Private Investigator Costs in Canada 2025
Truth often hides in the shadows, compelling individuals from all walks of life to seek professional assistance when conventional methods fail.
Private investigators in Canada offer specialized expertise that can illuminate these darkened corners—yet many potential clients hesitate to engage their services due to uncertainty about the costs of a private investigator.
Understanding what you’ll pay before hiring an investigator isn’t merely about budgeting; it’s about entering the relationship with clear expectations that foster trust and cooperation.
While some cases require only a single investigative approach, resulting in a straightforward fee structure, others may require a multi-faceted strategy employing various techniques.
Canadian private investigators charge hourly fees for time-intensive services while offering flat rates for more predictable tasks. Disbursements—those additional expenses incurred during an investigation—can further affect the total costs, especially when specialized database access or court filing fees become necessary.
Quality investigations require professional expertise and meticulous documentation that will stand up to scrutiny should your evidence ever face legal challenges. Your investment today in thorough investigative work could save you considerably more, particularly in cases involving potential financial losses, custody disputes, or insurance matters.
Canadian Private Investigation Fees in 2025
- Surveillance & Undercover Work: $75 per hr, $0.79 per km
- Skip Tracing to Locate Individuals: $650
- Background Checks: $95 per hr, plus disbursements
- OSINT/Social Media Investigations: $125 per hr
- Witness Statement Interviews: $200 online or $500 in-person
- Due Diligence Company Reviews: $825 basic or $1,850 enhanced
- Digital Forensics: $1200 per device
- Polygraph / Lie Detector Tests: $600
The Investigation Process
Every investigation begins with a confidential consultation where clients share their concerns, suspicions, and objectives.
Investigators listen. They evaluate. They plan.
During this critical conversation, a skilled investigator assesses your concerns and maps potential approaches tailored to your circumstances. No two cases mirror each other precisely, which is why cookie-cutter solutions rarely succeed.
Some cases follow linear paths.
Locating someone’s current address typically requires skip tracing—a direct, efficient approach with predictable outcomes. The process follows established protocols, searching databases and known leads until the individual is located.
Other cases may require more flexibility.
Take infidelity investigations. A spouse’s unexplained after-work absences trigger suspicion, but little else is known.
We may start with surveillance while tracking the subject leaving work and documenting his every interaction. If he does meet another woman, we capture telling moments—intimate conversations, lingering touches, affectionate gestures.
If the pair retreats to a private location—perhaps a residence or hotel—we note arrival and departure times. We identify vehicles. We document addresses.
Investigations evolve as more details are uncovered.
After they part ways, we could expand our approach. Background checks to confirm the affair partner’s identity. OSINT research may reveal the affair partner’s social media presence, sometimes uncovering photos placing them together with the subject or showing that they are also involved in another relationship.
Each discovery informs us of the next steps.
This flexibility often reduces the overall costs of an investigation while increasing the quality of the results.
Private Investigation Case Methods
Surveillance and Undercover Operations
When suspicions require visual confirmation, surveillance becomes our most potent investigative tool. Private investigators deploy this method to document a subject’s activities with video, creating undisputable evidence that can prove invaluable in personal and legal contexts.
Undercover operations take a different approach. Investigators use carefully crafted pretexts to engage subjects directly while recording the encounters discreetly. The natural flow of conversation often yields admissions and information that would never emerge during formal questioning.
Quality matters above all else.
The evidence gathered during surveillance and undercover operations must meet stringent quality standards to withstand scrutiny in court proceedings. These investigative fees reflect the time spent observing a subject and the specialized equipment, extensive training, and expertise required to conduct surveillance legally and successfully.
Surveillance is effective in several case types, including:
- Fraudulent disability claims while meticulously documenting physical activities that contradict a claimant’s reported limitations.
- Employee misconduct investigations while documenting theft, time fraud, or policy violations firsthand.
- Infidelity cases while following subjects to restaurants, hotels, or private residences while discreetly investigating romantic encounters.
- Child custody cases while carefully observing parenting practices, home environments, and potentially concerning activities that might endanger children’s welfare.
- Support payment cases while investigating unreported income or lifestyle inconsistencies that suggest financial resources exceed reported amounts.
- Teen activity checks while providing concerned parents with verification of their children’s whereabouts and associations when troubling behavior patterns emerge.
