Bitcoin Mining Profitability in Canada: How to Calculate It
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Network figures in this guide are a snapshot taken on October 9, 2026 from mempool.space. They change every block, so rerun the numbers before you buy anything.
Most "profitability calculators" give you one number and hide the assumptions behind it. That number is usually wrong within weeks, because the inputs move: Bitcoin's price, network difficulty, transaction fees and, for Canadian miners, an electricity rate that may be about to change. This guide walks through the method instead, so you can check any miner, any quote and any power contract yourself. We use four SHA-256 machines we carry as worked examples.
The four numbers that decide everything
A Bitcoin ASIC's daily result comes down to four inputs. Two describe the machine and two describe the world around it.
- Hashrate (TH/s). How many trillion SHA-256 hashes the miner does per second. This is what you are paid for.
- Efficiency (J/TH). Joules of electricity per terahash. Lower is better. Hashrate multiplied by efficiency gives the power draw in watts.
- Hashprice. What the network pays for one unit of hashrate per day, usually quoted in USD per PH/s per day. It bundles Bitcoin's price, difficulty, the block subsidy and fees into one figure.
- Your all-in power cost ($/kWh). Not just the energy line on the bill, but demand charges, delivery, taxes and, if you host, the hosting rate.
Everything else, including pool fees, downtime and cooling overhead, is a correction applied to these four.
Step 1: Work out hashprice from network data
Since the April 2024 halving, each block pays a subsidy of 3.125 BTC, plus whatever transaction fees are in the block. The network targets one block about every ten minutes, or 144 a day. Your share of that reward is your hashrate divided by the network's hashrate, and difficulty is the cleanest way to express the network's size.
The expected BTC per TH/s per day is:
BTC per TH/day = 86,400 Γ 1012 Γ block reward Γ· (difficulty Γ 232)
On October 9, 2026, mempool.space showed a difficulty of about 132.7 trillion, network hashrate near 988 EH/s, and average fees over the past week of roughly 0.021 BTC per block. Plugging in a reward of 3.146 BTC (subsidy plus average fees) gives about 0.000000477 BTC per TH/s per day. At the same snapshot's price of about US$82,280 (C$116,950), that is a hashprice of roughly US$39 per PH/s per day, or about C$0.056 per TH/s per day.
Two things to note. Fees were only about 0.7% of the reward in that week, so the subsidy does nearly all the work. And the same page estimated the next difficulty adjustment at about +4.8%, which would cut hashprice by roughly the same share if price stays flat. Hashprice is a moving target, and over time it has tended to drift down as more efficient machines join the network.
Step 2: Turn hashprice into revenue for a specific miner
Multiply hashprice by the miner's hashrate, then take off your pool fee. We use 2% below as an example; check your pool's actual terms.
Daily revenue = hashprice Γ TH/s Γ (1 β pool fee)
For the Bitmain Antminer S23 (318 TH/s), that is C$0.0558 Γ 318 Γ 0.98, or about C$17.40 a day in gross revenue at the snapshot.
Step 3: Work out the power cost
Daily kWh = watts Γ 24 Γ· 1,000
The S23 draws 3,498 W, so it uses about 84 kWh a day. At 10Β’/kWh that is C$8.40; at 20Β’/kWh it is C$16.80. The gap between those two figures is the whole story of mining in Canada right now.
The most useful single number this produces is the break-even electricity rate: daily revenue divided by daily kWh. Above that rate, the machine costs more to run than it earns, before you even count the hardware.
Worked examples: four SHA-256 miners at today's hashprice
Specs and power draw come from our product listings. Revenue uses the October 9 snapshot above with a 2% pool fee. Margins are before hardware cost, hosting markup, cooling overhead and downtime.
| Miner | TH/s | Watts | J/TH | Revenue/day (C$) | Break-even (Β’/kWh, CAD) | Margin/day at 11.1Β’ | Margin/day at 19.5Β’ |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Bitmain Antminer S23 (air) | 318 | 3,498 | 11.0 | 17.38 | 20.7 | +8.02 | +1.01 |
| Bitmain Antminer S21j XP Hyd (hydro) | 495 | 5,940 | 12.0 | 27.05 | 19.0 | +11.16 | β0.75 |
| Canaan Avalon A16XP-300T (air) | 300 | 3,850 | 12.8 | 16.39 | 17.7 | +6.10 | β1.62 |
| MicroBT WhatsMiner M7D (hydro) | 634 | 9,200 | 14.5 | 34.64 | 15.7 | +10.04 | β8.41 |
What the table shows:
- Efficiency sets the break-even rate, not hashrate. The M7D earns the most per day because it has the most hashrate, but at 14.5 J/TH it is the first to go underwater as power gets expensive. The S23's 11 J/TH gives it the highest break-even rate of the four.
