How much do video ads cost in Canada?

Hook Lab Agency · October 25, 2026 · 5 min read

When people ask what video ads cost, they are usually asking about three separate things at once: making the videos, the money you pay the platforms to show them, and the time or fees to manage the campaigns. Separating those three makes budgeting much easier. This guide breaks each one down and shows how to plan a realistic starting budget in Canadian dollars.

The three parts of a video ad budget

Many quotes you see online only mention one of these, which is why prices seem to vary so wildly.

1. Production costs

Production can range from almost free to very expensive. The main options:

• DIY on a phone: your cost is mostly time, plus a basic mic, a light and an editing app. Perfectly viable, especially for talking-head and behind-the-scenes content.
• Freelance videographer or editor: pricing is usually per day of shooting or per finished video. Ask exactly how many edits, aspect ratios and hook variations are included.
• Traditional production company: best for high-end brand films and TV-style commercials. Often more polish than social ads need, and usually fewer, longer deliverables.
• Performance creative agency: focuses on many short, testable ad variations designed for social platforms, often bundled with ad management.

For paid social, the number of usable variations matters more than cinematic polish. A single beautiful 60-second film is usually less useful than ten short, punchy cuts with different hooks.

2. Ad spend

Ad spend is paid directly to the platforms, and you control it. Meta, TikTok and Google all let you set daily or lifetime budgets, and they generally charge in an auction system where costs depend on competition for your audience, your industry, the time of year and how engaging your ads are.

We deliberately do not publish "average CPM in Canada" figures here, because they move constantly and differ dramatically between, say, a local restaurant and a law firm. What helps more is thinking in terms of outcomes:

1. Estimate what a new customer is worth to you (first purchase and repeat business).
2. Decide what you could afford to pay to acquire one.
3. Give the campaign enough budget to generate a meaningful number of results each week so the platform can learn.

Also remember that the platforms may charge applicable Canadian sales taxes (GST/HST, and in some provinces PST/QST) on ad spend depending on your account setup. Check with your accountant on how to treat this.

3. Management costs

Someone has to set up the pixels and conversion tracking, build the campaigns, launch new creative, read the data and make decisions. If it is you, budget a few hours every week. If you hire it out, agencies commonly charge a flat monthly fee, a percentage of ad spend, or a bundle that includes creative. Flat fees are easier to predict; percentage-of-spend models can grow quickly as you scale.

What our packages cost

To give you real numbers rather than vague ranges, here is how Hook Lab prices its work. All prices are in Canadian dollars, and ad spend is paid separately to the platforms.

If you need somewhere for the ads to send people, we also build sites: a high-converting landing page for C$990, or a five-page website for C$2,490. See exactly what each plan includes on our packages page.

How to set a starting budget

A sensible first step for most small and mid-sized businesses looks something like this:

• Commit to a test period of at least two to three months. Week one rarely tells the full story.
• Start on one platform where your customers already are (see TikTok ads vs Meta ads).
• Launch several creatives rather than one, so you learn which hooks and angles work.
• Fix your landing page first, so you are not paying for clicks that bounce. Here is what a good one needs.
• Track leads through to sales, so you know your true cost per customer.

Hidden costs to watch for

• Extra charges for each additional edit, size or revision.
• Long lock-in contracts before results are proven.
• Ad accounts set up in the agency's name rather than yours. You should always own your ad accounts, pixels and data.
• Reports full of views and likes with no link to leads or sales.

The bottom line

The cost of video ads in Canada is really production plus ad spend plus management. You can keep all three small at the start, but skimping on creative is usually the false economy, because the video is what makes the platform's money work. If you want a straight answer on what would make sense for your business, book a call and we will tell you honestly, including whether you are ready for ads at all.