These are the questions owners and office managers ask us most, answered as directly as we can. Missing one? Send it by call, text or email and a senior strategist will answer it for your shop. For the full picture, see services, pricing and how we work.
Frequently asked questions
How much does recruiting marketing cost?
Month-to-month plans begin at $1,999; on annual billing the same plan is $1,499 a month. Toronto employers add 13% HST. Ad and job-board spend is separate and paid by you directly to the platforms.
Do we have to sign a long contract?
No. Plans are month-to-month with 30 days' notice to cancel. Annual billing is optional and simply lowers the monthly price.
How quickly will we see applicants?
Rewritten job ads usually show a difference within two to three weeks. Recruiting campaigns produce early signals in the first month. Apprentice pipelines built through schools take a term or more.
Can you promise we will make a hire?
No. Nobody honest can. Hiring depends on your offer, your speed and the market. We commit to clear work, honest monthly numbers and no lock-in.
We tried a recruiting agency before and it didn't work. Why is this different?
A recruiter finds candidates for a fee per hire and often owns the relationship. We build your own recruiting machine, ads, pages and campaigns in your accounts, so the candidates and the know-how stay with your company.
Who owns the ad accounts, careers pages and photos?
You do. Accounts are set up in your name with us as users, pages live on your website, and photos and copy belong to you. If you stop working with us, everything stays.
Are you a licensed recruiter or temporary help agency?
No. We don't place workers or charge job seekers. We market your openings and your company as an employer. Ontario's employment standards guide explains licensing for recruiters if you are comparing vendors.
Will you tell us what to pay?
No. Pay is your decision, and we never publish or suggest wage figures. We make sure the range or details you choose are stated clearly in your ads.
What are the new Ontario job posting rules?
Since January 1, 2026, employers with 25 or more employees have requirements for publicly advertised postings, including pay disclosure, an existing-vacancy statement and AI screening disclosure. Read the official Ontario guide; we summarise it in our posting rules guide but give no legal advice.
Can you help us hire apprentices?
Yes. We market your company as a sponsor and reach students, pre-apprenticeship programs and career changers. The training agreement itself is registered with Skilled Trades Ontario by you and the apprentice.
How do you report results?
Monthly, in plain numbers: ad spend, views, applications, phone screens and interviews by channel, with notes on what we'll change. During the first month of a campaign we also send short weekly updates.
Do you work with companies outside Toronto?
This site focuses on the City of Toronto and recruiting from nearby municipalities. Our parent family, Trades.Agency, works with trades across Canada.
Are you a contractor?
No. We don't install, repair or service anything. We are a marketing and business consulting service for trades employers.
Before you hire anyone to help with hiring
The short answer: know what an empty seat costs you. Multiply the monthly revenue one fully booked truck would bring in by your gross margin. That figure, not the ad budget, is what you are really weighing.
Then look at your last three job postings and count views, applications, phone screens and interviews. Where the numbers drop off tells you which service to start with. Our services hub explains how to read that drop-off.
About Ontario's rules
We get many questions about the 2026 posting requirements. Our job is to make your postings clear and complete, with links to the source. We don't interpret the law for your company. The official Ontario guide is the place to start, and our posting rules guide explains what the items look like in a trades ad.
On human rights, the Ontario Human Rights Commission publishes plain guidance on job advertising. We write ads that describe the work rather than the worker, and we avoid wording that hints at a preference based on age, sex, origin or other protected grounds.
About apprentices
Apprentice questions usually come from owners who have been burned by losing experienced techs. The honest answer is that a pipeline takes time but produces a supply you control. The process of registering a training agreement is set out by Skilled Trades Ontario. Our apprentice sponsor playbook covers the marketing side in depth.
About working with us
We consult by video call or in person, as well as by phone, text and email, Monday to Friday, 9 to 6 Pacific, which is noon to 9 p.m. in Toronto. We usually reply within one business day. Everything we build sits in your accounts and on your website. You can read what we've achieved in our HVAC work on the results page, clearly labelled as customer-marketing results rather than hiring results.
Questions we ask you back
Good recruiting marketing starts with a few questions of our own, and owners often find them useful to think through before any call:
- Which role hurts most when it's empty? Usually the one you'd pay for first.
- Who was your last good hire, and how did they find you? That channel is often worth repeating.
- Who left in the past year, and why? If people leave over schedule, vehicle or training, an ad can't fix that, but it can be honest about what you've changed.
- How fast does your office return an applicant's call? If the answer is "a few days", that is the first thing to fix, and it costs nothing.
- What would a technician's partner want to know? Home time, on-call frequency and stability often decide a move as much as pay.
How long before recruiting marketing pays off
It depends on the gap. A rewritten ad for a role with a competitive offer can bring better applicants within a few weeks. A careers section usually takes a month or so to build and then keeps working. Paid campaigns need about a month of testing before the cost per phone screen settles. An apprentice pipeline is measured in school terms. When we write your plan, we put the expected timeline for each piece in writing so nobody is surprised.
What we will never do
A few lines we hold to, so you know in advance. We won't invent wage figures, hiring statistics or employee quotes. We won't use stock photos to pose as your crew. We won't target or word ads in ways that signal a preference based on a protected ground. And we won't present the HVAC customer results on our results page as hiring results.
Ready to talk? The contact page lists the handful of details worth sending before a first conversation.