BuzzSkito Mosquito & Tick Control Specialists · Published August 22, 2026
As an Amazon Associate, BuzzSkito earns from qualifying purchases. BuzzSkito only points to products we would genuinely use or recommend, at no extra cost to you.
Jump straight to current Canadian availability — the machine whose feed cost stays sane, and the season consumables that go with it:
The sticker price is the small number
Almost every conversation we have about mosquito traps stalls in the same place. It is never “can I afford the machine.” It is “what does this thing cost me every month once it is sitting in the yard.” That instinct is right. A mosquito trap is not an appliance you buy once; it is a machine that eats something continuously for 22 weeks, and the thing it eats is what determines whether it is still running when the August generation hatches.
We run a mosquito and tick company in the GTA, which means we have watched a lot of these machines get bought in May and quietly switched off in July. It is almost never because the trap did not work. It is because the owner did the running-cost arithmetic after the purchase instead of before it, and then rationed the fuel. A CO2 trap run part-time does not deliver part of the result — it delivers close to none of it, because the population rebounds in the gaps. So here is the arithmetic up front.
Propane: the fuel bill nobody budgets for
A propane trap burns propane through a catalytic converter to produce a CO2 plume that imitates a breathing human. It is the most convincing fake host you can buy, and it is the most expensive to feed. Plan on one 20 lb (9 kg) cylinder every three weeks of continuous running. Across an Ontario season that is roughly 6 to 7 refills, or about $150 to $280 in fuel at typical Canadian refill prices.
Then there is the attractant. Octenol and Lurex cartridges last about three weeks each, which means another seven across the season and roughly $105 to $175. Nets and catch bags are the line nobody mentions at all: on a productive property you will replace two or three over a summer, so add $30 to $75. Stack it up and $350 to $550 per season is the realistic consumables figure for a propane trap, entirely separate from the machine.
One Canadian detail that quietly matters: refilling beats exchanging. The exchange cages outside Canadian Tire, Home Depot and most gas stations are convenient and open when the propane depot is not, but they typically hand you a cylinder filled to about 15 lb rather than a full 20. You pay a flat price for roughly three quarters of the propane. Once a summer that is trivial. Seven times a summer it is a real number. Keep two cylinders and refill them by volume; use the exchange cage only as the emergency backup.
For everything else about how these machines actually perform — the “up to 1 acre” claim, the models with real Canadian parts supply, the ramp-up period — our full propane mosquito trap guide for Canada covers it in depth. This page is deliberately about the money.
Electric lure traps: cheaper to feed, tethered to a cord
The lure-based CO2 traps — the BG-Mosquitaire family and its relatives — take a different approach to the same problem. Instead of manufacturing CO2 by combustion, they combine a scent lure with an airflow design and, on the models that support it, an external CO2 source. That changes the cost curve completely, because the scent lures are rated in months rather than weeks. Most owners buy two or three across a Canadian season, not seven, which is why the consumables land around $80 to $200 instead of $500.
The trade is the cord. These machines need an outdoor receptacle within reach of where the trap actually belongs, which is rarely beside the house. That means a proper outdoor-rated extension cord and, if the run crosses a walkway or sits exposed, a weatherproof cover for the connection. Do not solve this with an indoor cord and a plastic bag — a wet connection on a lawn is an electrical hazard, and outdoor receptacles are required to be GFCI-protected for exactly this reason.
Electricity is not the expensive part
People assume a machine that runs 24 hours a day for five months must be punishing the hydro bill. It is not. Most plug-in mosquito traps draw between 10 and 45 watts — less than a lot of patio string lights. Run a 20-watt trap continuously from May 1 to September 30 and that is 3,672 hours, or about 73 kWh. Ontario residential electricity, all-in with delivery, generally lands somewhere in the 10 to 20 cents per kWh range depending on your rate plan and when you use power, so the entire season costs roughly $7 to $15.
Do the same maths on a 40-watt bug zapper and you get about 147 kWh, or $15 to $30 for the summer. Cheap. The problem with zappers was never the hydro — it is what ends up in the tray, which our honest look at whether bug zappers work in Canada goes through properly. A trap that costs $20 a season to run and catches mostly moths is not a bargain.
