Panel upgrade cost is the question people most want answered before they call, and the honest answer is a range, because five things move it and every house holds a different hand of them. Here is what those five are, so a quote makes sense when you get one.
The five things that set panel upgrade cost
Where you are starting from. Replacing a breaker panel with a bigger breaker panel is the simple end. Replacing a fuse panel, or a 60 amp service with cloth-insulated feeders, means more of the surrounding equipment comes with it, and the price follows.
The service size you are going to. The jump from 100 to 200 amps is not just a bigger panel. It usually means a new meter base, a new mast, and larger conductors between them, because everything upstream of the panel has to be rated for what the panel can now draw.
The mast and meter base. If they are corroded, bent, or simply too small for the new service, they are replaced in the same job. On the coast this is common, and it is better done once with the power already off than as a second visit.
What people forget to price in
Access. A panel in an open, dry basement wall is a different day than a panel buried behind a finished laundry room, and a service entrance that the utility can reach easily is a different day than one that needs a bucket truck in a tight driveway.
What the inspection finds. A service change is permitted and inspected work, and grounding and bonding are brought to current code as part of it. In older houses that can add ground rods, bonding to water lines, and the occasional surprise where a previous owner improvised. None of it is optional once seen.
The circuits you are really doing this for. Most people upgrade a panel to get something else: a heat pump circuit, an EV charger, a basement suite. Pricing the upgrade without the circuit that motivated it understates the real project.
Ballpark, and why we hesitate to print one
Publicly quoted ranges in the Maritimes for a straightforward 100 amp panel swap tend to start around the low thousands, with a full 60-to-200 amp service change, mast and meter included, running to several times that. We print it reluctantly: two houses on the same street can land far apart, and the quote that matters is the one written after someone has opened your panel door.
What we can promise about the quote itself: it is itemised, the permit and inspection are in it, and if the load calculation says you do not need the size you asked about, we will say so and quote the smaller job.
How to get a real number
Send a photograph of your panel with the door open, the main breaker or fuse block visible, and one of the meter outside. That is usually enough to quote a panel upgrade within a tight range, and it takes you five minutes.
What the permit and the inspection add
Two things that belong in a quote and are sometimes left out of one, which is the most common reason two quotes for the same job look different.
Service and panel work is permitted, inspected work in this province, and only a certified electrician can pull the permit at all. The inspection is booked through Nova Scotia Power, and the utility also has to disconnect and reconnect the service, which is scheduling rather than an invoice line but it is the reason a service change is a booked job and not a same day one. How the whole process runs is on the electrical permits and inspections page.
When you compare two numbers, check that both include the permit, the inspection and the utility coordination. If one of them does not, you are not comparing the same job.
Why nobody will give you a number over the phone
Because the honest answer depends on things nobody can see from the driveway, and a number given without looking is either padded to cover the worst case or it is going to change.
What actually moves the panel upgrade cost is the service size you are going to, the condition and position of the mast and meter base, where the panel lives and what is in front of it, what the existing circuits are made of, and what the inspection turns up. Those are set out in more detail on the panel upgrade page.
An electrician who quotes a service change sight unseen is guessing about at least three of them. We would rather look, and looking is free.