Why 'Up to 80% Off' Pricing Can Be Misleading: A GTA Buyer's Guide to Installed Pricing

How a percent-off promotion is built

A discount needs something to discount from. That reference number is a list price, and for made-to-order products there is no shelf anywhere that the product sits on at that price. The seller sets it. If the list price for a window is set at $900 and the real selling price is $250, the banner can honestly say '72% off' — and the homeowner pays $250, exactly what a company with no promotion at all might quote as its normal installed price.

That is why the discount percentage tells you nothing about value. Two quotes can be $280 per window and $290 per window, and the one advertising 70% off is the more expensive of the two. The only number that means anything is the final total for your actual windows.

The second effect is urgency. 'This weekend only' promotions push a decision before you have a second quote. Made-to-order window coverings are not perishable — a company that can do a price this week can do it next week.

What 'installed pricing' should include

An installed price is a single number per window that covers everything between the first conversation and a working blind on your wall. When we quote, that number includes the on-site measurement, the fabric and hardware, the custom manufacture to your exact sizes, the labour to install it, removal of the packaging, and the workmanship warranty afterwards.

Things that sometimes appear as separate charges elsewhere and should be checked: measurement or consultation fees, travel or fuel charges outside a set radius, mounting hardware and brackets, valances or cassettes, removal and disposal of old blinds, and a delivery charge on the finished product. None of those are unreasonable to charge for — they are only a problem when they surface after you have accepted a headline price.

A checklist for comparing any two GTA quotes

01 — Get the per-window installed total. Not the project total, not the discount. One number per window, in writing.

02 — Confirm the fabric name and openness. A 3% openness sheer and a 10% openness sheer look identical on a quote and completely different in your living room.

03 — Confirm the mechanism. Chain, cordless or motorised, and which brand of motor. Motors are where price gaps usually come from.

04 — Confirm the mount type. Inside mount or outside mount changes both the look and the measurement, and a quote that has not decided yet has not really measured.

05 — Ask what is excluded. Say the words: 'Is there anything else I will be invoiced for before this is finished?'

06 — Get the warranty in writing. Length, what it covers, and specifically who honours workmanship as opposed to fabric defects.

07 — Confirm the lead time as a range. Made-to-order is typically 7–15 business days; a promise of a few days is worth questioning.

Why we do not run percent-off sales

We publish installed ranges instead: zebra blinds $180–$320 per window, roller shades $170–$320, vertical blinds $220–$400, motorised $450–$900, drapery from $320, shutters from $450. Those are the prices year-round, in January and in July.

There is no ideology behind that — it is simply that to advertise 70% off we would first have to raise our list prices by roughly three times, and then every conversation would be about the discount instead of the window. As an owner-operated business across the GTA with no showroom and no sales team, the arithmetic works better if we just charge the price.

If a competitor's promotional total genuinely comes in lower than ours for the same fabric, mechanism and mount, take it. We would rather you compared properly than felt talked into anything.