Service business ideas for one person, with the real numbers.

Small business ideas by startup cost, season and rules

Service businesses make the best small business ideas for one person because you sell your time and skill, not inventory. There's no shop to lease and no stock to finance, and clients pay per job. These are grouped by what it takes to open the doors. Our startup tiers are rough, and each service links to its pricing guide for the going rates:

Rules are summarized from our pricing guides, checked September 2026, and vary by province and city. Almost every business on the list also needs a provincial name registration if you trade under a business name, a municipal business licence in some cities, and liability insurance.

Two services from the pricing guides aren't in the table because they rarely become a full-time solo business: babysitting is usually an evening job (full-time care becomes nannying or a home daycare), and house sitting works best as an add-on to a pet care business.

What a full-time solo owner earns (2026 math)

Same formula for every row: a rate from inside the going range × a full-time load × working weeks = gross per year. Then we take off a rough share for supplies, fuel, vehicle, equipment and insurance to show what's left for the owner before income tax and CPP. Full-time here means about 25 to 30 billable hours a week, because driving, quoting and admin fill the rest.

Year-round services

Seasonal services (pair them)

These are illustrations, not promises. Every rate sits inside the range published in the linked Biller pricing guide, compiled July to September 2026 from the Canadian sources listed in each guide; the home daycare row follows that guide's own Ontario example. Cost shares are our rough assumptions, not measured averages, and truck-based trades (junk removal, carpet truck-mounts, plows) can run higher. Owner figures are rounded to the nearest $100.

Read the two tables together. The year-round services top out around $70,000 for the owner at a busy but sustainable pace. The seasonal ones earn well per week but only for part of the year, which is exactly why the operators who reach six figures run two or three of them back to back.

What caps a solo operator's income

A one-person business has four ceilings, and your rate is only one of them:

• Hours. You can only bill the hours you work, and physical services wear you down. Around 25 to 30 billable hours a week is a realistic full week for cleaners, groomers and trainers; teaching is capped by the hours students are free (after school and weekends).
• Travel. Driving between clients is unpaid. Eight dog walks spread across a city can take ten hours; eight on four streets can take six. Route density is the cheapest raise you'll ever give yourself.
• Admin. Quotes, scheduling, reschedules, invoices and bookkeeping easily take five or more hours a week, and none of it is billable. The fewer steps between a booking and a paid invoice, the more of your week is paid work.
• Collections. Revenue only counts once it's in your account. A client who pays three weeks late, or never, erases the profit on several jobs. Invoice the day of the job, state your terms, and follow up on schedule.

Then there are the costs an employee never sees: both halves of CPP (11.9% on earnings up to $74,600 in 2026, plus 8% between $74,600 and $85,000), no paid vacation or sick days, and your own insurance and equipment. Price for all of it.

How to make $100k a year with a service business

Start with the arithmetic. $100,000 ÷ 48 weeks = about $2,080 a week. At 28 billable hours, that's roughly $74 an hour of revenue; at $50 an hour you'd need 42 billable hours every week, which few people sustain. And $100,000 in revenue isn't $100,000 in your pocket: in a trade with 30% costs, taking home $100,000 before tax means billing about $143,000. Four levers close the gap:

1. Price for the market you want, not the one you started in

Most new owners price at the bottom of the range to win work and never move. Raising prices 10% on the same clients adds 10% to revenue with no extra hours, and almost all of it lands in your pocket. Raise prices for new clients first, then for existing ones once a year with notice. If you're booked a month out, you're too cheap.

2. Build route density

Sign clients on the same streets and in the same buildings. Door-knock the neighbours of every new client. A tight cluster turns drive time into billable time, and in trades like lawn, snow and window cleaning it's the difference between 8 and 12 jobs a day.

3. Sell recurring work

Weekly walks, biweekly cleans, monthly grooms, weekly lawn cuts, snow contracts signed in October, gutter plans sold for spring and fall at once. Recurring clients fill your calendar in advance, cut the time you spend selling, and make your income predictable enough to plan around.

4. Pair seasonal trades, or add a premium tier

The same client who pays for lawn mowing needs their leaves cleared, their eavestroughs cleaned, their lights hung and their driveway cleared. Two worked examples:

Illustrations, not promises. Rates are inside the ranges in our lawn mowing, landscaping, gutter cleaning, Christmas light, snow removal, window cleaning and pressure washing guides.

Neither route hits $100,000 take-home at these rates, which is the honest point: one person gets close by stacking seasons, and crosses the line with prices in the top third of the range, a denser route, or a helper in the busy weeks. The same logic works outside the yard. Detailers add ceramic coating and paint correction, the premium tier where one $1,000 job equals four basic details. Pet care businesses add group walks: four dogs at $18 each earns $72 an hour, about double a private walk. Trainers sell programs, not single sessions.

