How much does gutter cleaning cost in Ontario? A straight price guide

Gutter cleaning is one of those jobs where the quotes come back so far apart you assume someone has misunderstood the question. One company says $120, the next says $400, and neither will tell you why until they are standing in your driveway. So here is the honest version: what it actually costs across Ontario, what genuinely changes the number, and which quotes are cheap for a reason.

How much should you pay for gutter cleaning in Ontario?

For a typical Ontario home, most gutter cleaning lands between $150 and $300. A single-storey bungalow is usually $150 to $200. A standard two-storey is closer to $200 to $300. Larger homes, three-storey gables, or long complicated rooflines run $300 to $500.

Those are the numbers we quote across Barrie and Simcoe County, and they hold up reasonably well against what people tell us they have been quoted elsewhere in southern Ontario.

The real ranges

• Bungalow or single-storey, simple roof line: $150 to $200. One level, everything reachable, usually under an hour and a half.
• Standard two-storey: $200 to $300. The most common quote we give. More height, more run, more downspouts.
• Large or multi-level home: $300 to $500. Three-storey sections, steep pitches, gables that have to be worked around one at a time.
• Detached garage, shop or outbuilding: add $40 to $80 if it has its own gutters.
• Same-visit second service: most companies including us discount when gutters and windows are booked together, because it is one drive.

You should get the number before anyone climbs anything. If a company will not quote until they are on site, that is a choice they have made about your negotiating position, not a technical necessity.

What actually changes the price

Height, more than anything else. The jump from one storey to two is the single biggest factor, and it is not really about the extra metres of gutter. It is about ladder setups. A bungalow might be four or five repositions. A two-storey with a walkout basement at the back can be fifteen, and each one is slow because each one has to be safe.

Roof complexity. A simple rectangle is quick. Dormers, valleys, multiple rooflines meeting at different heights, a gable over a garage that can only be reached from one awkward corner: each of those adds time, and time is the whole cost of this job.

How long it has been. A gutter cleaned last autumn is a maintenance visit. A gutter that has not been touched in four years is a different job. The debris has broken down, compacted and started to hold water, which means it comes out wet and heavy, in handfuls, and every downspout has to be dug out rather than flushed.

What is actually in it. Leaves rinse. Pine needles mat together and grip. Sand, which is a genuine problem near open water, packs solid and never washes through on its own. Shingle grit builds a sludge at the bottom of the trough that has to be scooped.

Access. A house tight to a fence line, a deck or a steep grade takes longer for reasons that have nothing to do with the gutter itself.

What should be included

At the price above, all of this should be part of the job and not an extra:

• Troughs cleared by hand, not blown out
• Every downspout checked, cleared and flushed with water until it runs free
• Debris bagged and taken away, not left in a pile behind the garage or blown into your garden
• A quick look at the condition of the hangers, seams and fascia, with a photo of anything that has started to go

That last one is worth insisting on. The person cleaning your gutters is the only person who will be up there looking at your fascia this year.

Why some quotes are much cheaper

A $90 quote is not a bargain, it is a different service. Usually one of these:

They are blowing, not clearing. A leaf blower moves dry debris fast and does nothing at all to the wet compacted layer at the bottom of the trough, which is the part that actually causes blockages. It also fires the debris into your garden and across your windows.

They are not touching the downspouts. This is the one that matters most. A clear trough with a blocked downspout is still a blocked gutter system. Flushing every outlet is most of the value of the visit and it is the first thing dropped when someone is racing.

They are not insured. This is the expensive one. Ladder work is the most common source of serious injury in home services, and if an uninsured worker is hurt on your property, that becomes your problem in a way most homeowners have never thought about. Ask for $2 million liability and WSIB, and ask for the certificate. Anyone legitimate sends it the same day.

How often does it actually need doing?

Twice a year for most Ontario homes: late spring once the seeds and pollen have finished, and again in late autumn once the leaves are down. A house with no trees directly overhead can often manage once a year in late autumn. A house under heavy canopy, or one near open water where wind piles debris into one section of roof, sometimes wants three.

The autumn visit is the one that matters. Debris left in a trough over winter holds water, that water freezes, and freeze-thaw cycling through an Ontario winter is what pulls trough sections away from fascia over a few seasons. That is a repair bill, and it is entirely avoidable with a visit that costs a couple of hundred dollars.

Is it worth paying someone?

If your house is one storey, you own a stable ladder, and you are comfortable on it, doing it yourself is completely reasonable. It is unpleasant work but it is not complicated.

Two storeys is where the maths changes. The height is genuinely dangerous, the ladder repositioning is most of the labour, and doing it properly means being up there long enough to clear every outlet rather than just the ones you can see. Two hundred dollars against a fall is not a close call.

What we charge in Simcoe County

We quote $150 to $200 for a single-storey, $200 to $300 for a two-storey, and $300 to $500 for larger or more complicated rooflines. Hand-cleared, every downspout flushed, debris hauled away, photos of anything that needs your attention, and no travel charge anywhere in Simcoe County. A house at the end of a sideroad is priced on its roof, not its postcode.

You get the number before we start. If you want it now rather than after a phone call, the instant quote will give you a price from a few questions about your home.

Serving Barrie, Orillia, Innisfil, Oro-Medonte, Midhurst, Wasaga Beach, Collingwood, Midland and everywhere between. You can see the full list on our gutter cleaning page.