Comparative data drives expansion decisions. It’s needed at every stage of the expansion process: initial exploration, the creation of a short-list, the decision itself. The problem is that comparative data is hard to find. For manufacturers, Waterloo EDC has just made finding reliable comparative data easier.
When we talk to manufacturers about expansion, their biggest questions revolve around costs – the cost of labour, real estate and energy. This information is difficult to find on its own. Reliable data that gives you real apples-to-apples comparisons between communities? It doesn’t exist.
Or, at least, it didn’t exist.
The Waterloo EDC Manufacturing Cost Calculator was built to serve manufacturers, and the site selectors that assist them, with finding new locations for growth. It’s an intuitive and powerful platform that lets you compare costs between some of North America’s top manufacturing communities.
Want to explore the tool? Calculate your savings.
While it is designed to be easy to use, we want to make sure you’re able to tap into its full functionality right away. That’s why we wrote this step-by-step guide.
Step 1: Select your comparison city
The first step is to figure out which city you’d like to compare with the Waterloo area. We’ve sourced data from North America’s top manufacturing communities, including everything from Charleston and Cincinnati to Indianapolis and Detroit.
For this guide, we’ll compare Waterloo with Pittsburgh.
Step 2: Build your team
We know every team is different. Sometimes you need machinists, mechanics and technicians, and other times you need five types of engineers. The good news: the Manufacturing Cost Calculator includes 25 different hourly and salaried roles. We’ve sourced this data from a reliable third-party provider, but if wages for your direct experience with wages in one of these cities differs from our sourced data, you can customize the number and we will adjust the calculation automatically. You can also choose exactly how many of each role you’d like to hire.
Let’s hire five CNC Machinists, 10 Machine Operators, two Electronics Technicians, two Logistics Specialists, three Manufacturing Engineers and three Electronics Engineers. A team of 25.
Step 3: Identify your building size
We’re hiring 25 people in our example, so if you add them together with some machinery and desk space you probably need around 20,000 sq. ft. of floor space. But that’s just our example – maybe you’re planning to hire 100 people or you do something really space-intensive and you need 80,000 sq. ft. Either way, we have you covered. Use the slider to pick anything from 5,000 to 150,000 sq. ft. Again, the data is sourced from a reliable third-party provider and we provide the average industrial lease rates right up front.
Let’s pick 20,000 sq. ft. for our 25-person team.
Step 4: Identify your electricity usage
Again, the amount of energy you need really depends on what you’re doing. If you are a small or medium-sized manufacturer, our calculator should have you covered with a slider that gives you options from 10,000 kWh to 300,000 kWh/month. If you need more energy, contact us and we can provide a custom estimate.
We also know that cleaner energy is becoming a priority for many manufacturers, so we provide a convenient little comparison of emissions-free electricity between the Waterloo region and whichever comparison city you selected.
Let’s select 60,000 kWh for a more energy intensive facility.
Step 5: Confirm the exchange rate
A significant portion of the cost savings are from the USD to CAD exchange rate, which allows your dollar to go even farther in Canada. We’ve built the 2025 Annual Exchange Rate into the platform, but our goal was to ensure the tool was customizable. You’re welcome to change it to whatever you want – we even provide a link to find the most current rate.
The ability to customize the exchange rate also lets you experiment with potential future scenarios. What happens to your costs if the exchange rate is 1.20? It’s easy to find out and future-proof your decision-making process.
Let’s leave it at the 2025 Annual Exchange Rate.
Step 6: Get your results
If you’re following along on the calculator, you’ve probably seen something magical happening on the right side of the screen. Every step along the way, the calculator has started… calculating. Now, you can see exactly how Waterloo compares to Pittsburgh in this example – 22% in annual industrial savings across labour, real estate and electricity costs!
This number isn’t static – it’s just a starting point. You can adjust all your inputs to find the best expansion model. For example, you might find that you get more savings with a bigger team, or a team with a different focus – maybe engineering rather than production. Or you can compare numbers in different cities to see where you can save the most.
Hover over the calculation to get expanded results, including the estimated real dollars for each component.
Step 7: Share your results
Maybe you’re just doing this calculation because you’re curious. Absolutely fine. But, if you’re collecting information to share with your team, or if the results are just so surprising that you have to share them, we have you covered. In fact, you have two options. Option #1: you can click on the “Export To Excel” button and download a spreadsheet. Option #2: you can click on the “Shareable Link” button and simply send a link to this exact page – with all of your calculations already plugged in – to anyone you want.
A note about sources
At Waterloo EDC we’ve helped companies invest more than $4B in our community over the last decade. We know the expansion process and we know how important reliable data is. We want you to be confident that the data we’re providing is the best we can find, and we don’t want you to think we’ve hidden anything. As a result, we’ve sourced everything. Scroll down to see how we’ve calculated labour, real estate and energy costs, and check out our sources. We have nothing to hide.
We hope that the Manufacturing Cost Calculator is a useful tool on your path to expansion. If your company considers Waterloo as a potential expansion location, we’d love to be a partner in that process. We can help you collect customized data, make connections in the community, identify potential real estate options and more. The best part: our support comes at no cost to your company.
Explore the Manufacturing Cost Calculator now.
Want to learn more about Waterloo, or about how Waterloo EDC can help your company?