How we're funded

1. Our funding model

Energy Efficiency Ontario receives no government funding and is not paid by any utility or program administrator. We are funded primarily by referral fees: when a homeowner chooses to request quotes or a solar assessment through one of our forms, we share that request with up to three independent contractors who serve the homeowner's area, and those contractors may pay us a fee for the introduction.

Homeowners never pay us. The fee does not depend on whether you hire anyone, and you are free to choose any contractor or none.

2. Where referrals appear

Referral forms appear on our Heating & cooling and Solar & storage pages, and call-to-action boxes linking to them appear on related articles. Those boxes are always labelled, and each form explains who receives your information before you submit it.

3. Editorial independence

• Contractors, manufacturers and installers cannot pay for coverage, review or approve our content, or influence our conclusions.
• We do not recommend specific brands or companies in our guides.
• We say plainly when an upgrade is not likely to pay off — including heat pumps and solar — even though those are the categories our referrals support.
• Calculators show their assumptions and let you change every input.
• Corrections are welcome and handled under our editorial standards.

4. Contractor standards

We ask participating contractors to confirm they hold the licences and insurance their work requires (for example TSSA registration for fuel appliances, ODP certification for refrigerants, and ESA licensing for electrical work), to follow Ontario consumer protection law, and to use your information only to respond to your request. We remove contractors who don't meet these expectations. You should still verify any contractor independently before hiring.

5. Advertising

We may promote the Site through online advertising. If we ever display third-party advertising on the Site, it will be clearly labelled as such and kept separate from editorial content.