Mobile vs Storefront Service Business Costs (2026)
Last updated: 2026-10-22 · Collingwood listings read 2026-10-21
A storefront costs you rent plus TMI on every square foot, every month, for the whole lease. A mobile operator pays none of it. In Collingwood, unit 106 at 869 Hurontario Street (The Gateway Centre) is listed for $40 (no unit is given; I read it as per square foot per year). Its TMI is estimated at $10.00 PSF. Mobile swaps that for vehicle costs that move with the kilometres you drive. So mobile is cheaper to start and cheaper to stop. A storefront pays off only when walk-ins or bench work cover the rent.
That's the short answer. The long one starts with the lease.
What a storefront costs before the first customer walks in
Commercial space isn't priced like an apartment. You pay base rent. The lease can then add a share of the building's running costs on top. BDC calls those incidental expenses: "property tax, insurance, utilities, maintenance, common area costs and repairs." One Ontario brokerage calls it TMI and puts it plainly: TMI is quoted per square foot per year and added to base rent.
The Gateway unit offers up to 1,414 square feet, in the same building as Shopper's Drug Mart. For a second data point, 43 Hurontario Street is listed for $35. That one has 1,987 sqft of building space. Its listing puts it in the first block of Hurontario, across from Loblaws parking lot.
Both listings were read on 2026-10-21. My reading of both rates is base rent per square foot per year, the same way TMI is quoted. That's my assumption, not the broker's. Call the broker before you plan around either one.
Now the napkin. Take the Gateway unit at full size: 1,414 sqft × ($40 + $10.00), divided by 12. Put that in your phone's calculator before you read on. That's the monthly figure before your own utilities on a net lease. It's also before your own contents and liability insurance. And you owe it whether you book forty jobs that month or four.
The cash you hand over at signing
Rent is the part that repeats. Three things come due before you open:
- A deposit. Business Link calls one to two months' rent an industry standard deposit amount for commercial properties. It also says the amount a landlord asks for can vary a lot.
- A personal guarantee. A landlord may want you personally on the hook for the rent. The same Business Link piece describes a guarantee that steps down: $75,000 in year one, $50,000 in year two, $25,000 in year three, then none at all.
- Leasehold improvements. Counters, shelving, a wash bay. BDC says an improvement attached to the building usually becomes the landlord's property unless the lease says otherwise. If you borrow for the build-out, BDC describes a leasehold improvement loan as often amortized over five or six years. Check that the loan doesn't outlast the lease.
I get it. Your name over a door feels like the real business. But the guarantee line above is the number to sit with first.
Is any of that a reason never to lease? No. It's a reason to read the lease as debt, not rent. A personal guarantee follows you home if the shop closes early.
What mobile costs instead
On the mobile side, the vehicle replaces the building. I've already broken down mobile service van cost line by line, so I won't repeat it here.
What I'll add is a yardstick from outside my own numbers. For 2026, the CRA's reasonable per-kilometre allowance is $0.73 for the first 5,000 kilometres and $0.67 for each one after that (those are the provincial rates). As SparkReceipt explains, it's the amount an employer can pay an employee, tax-free, for using their own vehicle on the job. If you're self-employed, you can't deduct cents per kilometre at all. It still makes a fair sanity check.
The math is two lines. Your first 5,000 business kilometres × $0.73, plus every kilometre after that × $0.67. Is your vehicle estimate well below the result? Then your estimate is probably missing something.
Mobile also has costs that never reach a vehicle statement:
- Drive time. Every kilometre between jobs is time you can't bill. On a spread-out route (Collingwood to Wasaga Beach to Thornbury and back), the gaps add up fast.
- Wasted trips. A no-show at a counter costs you a slot. A no-show on a driveway costs you the slot and the drive. Write your customer not home service protocol before the first one happens.
- Weather. A storefront still opens in a January storm. An outdoor mobile trade like detailing or window cleaning can lose days it won't get back. The vehicle payment doesn't pause.
Fixed against variable, which matters more than the total
So which one costs more? It depends on your square footage, your route and your volume. One number for every trade would mislead you. And the yearly total is the wrong thing to compare first.
The real difference is shape. A lease is fixed for the term. It's the same in a dead February as in a packed July. Mobile costs are mostly variable. Drive less in a slow month and fuel and wear drop with it (the payment and insurance stay, but they'd stay on a storefront too, plus the rent).
For a new business that doesn't know what a slow month looks like yet, the variable side is safer to carry. For an established shop with steady drop-offs, a fixed cost spread over more jobs can come out cheaper per job.
That's my case for starting mobile and opening a shop later, if at all. You learn your real volume first. Then you sign only when the numbers say you can carry it.
Which trades fit which model
Where does the work physically happen? That usually settles the cost question before any spreadsheet does.
| Where the work happens | Trades | What fits |
|---|---|---|
| At the customer's place, always | HVAC, plumbing, electrical, locksmith, carpet cleaning, landscaping | Mobile. The customer has no reason to come to you, so a storefront is rent for a room they never see. |
| Either place | Auto detailing, small engine and appliance repair, computer repair | Mobile or home base first, then a shop or bay once bench work backs up |
| At a bench, mostly | Phone, watch, jewelry and bike repair | Storefront or a shared space, because the customer drops off and comes back |
Phone repair sits in the bench row, and I wrote up when I'd make that move in how to start a phone repair business. For trades in the first row, a storefront rarely earns its rent. A small yard or bay for storage can.
The lease check: four questions before you sign
Run this with a real listing in front of you. Each answer feeds the next one.
- What is the space all-in, per month? Square footage times base rent plus TMI, divided by 12. Add utilities and your own insurance. Write it down.
- How many jobs does that equal? Divide the monthly figure by what one job leaves you after parts and your own time. The hourly rate calculator gives you the per-hour cost floor if you'd rather skip the spreadsheet.
- Will the storefront bring those jobs, or just host them? If your current customers would come to you anyway, the shop isn't adding revenue. It's moving it. The rent has to be covered by work you wouldn't get as a mobile operator: walk-ins, drop-offs, bench jobs you now turn away.
- What happens if you're wrong? Read the term, the deposit and the guarantee together. A guarantee that steps down, or a shorter first term with a renewal option, limits the cost of being wrong.
If question three is a clear yes, lease. If it's a maybe, stay mobile another season. Count the jobs you turn down because you've nowhere to put them.
What changes in how you talk to customers
The model also changes why your phone rings. A storefront customer calls to ask if it's ready. A mobile customer calls to ask when you're coming. Usually you're driving when they do.
FixyFlow won't tell you whether to sign the lease. Where it helps is the call side. With FixyFlow's mobile service business software, your customer gets a tracking link when you book the stop. One tap on "On my way" sends an SMS with a live ETA. You snap before and after photos, and the review ask goes out when you tap Complete.
Pick the storefront instead and the same tracking page tells a drop-off customer where their job stands. That's one less reason to ring the counter.
Want to see it on your own route first? Run next week's jobs through the field service software on a free 14-day trial (no card needed). Field service software pricing lists the plans for when it ends.
— Lasse
Built FixyFlow in Collingwood