The consumables you will actually buy
This is the shopping list nobody hands you at the register. Buy the season in May: Canadian stock on lures, nets and bulbs thins out badly by August, which is exactly when you need them.
| Item | How often | Season quantity | Buy |
|---|---|---|---|
| 20 lb propane cylinder (refill) | Every ~3 weeks running | 6–7 refills | Check price → |
| Octenol attractant cartridge | Every ~3 weeks | 7 cartridges | Check price → |
| Lurex attractant cartridge | Every ~3 weeks | Alternative to octenol | Check price → |
| Replacement net / catch bag (propane) | When full or torn | 2–3 per season | Check price → |
| BG-style scent lure refill | Every ~2 months | 2–3 per season | Check price → |
| UV replacement bulb (hybrid traps) | Roughly annually | 1 per year | Check price → |
| Outdoor-rated extension cord | One-time | 1 | Check price → |
| Weatherproof cord / outlet cover | One-time | 1 | Check price → |
| Outdoor timer or weatherproof smart plug | One-time | 1 (optional) | Check price → |
A note on the timer, since it looks like the obvious way to cut the fuel bill: it is not, on a CO2 trap. It is genuinely useful on a UV hybrid, where the catch is concentrated at dusk and overnight and the machine is not trying to suppress a population. On a propane or lure trap, a timer just buys you gaps for the mosquitoes to refill.
The mistake most Canadian buyers make
Three of them, honestly, and they all cost money rather than performance.
- Buying a machine with no Canadian supply chain. Several traps that review well in the United States are not reliably stocked here, and neither are their lures, nets or bulbs. A trap you cannot feed in August is a $600 lawn ornament. Check that the consumables ship to Canada before you check the machine price.
- Rationing the fuel. Switching the trap off on weekdays, or for a two-week vacation in July, is the single most common way people waste the money they already spent. The population you knocked down comes back, and the next tank starts from zero.
- Sizing for the property instead of the pressure. Coverage claims assume open, low-wind ground. A fenced suburban lot with a neighbour’s untreated yard on either side keeps restocking faster than one machine draws down — so you pay flagship running costs for entry-level results.
When the cheaper option is the right call
We are an operator, not a manufacturer, so we will say the unpopular thing plainly: on a small fenced GTA lot, a trap of any price is usually the wrong purchase, and the running cost is the reason. You are committing $350 to $550 a year in consumables to slowly thin a population that is being topped up over the fence every night. That budget buys a full season of professional treatments outright.
The cheaper option is genuinely correct in several situations. If you want relief for a single evening — a party, a wedding, a long weekend — nothing in the trap category helps, because traps work over four to eight weeks. If your problem is one seating area rather than a whole yard, airflow and mesh cost a fraction of a trap and work instantly. And if your property is a standard suburban lot, a licensed barrier treatment covers the entire yard within hours for less than a season of propane.
Where a trap genuinely earns its fuel bill is rural and cottage acreage: an open property backing onto marsh, pond or bush, where there is no fence line to spray and the mosquito pressure is structural rather than seasonal. That is the buyer we would hand a propane machine to without hesitation. If you are still comparing the whole category rather than the cost of feeding it, our best mosquito trap in Canada guide ranks the machines themselves, and the CO2 mosquito trap explainer covers how the attraction actually works.
Break-even: when does a trap pay for itself?
Run the numbers over more than one summer and the picture shifts, which is the fair thing to say. Year one on a propane trap is $750 to $1,700 all-in. Year two is only the consumables, so $350 to $550. A lure trap goes from $440–$915 down to $80–$200. Against a $994 Standard Season program, a lure trap crosses over sometime in year two or three, and a propane trap on a big rural property gets there eventually too.
Two things keep that from being the whole story. The first is that a trap and a barrier treatment are not doing the same job — one thins a population over weeks in the zone around itself, the other clears a defined yard within hours and holds for a month. The second is ticks. No mosquito trap ever built intercepts a tick, because ticks do not fly to a CO2 plume; they climb vegetation and wait. If your property has a wood line, a long-grass edge or a ravine behind it, the trap budget does nothing about the actual health risk, and that gap does not close in year five.
Winter: the cost you can avoid entirely
Everything on this page assumes the machine survives to next May, and in Ontario that is a choice rather than a given. Disconnect the propane cylinder and store it outdoors and upright — never in a basement, garage or shed. Empty and dry the catch net so it does not mildew into the bin. Bring the machine and any lure cartridges indoors, because cartridge shelf life is real and a winter in an unheated garage is not kind to it. Pull the outdoor cord and cover in before freeze-up so the connectors are not iced into the lawn in April.
Skip that hour and the recurring cost stops being consumables and starts being a new machine, which is a far worse line item than seven tanks of propane.
The bottom line
Mosquito traps cost between roughly $30 and $550 a season to run in Canada, and the fuel decides which. Propane is the most convincing fake host and the most expensive to feed at $350 to $550 a year once you count tanks, cartridges and nets. Lure-based electric traps cut that to $80 to $200 because months-long lures beat three-week cartridges over a 22-week season. UV hybrids are cheapest at $30 to $90 and least selective about what they catch. Electricity is a rounding error at $7 to $15 either way. Buy the season consumables in May rather than in the August shortage, refill cylinders instead of exchanging them, keep a second tank so the machine never sits dark, and be honest about the property: on open acreage a trap earns its fuel bill, and on a fenced suburban lot the same money buys a full season of whole-yard treatment that also handles the ticks a trap never will.
