Starting a Christmas light business costs about $2,657 USD before the first job, or $3,678 CAD, priced from supplier and retailer pages on September 7, 2026: a 28 ft ladder and stabilizer, insurance, registration, software, a basic website and one product order. A first season of 40 two-storey installs nets about $48,369 on GlowBid's default seasonal rate card. The table, the season P&L and the order to do things in are below.
I run a permanent lighting company in Ottawa and built GlowBid. Jobber's guide is the best of the pages that rank for this question and it is well sourced, but it is American, generic to any trade, and its "$8K a month" comes from a Reddit post. Strandr says you can start for $500 in one guide and $3,000 to $10,000 in another. Nobody prices the actual parts. This page does, in both currencies, and puts the steps in the order the job happens.
What does it cost to start a Christmas light business?#
$2,657.41 USD, and here is every line. Prices are from the linked pages on September 7, 2026; CAD is at the Bank of Canada's 1.3840 from September 4. The two Home Depot prices come from search results because the product pages block our fetch; check them on the day you buy.
| Item |
USD |
CAD |
Where the number comes from |
| 28 ft aluminum extension ladder, 300 lb Type IA (Werner D1528-2) |
$501.00 |
$693 |
Home Depot, search result price |
| Ladder stabilizer (Werner AC78) |
$79.97 |
$111 |
Home Depot, search result price |
| General liability insurance, one season |
$700.00 |
$969 |
Top of Jobber's $400 to $700-plus range |
| Business name registration (Ontario, online) |
$43.35 |
$60 |
Ontario Business Registry, $60 CAD, immediate |
| Quoting and invoicing software (GlowBid Core, founding price) |
$299.00 |
$414 |
GlowBid pricing |
| Basic website and business cards |
$150.00 |
$208 |
Jobber's figure |
| Kit before any product |
$1,773.32 |
$2,454 |
|
| C9 socket cord, 1,000 ft spool, 12 in spacing (about three houses) |
$305.10 |
$422 |
Christmas Light Source |
| C9 LED faceted bulbs, case of 500 (about two houses) |
$379.05 |
$525 |
Certified Lights |
| All-in-one clips, 6 packs of 100 |
$83.94 |
$116 |
Christmas Lights Etc, $13.99 each |
| Slide-on vampire plugs, 25 male and 25 female |
$50.00 |
$69 |
The Christmas Light Emporium, $25 per 25 |
| Photocell timers, 2 |
$66.00 |
$91 |
The Christmas Light Emporium, $33 each |
| First product order |
$884.09 |
$1,224 |
|
| Total before job one |
$2,657.41 |
$3,678 |
|
What is not in the table: a truck, because you have one or this is the wrong business; a cordless drill, gloves, a headlamp and a harness, which Strandr puts at $200 to $400 for safety gear; and a second ladder for the helper, another $501. In the US, Jobber lists business registration at $75 to $400 depending on the state, so swap the Ontario line for yours.
The number that matters is the split. The kit is $1,773 and you buy it once. The product is $884 and you buy it again every two or three houses, out of the deposits. That is why the guides disagree so widely: Strandr's $500 is a used ladder and no insurance, Geiman's $4,000 to $8,000 is a season of product bought up front, and both are describing a real shop.
Which service model do you start with?#
Seasonal C9 with the lights included, priced per foot, takedown bundled. It needs the least gear, the deposit funds the product, and every house you do is a re-install next year on lights you already own the profit on. Two other models come later:
- Seasonal service on customer-owned lights. Labour only, about a third of the lights-included rate on GlowBid's default card ($3 per foot of roofline against $8). Take it when it is offered, do not build a season on it; the truck costs the same to get there.
- Multi-year lease. The same seasonal install, sold for 1, 3 or 5 seasons on one signature. Worth it once you have a shop to store the bins and a January crew for takedown. The lease agreement template shows the clauses.
- Permanent track. The year-two move, covered at the end of this page.
How do you set up the business, in order?#
Register the name, get the tax number sorted, buy the insurance, open the bank account, then buy the ladder. In Ontario the business name is $60 online and issues immediately. The CRA's small supplier rule says you do not have to register for GST or HST until taxable sales pass $30,000 in one calendar quarter or over four consecutive quarters, and then you have 29 days. Forty jobs at $2,134 USD is $85,000, so a real first season crosses the line in November; registering before the first quote lets you claim the tax back on the spool and the ladder. The GST and HST guide has the CRA wording and how the tax line works on a quote. Ask your accountant which quarter to register in.
In the US, Jobber's order is the same with different names: form the entity, get the EIN, the business bank account and the local licence at $75 to $400, then insurance.
Insurance is the line nobody makes you buy. Jobber's $400 to $700-plus and LightQuoter's $400 to $800 are both US ranges for a basic liability policy; I could not find a published Canadian figure, so call a broker and ask for general liability that covers work on ladders at a customer's home. Ask before the first quote, because the first homeowner who asks "are you insured" is the one with the nicest house.
What goes on the truck for the first job?#
The kit above, one spool, one case of bulbs, six packs of clips, the plugs and two timers. Cut the cord to the house on the driveway, slide the plugs on, push the bulbs in, clip it to the shingle edge. That is the whole method for a roofline, and it is why C9 on socket cord beats boxed strands: the run fits the house, the bulb that dies is replaced alone, and the cord goes in a bin with the customer's name on it in January.
