Sell products to businesses and earn commission on every deal. No degree required, but you need thick skin.
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Pay, the path, pros and cons and the facts on one printable page. Counsellors: send it to a student from your own email in one click.
Programs in the fields this career usually comes through. Each has its own page: what it takes to get in, the courses you need and what it costs.
The median pay is about $66,000 a year. Across everyone in the job it runs from about $40,000 at the lower end to about $117,000 at the upper end. The source is listed under Sources at the end of this page.
Up to 4 years, on the usual route, and you are paid while you train from the first day.
From nothing up to about $48,000, depending on the route, for tuition, fees, exams and kit. Living costs are not counted.
No. There is no licence to hold, though many employers still ask for training or a certificate.
Moderate demand nationally, from government outlook data. Demand varies by region, so check your area.
Or read the whole thing here
What you earn and what it costs to get there.
Median
$66,000
Lower end
$40,000
Upper end
$117,000
Job Bank's national median is $31.50 an hour, about $66,000 a year at 40 hours a week. The lower end ($19.23) and upper end ($56.23) are the bottom and top of the wage range for everyone in the group. The group is sales and account representatives in wholesale trade (Job Bank's page is titled for import sales reps, one job in the group).
$33.65 an hour
Job Bank's median in British Columbia and Saskatchewan, about $70,000 a year
Alberta is next at $33. Ontario ($31.25) and Quebec ($31.45) sit near the national median. Newfoundland and Labrador is lowest at $24.04. Commission can add a lot on top of these wages.
Uncapped at many companies
Experienced reps who hit their targets
Pay is often a base salary plus commission. Miss your target and you earn the base. Beat it and there is often no cap.
Roughly, all in
Nothing to $48,000
Tuition, fees, exams and kit. Not rent, food or travel
Zero is the common route. Plenty of reps move straight across from retail or customer service and learn the product on the job, and your results become the credential. The high end is a four year business or marketing degree, useful in technical and pharmaceutical sales but not required anywhere. A two or three year college diploma is the middle option at roughly 8,000 to 24,000 dollars. Field sales usually needs a car and a phone, which employers commonly help with, so that is left out of these numbers.
From $0 with no school up to about $48,000 for a four year degree. No credential is required: your results are the credential.
Commission and bonuses
Uncapped at many companies.
Car allowance or company car
Standard for reps who visit clients.
Health and dental
Job Bank reports that 88.9% of people in this group get at least one non-wage benefit.
Trips and prizes
Top sellers often win paid trips. It sounds cheesy, and it is real.
The exact path from high school to qualified.
There is no fixed route. Most reps learn on the job and move up by hitting targets.
High school
Grades 11 and 12
Any part-time job that puts you in front of customers counts: retail, phones, fundraising.
Post-secondary, optional
0 to 4 years
A 2 or 3-year college diploma in business or marketing, or a business degree. Technical fields (software, medical, industrial) like reps who understand the product.
Entry sales job
1 to 2 years
Inside sales, sales development or a junior account role. You learn the product, the pitch and the CRM (customer relationship management) software.
Full territory or account list
By year 3
Your own clients and your own target. Commission starts to matter.
Senior rep, key accounts or sales manager
5 or more years
The best sellers either keep selling for big commissions or move into managing a team.
English
Emails, proposals, presentations.
Business and marketing
Pricing, margins, how companies buy.
Math
Quotes, discounts and commission math.
Drama or debate
Talking to strangers with confidence is the job.
No licence is needed to sell most products to businesses. The exceptions are regulated products: insurance, mortgages, investments and real estate each need their own provincial licence. Voluntary designations exist, such as the Canadian Marketing Association's Chartered Marketer program, but employers rarely ask for them.
Quebec offers short public vocational programs in sales, alongside the college and university routes.
Finish Secondary V
Age 16 or 17
Any part-time job with customers counts. Vocational sales programs take students straight from high school.
DEP (Diploma of Vocational Studies) in Professional Sales
10 to 13 months
Program 5821, or Vente-conseil (5321) in French. 900 hours on selling, customer service and the laws on sales. In English at St. Pius X Career Centre in Montreal.
ASP (Attestation of Vocational Specialization) in Sales Representation
5 to 7 months
Program 5823, or Représentation (5323) in French. 450 hours on territories, prospecting and wholesale selling. Open to DEP holders or people already working in a related job.
Or a DEC (Diploma of College Studies) or a degree
3 to 5 years
The 3 year Business Administration and Management Techniques DEC (410.G0) at a CEGEP (public college), or a business degree after a 2 year pre-university DEC.
Entry sales job, then your own territory
Varies
Inside sales or a junior account role first, then your own clients and target.
Businesses in Quebec must inform and serve customers in French. When you sell to consumers, standard contracts they cannot negotiate, invoices and order forms must be given in French. A contract can be in another language only if a French version was offered first and stays available.
Things you don't need, but that help.
Sell something technical
Software, medical devices, industrial machinery. Bigger deals mean bigger commissions.
Key account management
Owning a company's biggest customers.
Sales engineering
For reps with a technical background who can demo and design solutions.
Sales management
Running a team. Steadier pay, less commission.
A second language
French for national accounts, Mandarin or Punjabi for many regional markets.
Driver's licence and clean record
Required for field sales.
CRM (customer relationship management) software skills
Salesforce or HubSpot. Online training at no cost exists.
Day to day, pros and cons, where you'd work.
Start with the pipeline: who is close to buying, who went quiet. Calls and emails to new prospects, most of which go nowhere. A demo or a client visit mid-day. Writing a quote, chasing a purchase order, fixing a delivery problem for an existing customer. Field reps spend hours driving between clients. Inside reps live on the phone and video calls. The month ends with a push to hit the number.
The good
The hard parts
Things people don't tell you.
Job Bank reports that about 40% of wholesale sales reps in Canada are 50 or older, and the median retirement age is 66. As they retire, companies need younger reps to take over their client lists.
Job Bank counts about 240,900 wholesale sales and account reps working in Canada in 2023, which makes it one of the country's larger job groups. Every industry that sells to other businesses needs them.
Job Bank rates the next three years as moderate for sales reps in all nine provinces outside New Brunswick, where it is good. No province is rated limited.
Every list is built from the same numbers shown above, so you can see where this career sits next to the others.
Marketing and sales first, then the rest of the field. See every career in business and money.
Last checked October 2026. Pay figures are typical full-time annual amounts in Canadian dollars, based on Government of Canada Job Bank wage data and published salary grids. They vary by province, employer and experience. Tuition is for domestic students. How every figure on this site is sourced and checked.
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