Undercover operations are effective in several case types, including:
- Support payment cases while investigating unreported income through direct interactions.
- Corporate investigations while investigating fraud, due diligence company reviews, intellectual property rights violations, vetting suppliers and vendors, and mystery shopping.
Skip Tracing to Locate Individuals
People disappear for countless reasons. Some vanish deliberately to escape debts or legal obligations. Others lose touch over time as lives diverge and contact information changes. Whatever the circumstances, finding someone who doesn’t want to be found—or hasn’t left an obvious trail—requires specialized skills and resources.
Skip tracing solves this problem.
The process begins with basic identifiers: name, last known address, date of birth, and any known associates. Investigators then layer multiple information sources to track the subject’s current whereabouts.
Background Checks
The term “background check” covers a broad spectrum of investigative services that vary in depth and scope.
Basic checks verify identities and criminal histories. Comprehensive investigations dig deeper. They examine professional licenses. They scrutinize civil litigation records. They uncover hidden property holdings and obscure business affiliations that subjects often prefer to keep concealed from public view.
These investigations serve innumerable purposes.
- Businesses use them before hiring, particularly for positions involving financial oversight or access to sensitive information.
- Individuals commission them prior to entering business partnerships or making substantial investments where trust must be verified rather than merely assumed.
- Parents investigate potential caregivers who will have unsupervised access to their children.
- Singles—especially those meeting potential partners through online platforms—increasingly verify the backgrounds of prospective romantic interests before becoming emotionally or financially invested.
Beware of shortcuts.
Those automated background check websites that promise instant results for $19.99? They frequently miss critical information. They produce outdated results based on infrequently updated databases. They confuse individuals with similar names, potentially causing devastating misidentifications.
Professional investigators blend sophisticated technological tools with seasoned human judgment. They create accurate, nuanced profiles reflecting current realities. They distinguish between coincidental similarities and genuine matches.
OSINT / Social Media Investigations
The internet never forgets.
Every post, photo, comment, and online interaction leaves digital footprints that skilled investigators can follow. Open-source intelligence (OSINT) and social media investigations (SOCMINT) harness this vast public data landscape, transforming seemingly innocent online breadcrumbs into comprehensive intelligence profiles.
Most people dramatically underestimate their digital footprint.
A single Instagram photo can reveal location data, relationship connections, spending habits, and lifestyle patterns. Comments on public forums expose opinions and associations. Professional networking sites document career histories more comprehensively than most résumés. Dating profiles often contain contradictions to information provided elsewhere.
Even when individuals believe they’ve maintained strict privacy settings, their connections’ less cautious approaches frequently expose information inadvertently.
Digital investigations serve countless real-world purposes.
- Corporate clients use OSINT to vet potential business partners or verify claims made during negotiations.
- Legal teams employ these techniques to gather evidence supporting litigation or to locate assets in collection matters.
- Parents monitor their children’s online activities to identify concerning patterns or dangerous connections.
- Insurance companies investigate potentially fraudulent claims by examining social media posts that contradict reported injuries or losses.
The digital landscape constantly evolves.
New platforms emerge while established ones modify privacy settings and data access policies. Professional investigators maintain current knowledge of these shifts, adapting methodologies to ensure comprehensive coverage despite platform changes.
Witness Statement Interviews
People see things. They hear things. They know things.
Witness statements transform these observations into documented evidence, capturing firsthand accounts that can substantiate claims, corroborate suspicions, or contradict existing narratives. Professional investigators conduct these interviews while employing specialized questioning techniques that maximize recall accuracy while minimizing the risk of suggestion or contamination.
The pricing structure reflects delivery method and time investment.
- Online interviews offer convenience and accessibility, allowing witnesses to participate from any location with internet access.
- In-person interviews provide advantages in building rapport and reading subtle non-verbal cues, particularly valuable when dealing with reluctant witnesses or complex subject matter.
Both approaches yield legally admissible documentation when appropriately conducted.
Witness statements serve various investigative objectives. They preserve testimony from individuals who may become unavailable for future proceedings. They lock in accounts before memories fade, or external influences can alter recollections. They often reveal additional leads or avenues of inquiry not previously considered, expanding the investigation scope in productive directions.
Due Diligence Company Reviews
Trust, but verify.
