How often should we update our rebate page?

At least every quarter, and immediately when an administrator announces a change. In 2026 several federal and provincial programs closed or changed, so a page that was accurate in spring may be wrong by fall.

Should we tell homeowners to wait for the federal rebate?

Don't tell them to wait or not to wait. Give them the facts as of a stated date: what was announced, that it isn't open, and what is available now. Then help them work out what waiting would cost in their situation.

Can we use the phrase 'free heat pump'?

Only when describing a specific income-qualified program by name, with its eligibility rules and administrator link. As a headline aimed at everyone, it attracts callers who mostly won't qualify.

Is it a problem to show a price after rebate?

It can be, if the rebate isn't certain. Show the full price clearly and label any after-rebate figure as conditional. The Competition Bureau's material on misleading representations and drip pricing is worth reading before you design price ads.

Heat-Pump Rebate Marketing Playbook for 2026

Rebate marketing works when you tell homeowners exactly what exists, as of a date, who qualifies and what your team does to help, and when you keep that information current. It fails when incentives are treated as a headline instead of a set of rules. This playbook walks through the five steps we use, with templates you can adapt.

A note on our role: we are a marketing and business consulting service, not a contractor, and this is marketing guidance, not legal advice. Program details below are as of October 2026. Confirm everything with the administrator before you publish.

Why incentives are the hardest part of heat-pump marketing

The short answer: they change constantly, they have eligibility rules most buyers don't read, and when they go wrong, the installer gets blamed.

Consider what changed in just the past year or so. The federal Canada Greener Homes Loan closed to new applicants on 2025-10-01. The federal Oil to Heat Pump Affordability program took its last applications on 2026-07-31 in the provinces and territories it served directly, with co-delivery provinces closing on their own dates. BC's main income-qualified program changed its rules for invoices from 2026-07-06. PEI's equipment rebates ended in April. And on 2026-10-08, the federal government announced a new National Heat Pump Rebate Program that won't open until 2027.

Any installer with a rebate page written in 2025 probably has something wrong on it today.

Step 1: Build an incentive map

An incentive map is a one-page table of every program that could affect your customers, kept up to date. It is the source document for everything else.

For each program, record:

Field	Example of what to write
Program name	The administrator's exact name for it
Administrator	The organisation that runs it
Who it's for	Income level, home type, existing heating fuel
What it covers	Equipment types, any requirements such as a heat-load calculation
Status and date	Open / closed / announced, as of the date you checked
Official link	The administrator's page, not a news story
What your team does	Paperwork help, registration, nothing

Two habits make the map useful:

Only official sources. Utility, provincial or federal pages. Not a competitor's website and not a forum post.
A named owner. One person in your company checks every link at the start of each quarter.

Our region pages show what this looks like for each province.

Step 2: Handle the federal announcement

As of October 2026, the National Heat Pump Rebate Program is the incentive every homeowner has heard about and nobody can use yet. In short, the announcement commits $2 billion across eight years to fund as many as 820,000 rebates. They apply to eligible electric cold-climate air-source units: households under median income could receive up to $10,000, other eligible owners $2,000, and nobody needs an energy audit first. Federal and Hydro-Québec pages describe it as launching in 2027, and no administrator or launch date had been published when we checked.

That creates a "should I wait?" question in every sales conversation. We suggest a short explainer page with four parts:

What was announced, in two or three sentences, with the date and a link to the federal release.
What isn't known yet: the administrator, start date, eligible models and whether it can combine with provincial programs.
What's available now in your province, from your incentive map.
How to think about timing: a neutral set of questions. How old is the current system? What would another winter on it cost? Is a provincial incentive available now that might change?

Avoid two traps. Don't imply the federal rebate is available today, and don't dismiss it to rush a sale. Homeowners will remember either.

Step 3: Build the rebate hub page

The rebate hub is the page your ads, Google Business Profile and follow-up messages all point to. A structure that works:

A one-paragraph answer at the top: the main incentives available in your service area as of a stated date.
A short table of programs, from the incentive map, each linked to its administrator.
"Who usually qualifies" in plain language, with a clear note that the administrator decides.
"What we do and don't do": for example, "we prepare the documents the program asks installers for; you submit the application."
The federal explainer, summarised with a link to the full page.
A clear next step: call, text or email for an assessment.
A visible "last checked" date.

Keep the page short enough to read on a phone. If a single program needs detail, give it its own page.

Step 4: Write to the claims rules

Rebates involve prices and, often, environmental benefits, two areas the Competition Bureau pays attention to. The Bureau's guidance on misleading representations, drip pricing and environmental claims is the official reference. We aren't lawyers, but these are the house rules we write to:

"Up to" means up to. If the program pays up to $7,500, don't let the ad imply everyone gets $7,500.
Show the full price clearly. Any after-incentive figure is labelled as conditional on eligibility.
No promised eligibility. The administrator decides.
Date everything. "As of October 2026" costs four words and saves a lot of arguments.
Keep environmental claims specific. "Lower emissions than oil heat" needs support; "eco-friendly" on its own is vague. If you can't support a claim, leave it out.
Remove dead programs within a week. Set a calendar reminder for every known end date.

Step 5: Qualify on the first call

Rebate marketing produces more enquiries from people who won't qualify. A few intake questions save your estimators a lot of wasted visits:

What heats your home now (gas, oil, propane, electric, wood)?
Is this your primary residence, and do you own it?
Have you already applied for, or received, any energy incentive?
Are you asking about an income-qualified program? (Ask gently, and only if the program depends on it.)
When would you want the work done?

Record the answers in your CRM. After a season, you'll know your close rate on rebate leads versus others, which tells you how much to spend on rebate campaigns.

Measuring rebate marketing

Track these separately from your other heat-pump leads:

enquiries mentioning an incentive
booked assessments from those enquiries
close rate on rebate quotes
time from quote to signature (often longer, because of paperwork)
complaints or cancellations caused by eligibility surprises

The last number is the one that protects your reviews. If it rises, your messaging is overselling.

Common mistakes

One national rebate page. Incentives are provincial and often utility-specific. A national page is wrong for most readers.
Copying another installer's list. Their information may be out of date, and their service area isn't yours.
Relying on news coverage. News stories summarise; administrators decide. Link the administrator.
Leaving the federal question unanswered. Silence lets a competitor frame it for you.

Where to go from here

If you'd like us to build and maintain this for you, see our rebate marketing service. Pair it with quote follow-up, which uses dated program deadlines as natural reasons to get back in touch. For other parts of the playbook, return to the guides hub.

The heat-pump rebate marketing playbook