Starlink for Canadian cottages

Start with the cottage address

This page does not mean Starlink is available at your lake, camp, or island. Availability is address-specific. Check your address on Starlink’s official Canada site for current pricing, hardware offers, and availability.

Starlink’s Canada plans page tells you to get started so you can see the plans and speeds for your area. A plan that appears for a friend’s cottage on the next bay may be absent for yours. If an offer does not appear when you enter the address, Starlink’s Residential help article says that means it is not currently available for that location.

Use the address you would give a courier. A lot number, a fire route, or “the island” may need the closest civic address the checker will accept. The result on screen is the one that matters, not a provincial average.

Residential if it stays. Roam if it moves.

Starlink describes Residential as best for households and Roam as best for RVs, nomads, campers, and working on the go. For a cottage, translate that into where the dish will sit.

The dish lives at one registered cottage

Starlink’s Help Center describes Residential service as personal or household use at a fixed, land-based location, intended for the registered service address. It says Residential does not support roaming, and that in-motion use is not supported. All Residential plans include unlimited data. On the Canada plans page, the listed monthly prices on 9 October 2026 were:

• Residential 100 Mbps: $75/mo, select areas, download speed limited to 100 Mbps
• Residential 200 Mbps: $115/mo, select areas, download speed limited to 200 Mbps
• Residential Max: $150/mo, maximum available speeds and top Residential priority

Those are service prices from that page, treated here as before tax. They are not hardware prices. The 100 Mbps and 200 Mbps plans are only in select areas, so one of them can be missing at a cottage even when another plan is offered. A listed speed cap is a ceiling Starlink states. It is not a promise that your dock will see that number.

The dish travels between home and the lake

If you want service at more than one address, or while you are travelling, Starlink says a Roam plan is required. Roam prices listed the same day were $75/mo for 100GB, $110/mo for 300GB, and $200/mo for Unlimited. On the 100GB and 300GB plans, Starlink says you get an allotment of high-speed data, then unlimited low-speed data. This guide does not guess how many gigabytes a cottage weekend uses.

The same $75 figure shows up on Residential 100 Mbps and on Roam 100GB. They are different products. One is a fixed-address household plan with a speed cap in select areas. The other is a travel plan with a high-speed data allotment.

See the Canada pricing table for the same figures side by side.

Seasonal use and Standby Mode

A lot of Canadian cottages are quiet from freeze-up to thaw. People want to know if they can pause the bill. Here is only what Starlink prints, not a billing trick.

On the Canada service plans page, “Pause Anytime with Standby Mode” is listed as a Roam feature, not in the Residential feature list. Starlink says Standby Mode allows emergency messaging and easy reactivation in dead zones for a small monthly fee. It does not print that fee on the public plans list this guide reviewed, so this page will not invent one.

Do not assume a Residential cottage plan can be paused for the winter just because Roam mentions Standby. Confirm the option inside the account Starlink offers for your address and plan. Starlink also lists a 30-day trial on both Residential and Roam. Read their terms before you treat that as a cost-free season.

If the kit stays mounted at a registered cottage address, Residential is the family Starlink points at households. If you bring the kit back to the city, or you want it in the car between the two, that is a Roam question. Taking a Residential dish on the road is the case Starlink’s help text says is not supported.

What to expect at the property

Starlink’s setup guide says the dish needs a clear view of the sky so it can stay connected with satellites as they move overhead. A tree branch, pole, or roof that blocks that view causes service interruptions. The guide tells you to use the Starlink app’s “Check for Obstructions” tool, and to consider a roof, pole, or wall if the ground-level view is blocked. Cottage shorelines are often in that second group. Leaves in July are a different sky than a bare hardwood ridge in April, so check the view in the season you actually use the place.

Starlink lists Residential as weather resilient. That is their wording, not a promise of no outages in a lake-effect storm. The practical cottage issue the setup guide does name is obstruction.

The kit needs power. This page does not estimate watts, solar, or generator size, because the hardware offered at checkout varies and those specs belong to the kit Starlink shows you. If the cottage is off-grid or on a small inverter, read the specifications for that kit before you order. For a separate look at backup power, see Backup Power Lab.

Hardware cost and hardware offers vary by address. Check them in official Starlink Canada checkout. Marc’s CA$140 referral is cash or Starlink service credit when you sign up through his link. It is not a discount off a kit price this site can quote, because this site does not quote kit prices.