Due diligence company reviews systematically verify claims, representations, and backgrounds before clients make significant commitments. These comprehensive assessments protect against misrepresentation and fraud while identifying potential risks that might remain hidden until substantial damage occurs.
Basic due diligence reviews provide extensive coverage across multiple domains.
Our investigators examine corporate land title records to verify property ownership and identify potential encumbrances. We search civil and criminal litigation histories that might reveal behavior patterns or legal exposure. Media reviews uncover previous controversies or adverse publicity that could affect reputation or business relationships.
We conduct thorough bankruptcy checks and personal property lien searches to identify potential financial distress not disclosed during negotiations. Our comprehensive internet and social media analysis reveals public perception and self-presentation that might contradict formal claims.
Our team performs detailed corporate searches and business name verifications to confirm legal standing and identify potential shell companies or misleading business practices. BBB records provide insights into customer satisfaction and complaint resolution patterns. We verify all applicable licenses and conduct regulatory reviews to ensure compliance within relevant industries.
Enhanced due diligence includes everything above while adding comprehensive background checks for two company directors. These executive-level investigations examine personal histories, credential verification, relationship networks, and reputation assessments, providing crucial context for evaluating organizational leadership.
Site checks represent an additional option for particularly sensitive situations. Our investigators can physically attend business locations, documenting facilities, operations, and other elements of interest that might substantiate or contradict claims made during negotiations.
Digital Forensics
Evidence hides in plain sight within our digital devices.
Digital forensics extracts, analyzes, and preserves electronic data that can provide crucial evidence in both personal and legal matters. These specialized examinations employ advanced technological tools and methodological rigor to recover information that users often believe has been permanently deleted or effectively concealed from discovery.
The service comprehensively examines a single device—whether a smartphone, tablet, laptop, desktop computer, or external storage medium. Fees for this service reflect the time investment required for specialized work, along with the sophisticated software and hardware necessary to conduct proper forensic acquisition without compromising data integrity.
Legal parameters constrain what investigators can examine without proper authorization.
Consent from the device owner or valid legal authority—such as court orders or explicit workplace policies—must exist before forensic examination begins. Reputable digital forensic specialists refuse cases lacking proper authorization, regardless of how compelling the circumstances might appear. This ethical stance preserves the investigator’s credibility and any findings’ legal admissibility.
Digital forensic evidence often proves decisive in resolving disputes that would otherwise devolve into credibility contests between contradicting narratives. The objective nature of electronically preserved data provides factual anchors.
Truth leaves digital fingerprints.
Polygraph / Lie Detector Tests
Truth and deception dance an intricate ballet beneath the surface of human interaction. Polygraph tests attempt to capture this dance through physiological measurements.
The examination monitors several bodily responses simultaneously—blood pressure fluctuations, respiratory patterns, pulse rates, and skin conductivity. When analyzed by trained examiners, these indicators can reveal inconsistencies between verbal statements and physical reactions.
The rationale is that lying is presumed to induce a stress response in the body, which, in turn, manifests through measurable changes in these physiological parameters. For instance, increased heart rate or blood pressure, faster breathing, or greater electrical conductivity of the skin (due to sweating) might indicate stress or deception.
The True Value of Professional Investigations
The costs outlined throughout this article represent not merely fees for services but investments in truth—investments that often yield returns far exceeding their monetary value.
Consider what’s truly at stake in your situation.
Peace of mind rarely comes with a price tag, yet its absence exacts a tremendous toll on one’s mental well-being, professional performance, and personal relationships.
Professional investigators bring more than just specialized tools and techniques to your case. They offer objectivity when emotions cloud judgment. They provide legal protection through proper evidence gathering. They deliver definitive answers where uncertainty once prevailed.
Investing in professional investigative services may save you considerably more financially and emotionally in the long term. Think of custody battles where properly documented evidence decides a child’s future. Consider business partnerships where early due diligence prevents catastrophic losses. Reflect on relationship decisions where verified information prevents years of misplaced trust.
What price would you place on knowing rather than wondering?
For a complimentary, obligation-free consultation, please get in touch with us at 604-657-4499, info@shadowinvestigationsltd.ca, or fill out our contact form below with your preferred contact method and a brief overview of what you would like assistance with. We keep all information confidential and only use contact information to respond to inquiries.
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