Frequently Asked Questions
How much does it cost to run a mosquito trap for a season in Canada?
Somewhere between about $30 and $550 in consumables across a May-to-September Ontario season, depending entirely on what the machine burns. A propane CO2 trap is the expensive end: roughly 6 to 7 twenty-pound tank refills plus an attractant cartridge every three weeks lands most owners around $350 to $550. An electric lure trap of the BG-Mosquitaire type sits in the middle, because its scent lures are rated in months rather than weeks — call it $80 to $200 plus a few dollars of electricity. A UV-plus-CO2 hybrid like a DynaTrap is the cheapest to feed at roughly $30 to $90 for an optional lure and an annual bulb. Add the machine itself and the honest first-season number is $700 to $1,700 for propane, $440 to $915 for a lure trap, and $120 to $455 for a hybrid.
How much propane does a mosquito trap use over an Ontario season?
Plan on one 20 lb (9 kg) cylinder every three weeks of continuous running. An Ontario mosquito season runs roughly 22 weeks from early May to the end of September, so that is about 6 to 7 refills. At Canadian refill prices of roughly $25 to $40 a tank you are looking at $150 to $280 in fuel alone, before attractant cartridges and replacement nets. There is no way to trim it without hurting results, because the trap only works while the CO2 plume is running.
Is it cheaper to refill or exchange a propane tank in Ontario?
Refilling is cheaper per pound, and it is the option that matters when you are burning seven tanks a summer. Exchange cages at Canadian Tire, Home Depot and most gas stations are fast and available on a Sunday evening, but they typically hand you a cylinder filled to about 15 lb rather than a full 20 — you pay a flat price for roughly three quarters of the propane. A refill counter fills to capacity and charges by volume. Over a season the gap is real money. The practical compromise most trap owners land on: keep two cylinders, refill both at a propane depot when you are passing one, and keep the exchange cage as the emergency backup so the trap never sits dark for a week in July.
How much electricity does an electric mosquito trap use?
Far less than people expect. Most plug-in mosquito traps draw somewhere between 10 and 45 watts. Run a 20-watt unit continuously from May 1 to September 30 and that is about 3,672 hours, or roughly 73 kWh. Ontario residential electricity, all-in with delivery, generally works out somewhere in the 10 to 20 cents per kWh range depending on your plan and when you use it, so the season costs about $7 to $15. A 40-watt bug zapper doubles that to roughly $15 to $30. Electricity is never the reason an electric trap is expensive — the lures and the machine are.
Do I have to buy the manufacturer lure refills?
For a propane trap you effectively do, because the cartridge has to seat in a specific holder and the ecosystem is what makes the machine serviceable in Canada. For lure-based electric traps there is more room: the scent lure and the CO2 source can sometimes be separated, and some owners feed a CO2 trap from a beverage-grade CO2 cylinder with a regulator instead of a proprietary consumable. That is a real cost saving on a big property, and it is also a project — a regulator, tubing, a fitting, and a cylinder swap every few weeks. If you want a machine you switch on and forget, buy the manufacturer refills and budget for them honestly rather than fighting the design.
Can I turn the trap off during the day to save money?
You can, and it is usually a false economy. A CO2 trap does not clear tonight — it works by removing egg-laying females so there are fewer mosquitoes four to eight weeks from now. Switching it off resets that progress every time the local population rebounds, so you spend the same money for a fraction of the effect. If the running cost only works on a part-time schedule, that is a signal the trap is the wrong tool for your property, not a scheduling problem. On a small fenced lot, a single barrier treatment from $99 does more for the money than a trap run half the time.
What is the cheapest mosquito trap to run in Canada?
A UV-plus-CO2 hybrid like the DynaTrap line, because there is no fuel and the optional scent lure is measured in months. Realistic annual feeding cost is one or two lure cartridges and a replacement UV bulb once a year — roughly $30 to $90. The catch is what it catches: UV attracts a broad mix of night-flying insects, so the selectivity for host-seeking female mosquitoes is weaker than a dedicated CO2 machine. Cheapest to run is not the same as best per dollar of relief, which is why the running-cost table on this page shows the machine price and the feed cost side by side rather than ranking on either alone.
Is a mosquito trap cheaper than professional spraying over one season?
Over a single season, usually not. A propane trap plus its consumables lands somewhere around $700 to $1,700 in year one, which is more than a full BuzzSkito Standard Season program at $994 for 10 bi-weekly treatments and far more than the $549 Basic Season. Over three or four seasons a trap can pull ahead on paper, because the machine is already bought and only the consumables recur. The catch is that the trap works slowly, covers only the zone around itself, and does nothing whatsoever for ticks — a tick program is $597 a season standalone or $497 bundled, and no trap of any price replaces it. Rural acreage is where a trap genuinely earns its fuel bill; a fenced GTA backyard usually is not.
