For boats and RVs, published Canadian mobile wrapping rates run roughly $17 to $31 a foot. For industrial equipment, freight and containment, almost nobody in Canada publishes a price at all — quotes are built from height, access, framing and film. Here's what the published numbers actually say, and what builds an industrial quote.

Fair warning about what you'll find if you search this yourself: the results are film rolls and wrapping machines, not services. The top result right now is a $15 roll from a computer-parts wholesaler — more on why that number can't wrap a machine below.

What's actually published in Canada

Two markets, two habits. Recreational wrapping — boats, RVs, PWCs — is sold per linear foot, and rate cards are public. Industrial wrapping is quote-only almost everywhere in the country. Here's every published Canadian number worth citing, checked August 2026.

The industrial column is nearly empty on purpose — that's the market. Every Ontario industrial operator we checked, ourselves included, quotes per job. The rest of this page shows you what those quotes are made of, so a "call for pricing" doesn't have to mean flying blind.

The $15 roll that ranks #1

Search this topic and the first thing Google hands you is a wholesale roll of "industrial shrink wrap" — 19.68 inches wide, 80 gauge, $15–20. Here's the problem: 80 gauge is 0.8 mil. That's pallet stretch film, the stuff you spin around boxes to keep a skid tidy. Industrial shrink film is 7 to 12 mil — roughly ten times thicker — heat-shrunk into a rigid, UV-stabilized skin. You can no more wrap a machine for outdoor storage with pallet stretch than you can shingle a roof with cling film.

The confusion is baked into the units. Stretch film is sold in gauge (80 gauge ≈ 0.8 mil); shrink film in mil. Same word "wrap", different products, an order of magnitude apart in thickness — and the price difference between a $15 roll and an industrial job starts right there.

From the price of a roll to the price of a job

Even the right film doesn't get you to a job price, and here's the arithmetic nobody publishes. A marine-grade roll of 7 mil film, 17 by 110 feet, retails in Canada for roughly $300–600 — call it 1,870 square feet. A mid-size machine, say 8 by 6 by 7 feet, needs about 245 square feet of surface covered; add a third for overlap, welds and waste and you're near 320. That's a sixth of a roll: $50–100 of film.

So on a typical machine, the material is under a hundred dollars. Everything else in a quote is the part a retailer can't sell you: the support framing, the venting, heat work done safely near your equipment, the access problem, the drive, and a crew that's done it a thousand times. That's also why "how much is a roll" and "how much is the job" are different questions with different answers — and why the roll price ranking #1 on Google tells you almost nothing.

What builds an industrial quote

Six drivers, in roughly the order they move the number:

• Height and access. Ground-level skids wrap fast. Anything needing ladders, lifts or Working at Heights time costs more — the one published Canadian containment rate, $1.55 per square foot, is for scaffold wrap, and US scaffold benchmarks run US$1.50–6.00 depending on height and complexity.
• Framing. Film needs something to shrink against. A machine with its own hard points needs little; a long open load needs a built structure, and that's lumber and hours.
• Film specification. Flame-retardant film — the right call wherever people work under or near the wrap — costs more than standard. So does extra width and heavier mil.
• Wind exposure and tensioning. An open yard in November is a different job than a loading dock. Exposure decides tension work, reinforcement and sometimes the schedule.
• Duration and purpose. Transit protection for one highway run is specified differently than a wrap meant to stand through an Ontario winter in outdoor storage.
• Travel. Mobile service prices the drive past a home radius. Bigger jobs absorb it; small remote ones feel it.

Site paperwork rides on top: WSIB clearance, insurance certificates, and where a torch is involved, your site's hot work permit process — we've written a full guide to hot work permits for shrink wrapping. None of it should surprise a competent contractor, and all of it belongs in the quote, not the invoice.

What a complete quote should include

Whoever you call, make the quote spell these out. If any of them turn up later as extras, the low bid wasn't low.

• Film specificationMil thickness, colour, and whether flame-retardant grade is needed for your site. The film decides how the wrap survives — and what it's safe near.
• Support framingWhat structure gets built, from what, and whether it's in the price. "Film only" quotes grow on contact with reality.
• Ventilation and desiccantVents are what stand between a sealed wrap and a condensation problem. A number, not a "yes".
• Removal and disposalUsually priced separately — published Canadian removal rates run about $5 a foot in BC and from $75 a job in Ontario. Ask now, not in spring.
• Travel and taxesWhether the drive is included, and HST shown — the City of Barrie prints its 13% line; your contractor can too.
• Paperwork on requestWSIB clearance certificate and proof of insurance before the crew is scheduled. Standard for any competent operator.

That's the standard we quote to. If a quote you're holding doesn't answer all six, send it over with your dimensions and we'll price the same job properly.

Frequently asked questions