 US average job costs to deliver.

GlowBid's default rate card ships with USD starting numbers ($8 per foot of roofline on the seasonal C9 line, $25 on permanent track, a $1,500 minimum job, 30 percent deposit). Type over them in your own dollars on day one. They are starting points, not advice.

A worked Ottawa quote with HST

A two-storey in Kanata with a single-storey garage, two front gables, a walkway and one small maple, seasonal C9, measured from one photo with the 16 ft garage door as the reference. Every rate is GlowBid's default typed as Canadian dollars, with the tax line set to 13 percent HST. The total is what the engine produces from the drawing.

Lit footage is 196 ft, so the materials list with the 10 percent buffer calls for 216 ft of cord and 216 bulbs at 12 in spacing. The customer signs $1,831.62 on their phone, the deposit collects through Stripe, and Stripe's Canadian rate of 2.9 percent plus $0.30 on that deposit is $16.24. In US dollars the ticket is about $1,323, which is three times the US homeowner average and about where a two-storey with a tree lands in every published range. You can draw this house in the free tool and see the footage before you type a single rate.

How does a multi-year lease get through a Canadian winter?

By booking the takedown before the snow. GlowBid has three agreement types: permanent one-time, seasonal service on customer-owned lights, and a multi-year seasonal lease of 1, 3 or 5 seasons with a flat, declining rent-to-own or escalator price schedule. When the customer signs the lease, each season's install job and takedown job are created at once, which matters more here than anywhere in the US. Our install window in Ottawa runs from mid-October until the first hard freeze, and takedown means January eaves with ice on them; if the takedown date is not on the calendar in November, it happens in March. The lease template shows the clauses, including storage and the liability cap for strands in your bin over the summer.

Sample clause wording ships with a plain notice that it is not legal advice, and you edit your own. Have an Ontario lawyer read the roof-damage waiver and the cancellation tiers once; the provinces differ on consumer contracts, and a Canadian installer should not be running a US template.

Mistakes we see on Canadian quotes

• HST forgotten on the deposit invoice. The deposit is a percent of the taxed total. If the tool takes 30 percent of the pre-tax subtotal, you chase the difference in January.
• Charging HST before registering, or not registering at all. Under $30,000 you may not have to; over it you must, within 29 days. Either way, the tax number goes on the invoice.
• A follow-up text with no business name or unsubscribe. CASL needs both on every message, and a reply of STOP must be honoured within 10 business days.
• Quoting a lease with no takedown date. A signed lease should create the January job the day it is signed. If yours does not, put the date in the agreement by hand.
• Pricing off US homeowner averages. $442 USD is a bungalow with the homeowner's own minis. Price from your cost table and your minimum, in your dollars.
• Clips and cord rated for California. Below minus 20 the cheap clips shatter. Buy the cold-rated ones and put the spares in the truck, not the shop.
• Roof walks after the first snow. Once the eaves ice, every peak is a ladder job, and the storey and pitch premiums on the rate card are what pay for the extra hour.

What is not Canadian yet

Billing is in USD at launch, and the app shows prices with a plain dollar sign rather than a CAD label. There is no QuickBooks sync. The default rate card ships with US starting numbers, and the published cost research we cite is mostly American because the Canadian pages do not exist yet; we are writing them. What is Canadian is the person who built it, the HST line, the CASL handling in the texting, the lease chain that books the January takedown, and the measuring rule: Street View is a live preview to recognise the house and is never stored or measured, and the canvas uses only photos you own. Every measurement carries a source and a confidence level, and the quote says photo measurements are estimates confirmed on site.

For comparison, LightMaster's home page mentions no Canadian pricing or tax as of September 7, 2026, and neither do the other US tools we have compared; the Strandr page covers the design-only option. If you want a tool where the drawing, the footage, the price and the HST line are one object, GlowBid is it. The measuring canvas is free today at glowbid.io/tools/roofline-measure, and the founding price holds for the first 100 companies.