A 250 lit ft two-storey uses about 275 ft of cord with a 10 percent buffer, 275 bulbs, 300 clips, 8 plugs and a timer: $393.95 at the supplier prices in the table. The 30 percent deposit on that job is $640.26 on GlowBid's default card. Materials come out of the deposit with $246 left over, so after the first order every job pays for the next one. Geiman's advice is a 50 percent deposit at booking so ten deposits fund the reorder; our deposit schedule guide shows both.
How do you price the first ten jobs?#
By the foot, with a minimum ticket, and the takedown inside the rate. GlowBid's default seasonal C9 card is $8 per foot of roofline and ridge line, $9 on peaks with a 15 percent premium for pitch, $5 on ground runs, $6 on tree wraps, $4 per foot of unlit jump, a 10 percent storey premium, a $45 timer and a $1,500 minimum job. Installers replace every one of those numbers on day one; they are starting points, not advice. The per-foot pricing guide shows how to build yours from your crew's feet per hour.
The ranges on the other pages are wide enough to drive a truck through. LightQuoter says $2 to $4 per foot in one guide and $5 to $12 with lights supplied in another; Strandr says $3 to $8 and, on the same site, $4 to $6. None of them show a house. At $2 a foot a 250 ft roofline is $500, and the ladder, the insurance and the drive cost exactly what they cost at $8. The minimum ticket is what keeps a 40 ft porch from losing money, and the per-foot rate is what pays for the ladder.
Draw the first ten houses before you price them. Photograph the front from the street, set the scale from the garage door, draw the roofline, and the footage and the price come out of the same drawing. You can measure a house in the free tool with no login until you export.
Worked example: a first season of 40 jobs#
$48,369 net before income tax, $66,943 CAD, at year-one costs on every job. This is the season table from our installer income page, where every cost line is linked to its supplier, the IRS mileage rate, Stripe's fee or the Ontario minimum wage page. Forty jobs is you plus one helper, 5 installs a week for 8 weeks, each with a takedown trip in January.
| Line |
Per job |
40 jobs |
| Revenue, 250 lit ft, 16 ft of jumps, timer (default card) |
$2,134.20 |
$85,368 |
| Materials at supplier prices |
$393.95 |
$15,758 |
| Wages, 2 people at $22 an hour, install, drive and takedown, plus 12% payroll costs |
$369.60 |
$14,784 |
| Truck, 25 miles round trip, two trips |
$38.00 |
$1,520 |
| Card fees, 2.9% plus 30 cents |
$62.19 |
$2,488 |
| Profit on the job |
$1,270.46 |
$50,818 |
| Fixed costs (insurance, software, ladders and safety gear, website) |
|
$2,449 |
| Net before income tax |
|
$48,369 |
| Net in CAD at 1.384 |
|
$66,943 |
Two notes. The fixed-cost line uses a $1,300 allowance for ladders and safety gear from Strandr's range; the table at the top of this page prices one ladder and one stabilizer at $581 and leaves the harness, gloves and second ladder to you. And both people on the crew are paid $22 an hour inside the job costs, even if one of them is you, so the $48,369 is profit on top of a wage, not instead of one. In Ontario the wage floor is $17.95 from October 1, 2026, and $22 USD is about $30 CAD, so a Canadian shop's labour line runs lower than this table.
The customer signs the quote on their phone, the deposit collects through Stripe at signature, and the balance is due on install day. Deposits collected through GlowBid carry Stripe's processing fee plus a platform margin under 1 percent, shown before you connect Stripe.
What would I skip in the first season?#
- Buying a season of product in August. Buy one spool and one case, sell the job, collect the deposit, reorder. Inventory in the garage in October is cash you cannot quote with.
- A $500 ladder that does not reach. A 28 ft extension ladder reaches a two-storey eave with the stabilizer keeping it off the gutter. A 24 ft ladder does bungalows, and the bungalow customers are the ones who ask for the peak.
- Boxed strands from the hardware store. They come in fixed lengths, the whole strand dies when a bulb goes, and you cannot cut them to the house.
- Quoting from a range. "$2 to $5 a foot" on the phone turns into a $500 job on a $2,134 house. Draw it, price it, send it with the mockup.
- Skipping the deposit because it is a neighbour. Strandr lists no deposit as one of its mistakes that cost real money, and the cost is the product you bought for a job that cancelled.
- Takedown as a separate line. Bundle it in the per-foot rate and book the January date at install. A separate $75 takedown fee gets argued about in February, and the bin does not come back.
- Waiting for a website. A yard sign on the first finished house and a business profile with a photo of it outsell a $2,000 site in year one. Jobber's $150 for a page and cards is enough.
- Free software that charges on the payment. Read the fee line before you connect your bank. The free software comparison lists what each free tier actually costs at 40 jobs.
When does permanent lighting come in?#
Year two, after a season on roofs. The same two-storey front prices at $5,357 on GlowBid's default permanent track card (roofline $25 per foot, peaks $28 with the pitch and storey premiums, jumps $12, a $250 controller), about two and a half times the seasonal ticket, with no takedown trip and no bin in storage. The trade is that channel is cut per house, your product cost comes from a dealer agreement rather than a supplier page, and there is no re-install revenue next November. I do not print a permanent materials line here because our dealer cost depends on the brand and the agreement, and a number I cannot link is a number I will not publish. The permanent per-foot guide covers the card, and the permanent vs seasonal comparison covers the five-year homeowner math you will be asked about at the door.
Whichever season you are in, the drawing is the business. In GlowBid you draw the runs on a photo of the house, and the footage, the bill of materials and the price come from the same geometry; change the drawing and all three change. Photo measurements are estimates confirmed on site, and every quote says so. Core is $299 a year at the founding price for the first 100 companies, and the free roofline tool runs the same canvas today.