- Hashrate density matters for facilities. If you are limited by rack space or container slots rather than power price, a high-hashrate hydro unit like the Antminer S21j XP Hyd earns more per slot, and hydro cooling runs at about 50 dB versus 75 dB for air units. It also needs a cooling loop, so factor that in.
- At around 19.5Β’/kWh, almost nothing works. That figure isn't arbitrary, as the next section explains.
Why the Canadian power rate deserves its own line
Electricity is where Canadian mining economics are shifting fastest, and Quebec is the clearest example. Under Hydro-QuΓ©bec's current Rate CB, which covers blockchain loads of at least 50 kW, authorized energy in the 2026 tariff is priced at 6.292Β’/kWh for the first 210,000 kWh a month and 4.666Β’ after that, while consumption above authorized demand is billed at 18.767Β’/kWh, according to the utility's 2026 rates chart.
In 2026, Hydro-QuΓ©bec proposed revising Rate CB to an average of about 19.5Β’/kWh, with a three-year transitional rate for existing customers. The proposal is subject to approval by the RΓ©gie de l'Γ©nergie, Quebec's energy regulator, so treat it as a scenario, not a settled rate. Run against our table, a 19.5Β’ all-in rate leaves only the most efficient air-cooled unit barely above break-even before hardware costs.
For home miners, the residential side matters too. Hydro-QuΓ©bec's 2026 Rate D charges 7.065Β’/kWh for the first 40 kWh a day and 11.142Β’/kWh after that. A single S23 uses about 84 kWh a day on its own, so most of its consumption would land in the higher tier. That is why we used 11.1Β’ in the table. Rates in other provinces differ, so use your own bill, not ours.
Step 4: Add the costs calculators usually leave out
- Uptime. Curtailment periods, firmware updates and failed hashboards all reduce real hashrate. Model 95% or lower until you have your own data.
- Cooling overhead. Fans, pumps, dry coolers and air handling add load beyond the miner's nameplate watts.
- Demand charges. Commercial bills often include a per-kW charge that can move the effective rate by several cents.
- Currency. Revenue is effectively earned in BTC and priced in USD, while Canadian power bills are in CAD. A weaker loonie helps revenue in CAD terms; a stronger one hurts.
- Hardware payback. Simple payback is hardware cost divided by daily margin, but it assumes today's hashprice holds. If difficulty rises, as it is expected to at the next adjustment, real payback is longer. Treat any static payback figure as a best case, not a forecast.
Home, hosted or containerised?
If your marginal power rate sits near the break-even column, the choice of where you run a machine matters more than which machine you buy. Air-cooled units at 75 dB and 3.5 to 4 kW are not a fit for most homes without dedicated circuits, ventilation and noise isolation. Hydro units are quieter but need a cooling loop. Many buyers compare a hosting quote against their own all-in rate using exactly the break-even method above. You can see what we offer on our hosting page, or browse the full Bitcoin SHA-256 miner collection and plug each model's TH/s and watts into the same formulas.
FAQ
What is a good J/TH for a Bitcoin miner in 2026?
There is no universal cutoff, because it depends on your power price. Use the break-even formula: the lower your all-in rate, the less efficiency matters. Among the units in this guide, 11 to 12 J/TH held up best at higher rates.
Why does every calculator give a different answer?
They use different prices, difficulty snapshots, fee assumptions and pool fees, and some ignore hosting or cooling. Check which inputs a calculator uses before you trust its output.
Does the next difficulty adjustment change these numbers?
Yes. A difficulty increase cuts BTC earned per TH/s roughly in proportion. On October 9, the next adjustment was estimated at about +4.8%.
Is mining legal in Canada?
Mining is legal, but utilities and provinces can set special rates, connection limits or moratoriums for crypto loads. Quebec's Rate CB shows how this works in practice, so check your province's utility and regulator before you plan a deployment.
Not financial advice; mining profits are not guaranteed. Figures above are a point-in-time illustration using public network data and our listed specs. Bitcoin's price, difficulty, fees and electricity rates all change, and real results depend on uptime, hosting terms and costs not modelled here.