Home-based business ideas in Canada

If you want no commute at all, a few of these run from your own address:

• Home daycare. Ontario's example above: four full-time children at $48 a day is about $48,000 a year in fees. In Ontario, an unlicensed provider can care for up to five children under 13, counting their own under 4, with no more than three under 2 (checked September 2026). Other provinces set different limits. Home daycare rates.
• Music lessons and tutoring from your living room or online, with students coming to you after school.
• Dog boarding, within your city's limits on dogs per household.
• Dog grooming from a home salon, where your zoning allows it.

Setting up the business

At full-time hours, the paperwork arrives quickly. In order:

1. Register a business name if you use one: Ontario, BC, Alberta. Under your own legal name, most provinces don't require it.
2. Get insured before the first client. Liability insurance is the minimum; ladder work, animals in your care and vehicles need their own cover. See small business insurance in Canada.
3. Register for GST/HST when your taxable revenue passes $30,000 in a calendar quarter or over four consecutive quarters (CRA, GST/HST Memorandum 2-2). Nearly every full-time row above passes it in year one; exempt services such as home daycare, curriculum tutoring and most music lessons don't count toward it. See getting a business number and the GST/HST guide.
4. Set aside tax from every payment. Your profit goes on Form T2125, and the self-employed tax calculator estimates income tax and CPP by province.
5. Make booking and paying easy. A booking link, a written service agreement, and an invoice sent the day of every job.

That last step is what Biller is for. Clients request work from your booking link, each request becomes a scheduled job, and you invoice the finished job with reminders for the ones still unpaid, with GST/HST on the invoice once you're registered. Clients can pay by card through your own Stripe account, and Biller records each Autodeposit e-Transfer from the notification emails you forward.

Tax figures are for 2026 and were checked on Canada.ca on September 29, 2026 (CPP contribution rates, the GST/HST small supplier threshold). Earnings are worked examples, not averages or guarantees.

Common questions

What is the most profitable small business in Canada for one person?

There's no official ranking for one-person businesses, and profit depends more on your rate and route than on the trade. In our full-time examples, the highest owner incomes before tax came from personal training, dog training, window cleaning, dog grooming, junk removal and carpet cleaning, at roughly $60,000 to $72,000 a year. Pairing seasonal exterior trades, such as lawn mowing with snow removal and Christmas lights, is how many solo operators push past that.

What are good self-employed ideas in Canada?

Local services people already pay for every week or every season: dog walking, pet sitting, house cleaning, tutoring, music lessons, lawn and snow, window and gutter cleaning, detailing, grooming and junk removal. They need no storefront, start small, and grow on referrals. Pick one whose startup cost, skills and season fit your situation.

What home-based business ideas work in Canada?

Home daycare, music lessons, tutoring, dog boarding and dog grooming (where your zoning allows it) all run from your own home. Home daycare comes with provincial limits: in Ontario, an unlicensed provider can care for up to five children under 13, counting their own children under 4.

How can I make $100k a year with a service business?

Revenue of $100,000 over 48 weeks is about $2,080 a week. At 28 billable hours, that's roughly $74 an hour, so most solo owners get there with higher-ticket jobs, tight routes, recurring clients and a second seasonal service, not longer days. Remember that $100,000 in revenue isn't $100,000 in income: supplies, fuel, insurance and vehicle costs come off first, then income tax and CPP.

Do I need to register for GST/HST as a full-time service business?

Almost certainly. Once your taxable revenue passes $30,000 in a calendar quarter or over four consecutive calendar quarters, you must register, charge GST/HST and file returns. Nearly every full-time service in this guide passes that in its first year. The exceptions are exempt services such as home daycare, school-curriculum tutoring and most music lessons.

Should I incorporate my service business?

Most one-person service businesses start as sole proprietorships, which cost little or nothing to set up and report income on Form T2125. Incorporation can make sense later, usually once profit is well above what you need to live on. It's a decision to make with an accountant.

How much does it cost to start a service business in Canada?

Anywhere from a few hundred dollars for dog walking or tutoring (mostly insurance and a phone) to tens of thousands for a truck-based trade like junk removal or a plow. Published Canadian estimates for a cleaning business, for example, run about $2,000 to $10,000, and a lean solo start costs less.

Related guides

• Side hustles in Canada: service gigs and what they pay
• How to start a cleaning business in Canada
• Pricing guides by service
• Form T2125 for self-employed Canadians
• Self-employed tax calculator
• Small business insurance in Canada
• GST/HST guide for small businesses