What a general contractor costs in Ontario, and what the fee buys

The number

Ontario data for 2025 puts standard GC markup at 15 to 25% of project cost, and the all-in difference of running a project through a GC versus managing subcontractors yourself at roughly 10 to 20%. On a $100,000 renovation, the coordination layer costs something like $15,000 to $25,000.

What the fee actually buys

• Sequencing. Trades arrive in the right order with no idle days billed to you. A framer waiting on a late steel delivery is money burning either way; the GC eats that risk.
• One accountable party. When tile meets plumbing meets waterproofing and something leaks, there's no three-way finger-pointing. One warranty, one phone number.
• Vetted, insured trades. The GC's WSIB and insurance chain covers the site, and licensed electrical/plumbing/gas trades are their obligation to arrange, not yours to verify trade by trade.
• Permits and inspections booked, attended and passed (what that involves in Brantford and Brant County is covered in our guide to what triggers a permit).
• Buying power. Trade and supplier pricing a homeowner doesn't get, which quietly claws back part of the markup.

"My fee is the cheapest insurance on the job. Not because I say so, but because the alternative is you personally coordinating seven trades you've never worked with, on a schedule you can't enforce, with no one accountable for the seams between them. The seams are where renovations fail."

Mitch Fraser, owner, Ontario Contracting Co.

Where the money itself comes from is its own decision tree, mapped in our ranking of renovation financing options.

How GC pricing is structured

Fixed price (most residential work): one contracted number for the defined scope; the GC carries the overrun risk. Under Ontario law, that written figure also carries the Consumer Protection Act's 10% ceiling, one of several protections walked through in our rights-and-contracts hub. Cost-plus (common on complex or discovery-heavy jobs like century-home work): actual costs plus the agreed percentage, with open books. Fixed price rewards a tight scope; cost-plus rewards trust and transparency. Be wary of any structure where you can't tell which one you signed.

The self-managing math, honestly

Self-managing saves the markup if, and only if, you can do the GC's job. For a single-trade project (flooring, a roof, a fence) you usually can: hire the trade directly. For a multi-trade renovation, count the real costs of doing it yourself: workdays lost to site visits and inspection windows, trades that don't return calls to one-time clients, deficiencies at every trade handoff, and zero collective warranty. The 10 to 20% premium exists because the coordination is real work; the question is only who does it.

One more honest note: our fee is inside every quote we give, not stapled on after. Comparing our bottom line against other written bottom lines, exactly as comparing three written quotes properly describes, is the comparison that matters. Category-level price ranges for kitchens, basements and additions live in the cost hub if you want to sanity-check any quote against industry data.