How we research and verify programs

Where our information comes from

We start from the program administrator’s own pages: the government department, agency or utility that runs it, plus their published terms, guides and news releases. Each record lists those official URLs, and the program page links to them next to the facts.

News coverage, contractor blogs and community forums often tell us something has changed, but we don’t publish a figure from them alone. When an official page is unclear or contradicts itself, we say so on the program page and lower the confidence level until it’s resolved.

How we verify a program

Every program record goes through the same checks before it is published, and again whenever it is re-verified:

1. Find the administrator’s own page. The department, agency, utility or city that runs the program, plus its current terms, participant guide or application form. Where a page needs a browser to load, we read it in a browser; PDFs are read in full.
2. Confirm each fact on that page. Status, amounts and caps, who qualifies, income limits, product lists, whether pre-approval, an assessment or a registered contractor is required, and deadlines. Amounts are recorded in the program’s own words.
3. Drop what we can’t confirm. A figure that appears only in news coverage or on a contractor’s site is removed, not published. Media-only dates (such as rumoured launch dates) stay off the page.
4. Record the date and a confidence level. The last-verified date and confidence level appear on every program page.
5. Validate before publishing. Every record is checked automatically against our data schema, and the site can’t be published if a record fails.

What we record for every program

Each program is a structured record, validated automatically before the site can be published:

• Who runs it, the level of government, and which provinces or cities it covers.
• Status, start date and deadline, if published.
• Each incentive: the upgrade, the amount in the program’s own words, and a maximum where one exists.
• Eligibility rules, how to apply in order, and whether an energy assessment or income test applies.
• Which other programs it stacks with, the official URL and every source we used.
• The date it was last verified, a confidence level, and notes on anything uncertain.

Confidence levels

Every record carries one of three confidence levels, shown on its program page:

Program statuses

Status is shown in words as well as colour, everywhere it appears.

Open122

Accepting applications now.

Closing soon6

Still open, but a deadline is near or funding is nearly used up.

Waitlist5

Not accepting new files right now; you can join a waitlist or register interest.

Upcoming2

Announced but not open yet. Details may change before launch.

Closed46

No longer accepting new applications. We keep the page so people searching for it find what replaced it.

How we keep it current

Programs change without much notice: funding runs out, amounts are cut, intake pauses. We watch for that in layers:

• Daily automated checks. Every day, a scheduled job fetches a rotating batch of official source pages and compares them with the version we last reviewed. Pages that disappear or start mentioning closure are flagged as urgent.
• Weekly review. Once a week, every source is checked and a person reviews each change before any record is edited. Automated summaries can suggest edits, but a person confirms each one against the live official page.
• Monthly re-verification of every medium- and low-confidence record, plus anything not verified in the past 30 days.
• Event-driven updates when governments announce new programs or budgets.

When we edit a record, its “last verified” date changes. Our dataset was last fully verified on October 17, 2026.

What the “last verified” date means

“Last verified” is the day a person last read the official program page and confirmed every key fact on it. It doesn’t move when we only redesign a page. Here is the cadence we hold ourselves to:

• Every 30 days at most between full re-verifications of any program, and right away when a change is reported or our daily check flags the official page.
• After 45 days without a re-check, the program is flagged internally as overdue and moves to the top of the review queue.
• After 90 days, the program page shows a visible “may be out of date” note next to its key facts, with a link to the official page, until it’s verified again.

Today no program is past 90 days and none is past 45 days.

How estimates are calculated

When the finder adds programs into a “stack”, it follows conservative rules so the total is something you could realistically receive:

• Only money you don’t pay back counts: rebates, grants, free upgrades, point-of-sale discounts and tax credits. Loans are shown separately.
• Each program contributes its maximum for the upgrades you picked, never more than the program’s overall cap, and the label always names the measure that produced the amount.
• Heat pumps are counted at the air-source rate, the most common retrofit. Ground-source amounts are shown as their own line.
• Programs that are announced but not open yet are shown beside the total, not added to it.
• City programs are left out of the total unless we can confirm your city.
• Income-tested programs are only included if you tell us you may qualify, and income-qualified maximums are always labelled as such.

Editorial policy

• Program facts come from official sources only. Third-party reports can prompt a check, but never replace one.
• We lead with the amount most homes get, then the maximum with its condition. We don’t call a maximum “typical”.
• Announced programs are labelled “not open yet” wherever their amounts appear.
• Sponsors, installers and affiliate partners don’t see, edit or approve our content, and paying us never changes whether a program is listed, what we say about it or the order it appears in. See how we make money.
• Closed and paused programs stay published as closed, with the date and what replaced them.
• Guides and glossary pages are credited to the person responsible for them. Until our editor and reviewing Registered Energy Advisor are named on our team page, we credit the RebateHub research team rather than invent a byline.

The complete rules on paid placement, sponsored and affiliate labels and corrections are in our editorial policy.

Corrections policy

If you think something is wrong or out of date, email hello@rebatehub.ca with the page and, if you can, a link to the official source. Program administrators are especially welcome to write to us.

• We aim to review correction requests within two business days, and sooner for closures or amount changes.
• Confirmed errors are fixed in the record, and the last-verified date is updated.
• Material corrections to a guide are noted at the end of that guide.
• Commercial partners can’t request changes to program facts or ordering.
• Every program page has a “Report an error” link that goes straight to us.

Verification log

In our last full audit, every record was re-checked against the administrator’s own pages and PDFs, and secondary sources such as news stories were removed. Of 136 records: 48 were confirmed as they were, 69 were corrected, 7 were added and 12 could not be confirmed against a live official page (those carry a low confidence level on their program page). Here is what changed, region by region.

Open data and API

The full dataset is free to reuse under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 licence. Please credit “RebateHub (rebatehub.ca)” and link back.

• Every program: /api/v1/programs
• One program: /api/v1/programs/<id>, for example /api/v1/programs/on-home-renovation-savings

Responses are JSON, allow cross-origin requests and include the licence and the dataset’s last-updated date.