Google Flights vs Skyscanner for Canada (2026)
Both are free flight search tools and both are good at what they do. The honest comparison for a Canadian is about how each one searches, what they state about hotels, and which one fits how you like to look. One thing neither of them does, though: neither plans the trip. They find the fare; the hotels, the days, the food budget and the transit are still yours to work out. We sell a service that does that part, and it appears below as a third option, catch included.
The comparison table
Same rows on every page, so you can compare across our comparisons. Competitor facts are from each company's own site; the date under each cell is when we checked it.
| Google Flights | Skyscanner | EhBudgetTravels | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Price (CAD) | Free to searchchecked 2026-10-06 | Not stated on their site | CA$5/mo or CA$39/yr |
| What you get | Google Flights is a flight search tool from Google for finding and booking flights worldwide and tracking prices.checked 2026-10-06 | Not stated on their site | Finished 5-10 day trip plans: flights, real hotel options, a day-by-day itinerary and an itemized per-person budget. |
| Free trial | Not stated on their site | Not stated on their site | 30 days free, card required |
| Hotels | yeschecked 2026-10-06 | Not stated on their site | Yes |
| Itinerary | Not stated on their site | Not stated on their site | Yes |
| Human review | Not stated on their site | Not stated on their site | Yes |
| Mobile app | Not stated on their site | Not stated on their site | No |
| Canadian airports | yeschecked 2026-10-06 | Not stated on their site | Yes, 15 Canadian origin airports |
US dollar prices converted at 1.4226 USD/CAD, Bank of Canada rate from 2026-10-06. Original prices are shown alongside. Our own prices are in CAD as charged.
How each one works
Google Flights
Google Flights is a flight search tool from Google for finding and booking flights worldwide and tracking prices. checked 2026-10-06
What it does well: Strong price-comparison and tracking tools: date grid, price graph, price insights/history, and price-drop alerts for tracked routes.
The catch: Displayed fares exclude optional charges and bag fees, which may apply on top of the shown price.
Skyscanner
Not stated on their site
EhBudgetTravels
(Disclosure: this is our product.)
We are a third option, not a party to this comparison. We take a cheap flight from a Canadian airport and publish the finished 5-10 day trip around it: hotel options with real nightly prices, a day-by-day plan, an itemized per-person budget. Checked by a person before it publishes.
The catch: we don't send fare alerts and there's no mobile app. We publish finished trips, not route watchers.
Here is the honest bridge: Google Flights and Skyscanner answer "is this fare cheap?". Neither answers "what does the whole trip cost, where do I stay, what do I do on day three?". That second question is the one we work on: we take a cheap flight and publish the finished trip around it, hotels and daily budget included, checked by a person.
If you like searching yourself, keep using whichever tool you prefer. Ours is a paid product with a 30-day trial, and its catch is the same as ever: we do not send fare alerts, we plan trips.
Where each one wins
Google Flights wins on search depth and price tracking for the routes you already know. If you have a destination and dates, it is hard to beat for seeing the fare landscape fast.
Skyscanner wins on breadth of search sources and its everywhere/anywhere browsing, which suits travellers who know they want to go somewhere cheap but not where. It also serves Canadian travellers a local domain with local pricing.
Both are free, which neither of our paid options above can claim. Use them for what they are for.
How we ranked these
- Total price in CAD. What the whole thing costs a Canadian, converted at the rate shown, not the headline number in US dollars.
- Verifiable on their own site. Every fact in our tables carries the date we checked it. If their site doesn't state it, we write "Not stated on their site" rather than guess.
- What comes after the flight. A cheap ticket is only part of a trip.
- Usable from Canada. Whether a Canadian traveller can actually use it: departure airports served, and whether it shows prices a Canadian can pay.
Where we lose: we don't send fare alerts, we don't cover every route, and we publish fewer items per week than any deal-email service. If your question is "watch my route", we are not your answer.
Real trips we've published
Live from our trip list, same packages anyone can browse on /trips. These are the finished plans the comparison above keeps referring to.
FAQ
Which is better for finding cheap flights in Canada, Google Flights or Skyscanner?
They search differently rather than better or worse. Google Flights is stronger on a known route with flexible dates; Skyscanner is stronger on browsing everywhere for the cheapest option. Both are free, so trying the same trip on both costs you five minutes and nothing else.
Are Google Flights and Skyscanner free?
Both are free to search. How each one earns money is its own business model (advertising and referrals, broadly); the price row in the table shows what each states, with the date we checked.
Do Google Flights or Skyscanner include hotels?
Both have hotel search; what their own sites state is in the table with check dates. Hotel search is not the same as a planned stay: neither picks your neighbourhood, prices your nights into a trip budget or tells you if the deal hotel is an hour from anything.
Which should Canadian travellers use, Google Flights or Skyscanner?
Use both if you are not sure: search your route on Google Flights, browse everywhere on Skyscanner, book the fare you like. Then the real work starts, the part after the ticket.
What do Google Flights and Skyscanner not do?
Neither plans the trip. A fare is one line of a budget; the hotel, the food, the transit between them and a day plan are the rest, and no search tool does that. Our service covers that second half; a deal-alert service covers watching for fares. Those are the gaps, stated plainly.