The tariffs are costing you money. So is every market you have never sold to. We find both — and we build what it takes to fix them.
In force since Monday 8 September. Canada’s counter-tariffs are live on more than 700 US products — $27.6 billion of imports at rates up to 50%. Packaging, dairy, appliances, clothing, electronics, steel, pulp and paper, farm equipment. Talks between Ottawa and Washington have broken down. Nobody is coming to reverse this for you. What is captured →
You are a business owner, not a trade lawyer. You do not need to follow three presidential proclamations. You need to know what this does to your costs, your customers and your next quarter — and what to do about it on Monday morning.
And there is a second question almost nobody is asking, which over five years matters more than the first one: who else in the world would buy what you make?
If there was ever a year to leave nothing on the table, it is this one
Most Canadian businesses have spent decades pointed at one customer — the market next door, because it was close, rich and easy. That was a reasonable bet right up until it wasn’t. Roughly three-quarters of everything Canada exports goes to the United States, and this year that concentration stopped being convenient and started being the problem.
The businesses that come out of this in better shape than they went in are the ones that use the disruption as cover to do the things they have been putting off for years: fix the website, get found by people who are actually looking, open a market that does not care what Washington decides, and stop doing by hand what a computer should be doing.
The offer
The New Markets Review
We take your business apart on paper, find exactly what the tariffs are quietly costing you, and map the customers outside the United States who would buy from you tomorrow. Then we tell you what to build to reach them — and we can build it.
What it looks like in practice
Worked example · a four-person company making fridge magnets
A heat press, a laminator, a Shopify store and about 12,000 orders a year. Magnets sell for $12 to $18. Eighty per cent of the revenue comes from American customers, one parcel at a time. Here is what we found.
Small parcels stopped being cheap. The US exemption that let low-value shipments cross without a formal entry is gone. Every order now clears customs properly and carries a processing fee — on a manual entry, around US$7.85. On a $14 magnet, that fee is not a rounding error. It is the margin.
The inputs moved too. Corrugated mailers and poly bags are on Canada’s counter-tariff list at 50%, and so is a good deal of what goes into the product. Nobody in this business was costing packaging as a tariff-exposed input.
And nobody had checked the code. The US measure covers 554 specific tariff lines, not categories — a product one line away from a listed code is untouched. Until someone reads the actual classification, this company does not know whether its own product is captured. That is finding number one.
Then the other half. Eighty per cent of the revenue depends on one country that just made every small parcel more expensive to ship into. Europe is 98% duty-free for Canadian goods under CETA. Japan buys gifts and souvenirs at a premium and already thinks well of Canada. Australia and New Zealand need no translation at all, and their Christmas falls in this company’s deadest quarter.
What we would build:
- Reorder alerts on magnet sheet, vinyl and mailers tied to actual burn rate, so it stops paying rush freight to cover a stockout.
- Real landed cost shown at checkout, so American buyers stop abandoning carts and stop being billed at their door.
- Consolidated shipping, so fifty orders clear as one entry instead of fifty separate ones.
- German and Japanese storefronts built around what buyers there actually search for — not a translated copy of the English one.
- Automatic follow-up that turns a one-time souvenir buyer into a repeat customer instead of a single transaction.
None of that is exotic. It is a week or two of work each, and it is the difference between a business that survives a bad year and one that comes out of it selling on four continents.
See a complete worked example, unredacted → — we built a full review for a fictional Nanaimo sushi counter and published every artifact, so you can see exactly what arrives.
How this reaches you, even if you never cross a border
Step 1 · The policy
The US puts heavy duties on a long list of Canadian goods. Canada answers with its own on American goods.
Step 2 · The middle
Your distributors pay more and pass it on. Exporters in your region shed jobs. Households tighten up.
Step 3 · Your business
Your costs rise. Your foot traffic thins. And your prices were set months ago.
You never see a customs bill. You see it on the supplier invoice and in the till.
Two halves of the same job
Stop the leak
We go through what you buy, line by line, and find what is captured — including the things nobody thinks of as imported, like your packaging, your cleaning supplies, your replacement parts.
Then the money side: which federal support you qualify for, whether relief or remission applies to you, and where your prices need to move before the margin goes.
Open the door
Then the more interesting half. Where else does this sell? Canada already has trade agreements covering the European Union, Japan, Australia, New Zealand and the United Kingdom — agreements most owners have never used, that cut tariffs to zero on the great majority of goods.
We work out which of those markets actually fits what you make, and what it would genuinely take to reach a buyer there.
Where else in the world would buy this?
Four doors that are already open to you, and that almost nothing you read about tariffs bothers to mention.
Europe
Under CETA, 98% of EU tariff lines are duty-free for Canadian goods. Nearly 450 million people. The honest version of what it takes.
Japan
Canada already sells Japan around $10 billion a year. Under the CPTPP, beef tariffs fall from 38.5%, and seafood and wood went to zero.
Australia & New Zealand
English-speaking, same contract law instincts, no language barrier. Industrial tariffs phased out under the CPTPP.
Getting found there
A market you cannot be found in is not a market. What it actually takes to show up in search in another country and language.
Start here: where else would buy this? →
What we do
1
We research your business, not the topic
A deep AI-assisted dive across your products, suppliers, competitors and target markets — then a human checks every finding against the actual schedules and throws out what is wrong.
2
We build you something you keep
A private AI knowledge base trained on your own website, invoices, catalogues and contracts. Ask it anything in plain language and check where the answer came from. It is yours after we leave.
3
We tell you what to build — and can build it
A scoped plan with real hour estimates. A site that sells in three languages, an export funnel, better sourcing, automated admin, or the system you have been putting off for four years.
What lands in your inbox
The written review
Your exposure and your openings, costed.
Private AI notebook
Trained on your business. Yours to keep.
Slide deck
For the partner, lender or landlord.
One-page infographic
The whole picture, on the wall.
Video overview
Get the team aligned, no meeting.
Audio overview
Listen to it on the drive in.
Before you spend anything, check what you are owed
Ottawa has put $7.5 billion behind tariff-hit businesses and workers. Non-repayable contributions up to $3 million. Working capital loans from $250,000. EI flexibility so you do not have to lay people off. There is also a remission process now open for businesses whose inputs genuinely cannot be bought anywhere but the United States.
Almost nobody we speak to has heard of any of it, so we wrote it all down. We do not run these programs and we take nothing from them. Every program, in plain English → · How remission works →
Get yours
Tell us how you are tied to US trade. We start within 48 hours.
Start Your Review
Choose Your Tier
Start with your industry
The exposure looks different in a kitchen than it does in a warehouse. Pick yours.
Construction & trades
Restaurants & bars
Manufacturing & assembly
Logistics & freight
Warehousing & 3PL
Grocery & local retail
Agriculture & farming
Auto repair & fleets
Medical & wellness clinics
Veterinary clinics
Professional services
Real estate & property
Tech startups
Event production & AV
InfiniteUp is a four-person software studio in Nanaimo, BC. 40+ apps shipped, 60,000+ installs, 117 countries. See our work.
Under real pressure and the fee is a problem? Email tariffhelp@infiniteup.dev and we will sort something out.
The fridge magnet company is an illustration, not a client. Every tariff fact in it is real. Operational and strategic guidance from a software studio, not legal, customs, or tax advice — confirm your tariff classification and duty liability with a licensed customs broker. Last reviewed 11 September 2026.