Should we charge monthly or annually for a plan?

Both work. Monthly billing lowers the barrier to joining and tends to feel lighter; annual billing gives you cash up front. Many companies offer both and present the monthly figure first, with the annual total shown clearly beside it.

When should tune-up campaigns start?

Before the first hot or cold week, not after it. In most of southern Canada that means cooling campaigns in spring and heating campaigns in early fall, adjusted for your local climate.

What's the quickest win in plan marketing?

Usually renewals. Many companies sell plans and then let them lapse silently. A simple sequence of reminders before the renewal date often lifts renewals without any new spending.

Maintenance-Plan Marketing for HVAC: A Full Guide

Marketing an HVAC maintenance plan means selling recurring service to people who already know you, then keeping them. It's the cheapest growth on our services menu because you're not buying clicks from strangers. It's also the most neglected: plenty of companies have a plan that only sells when a tech remembers to mention it. This guide covers the offer, the list, the calendar, the renewal maths and the outreach that turns members into replacement jobs.

Part 1: Present the offer so it sells itself

Short answer: one page, plain benefits, one price that is the real price. Your plan's technical content, what's inspected and how often, is your service manager's call. Marketing's job is to make it easy to understand and easy to join.

A plan page that works usually has:

A name that says what it is. "Comfort Plan" or "Home Heating Care" beats an invented acronym.
Three to five member benefits, each stated as an outcome: priority booking in a no-heat emergency, a scheduled tune-up each season, a discount on repairs, no overtime charge for members if that's your policy.
A clear price. Show the monthly figure and the annual total, and include every mandatory fee in the price shown. The Competition Bureau treats advertised prices that leave out mandatory fixed charges as drip pricing.
One way to join, by phone, with the number at the top of the page.
What happens next: when the first visit is booked and how reminders arrive.

If you offer tiers, keep it to two or three, and make the middle one the obvious choice.

Part 2: Build a list you're allowed to use

Short answer: sort every contact by consent before sending anything. Canada's Anti-Spam Legislation covers commercial emails and texts. In plain terms, it requires consent, clear identification of the sender and a working unsubscribe; the CRTC's FAQ and the government's consent guidance explain the details. Implied consent from a purchase has time limits, so a customer from many years ago may not be someone you can message today.

A practical sort:

Express consent on record: customers who agreed to receive messages. Use freely within what they agreed to.
Recent customers with implied consent: usable, but track when the consent window closes.
Old customers with no recorded consent: don't email or text them marketing. Reach them through channels that don't need consent, such as a mailed letter or a call from the office about their equipment.

Going forward, ask for express consent at every job, on the invoice or the tech's tablet, with a short line explaining what they'll receive. This is general context, not legal advice; check your process with a lawyer.

Part 3: Time campaigns to the seasons

Short answer: book the shoulder months before the peak arrives. Tune-up campaigns that launch after the first cold snap compete with emergency calls for the same truck. Launch them while the schedule still has room.

A simple calendar for most of southern Canada:

Timing	Campaign	Goal
Early spring	Cooling tune-up reminder to members	Fill April and May
Late spring	Plan offer to recent non-member customers	Sign-ups before summer
Late summer	Heating tune-up reminder to members	Fill September and October
Early fall	Plan offer bundled with a heating check	Sign-ups before winter
Mid-winter	Renewal reminders for plans expiring in spring	Protect renewal rate
Ongoing	Aging-equipment outreach	Feed replacement pipeline

Colder regions shift these earlier for heating and later for cooling. The region pages explain the seasonality in each province and territory.

Part 4: Do the renewal maths

Short answer: renewal rate decides whether the plan grows. It's the number most owners don't track, and it changes everything.

Work through this with your own figures. Start with 400 members at $25 a month, or $300 a year: $120,000 in recurring revenue.

At 85% renewal, 340 members stay. You need 60 new sign-ups a year to hold at 400, and every sign-up beyond that is growth.
At 70% renewal, 280 stay. You need 120 new sign-ups just to stand still.

The difference is 60 sign-ups a year. If each sign-up costs $80 in marketing and staff time, poor renewals cost you $4,800 a year in replacement sign-ups, before counting the lost repair and replacement work those members would have brought. The profit side of plans as recurring revenue is covered in depth at hvacprofit.ca.

Ways to protect renewals:

Send a reminder 60 days, 30 days and 7 days before the plan lapses.
Put the member's last visit and next visit date in every reminder.
Make renewal a single phone call.
Call members personally if they haven't booked their seasonal visit.

Part 5: Reactivate past customers

Short answer: a short sequence to lapsed customers costs little and often fills gaps. Customers who haven't booked in two or three years still remember you. A sequence of two or three messages, sent only where consent allows, offering a seasonal check or plan membership usually produces bookings within weeks.

Keep it honest and specific: "It's been three years since we serviced your furnace" is better than a generic discount. Track responses with a dedicated phone number, as explained in our call tracking guide.

Part 6: Turn member visits into replacement leads

Short answer: use install dates and visit notes to start replacement conversations early. Every maintenance visit tells you the age and condition of the equipment. When a system is approaching the end of its expected life, or a tech notes a problem, that's the moment for a calm, informative message about options, including any rebate that applies in your province.

This is where plan marketing meets our rebate and replacement group. Members who trust you get the first conversation about their next system, rather than the company that happened to rank on the night it failed.

Mistakes to avoid

Short answer: the plan fails when it's sold once and forgotten.

Selling the plan only in person. Many customers will join from a page or a reminder if asked.
Hiding charges. Surprise fees kill renewals and can breach misleading-pricing rules.
Messaging without consent. It risks complaints and penalties, and it annoys the people you want to keep.
Launching tune-ups too late. Shoulder months only fill if you book them before the peak.
Not tracking renewals. If you don't know your renewal rate, you don't know whether the plan is growing.

How we run this for clients

Short answer: it's group 4 on our menu. We sort your list by consent, rewrite the plan page, set the seasonal calendar, write the reminders and report members, renewals and replacement leads monthly. The maintenance-plan marketing service page lists what's included, and the pricing page explains the plans and the 7-day free trial.

How to market an HVAC maintenance plan, from offer to renewal