Canada Digital Adoption Program: closed, and what to do now

The Canada Digital Adoption Program is closed. On February 19, 2024, BDC stated that Boost Your Business Technology was no longer accepting new applications. Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada (ISED) records that both Grow Your Business Online and Boost Your Business Technology concluded on 31 March 2025. The old program pages on ised-isde.canada.ca now leave the program site and send visitors to the department home page. This guide sets out the historical grant and loan amounts in Canadian dollars, what a signed agreement still means, and how to write a digital adoption plan on your own budget.

What the Canada Digital Adoption Program was

Budget 2021 announced CDAP as a four-year initiative covering 2021-22 through 2024-25. An October 2021 ISED privacy impact assessment described it as a CAD 1.4 billion initiative with two streams. That assessment said the program would target up to 160,000 businesses and include training opportunities for up to 28,000 young people. Treat the CAD 1.4 billion figure as the envelope described at the announcement stage. It is a 2021 design number, and it is separate from later grant totals.

The same 2021 assessment split the work. Stream 1 would be delivered by third parties and would give micro-grants for e-commerce adoption, plus young people to help build e-commerce capability. Stream 2 would fund digital advisory services, zero-interest loans from BDC for implementation, and subsidized student placements. Those two designs later carried the public names Grow Your Business Online and Boost Your Business Technology.

ISED's 2023-24 Departmental Results Report says CDAP supported 58,000 small Canadian businesses through both streams and provided over CAD 42.2 million in grants. That grant figure belongs to the 2023-24 results narrative. It is combined across both streams, and it is a reported year of activity in that report.

The public program site is gone. The old CDAP home, the Boost Your Business Technology grant page, the program guide, and the about page now redirect to the ISED department home site. A search result that still points at those URLs will not show amounts, deadlines, or a plan template.

What each stream paid while it was open

Every figure in this section is historical. The streams are closed, and these amounts describe what the program paid while applications and agreements were still in force. As of November 2026, BDC's CDAP page still prints the old rules, and ISED's Info Source 2025 update is the live departmental note that both streams concluded.

• Grow Your Business Online micro-grant (Amount: Up to CAD 2,400 per eligible business · What it covered: E-commerce technology costs for consumer-facing businesses, plus support from e-commerce advisors)
• Boost Your Business Technology advisory grant (Amount: 90% of the eligible advisory cost, to a maximum of CAD 15,000 per SME · What it covered: A digital advisor to develop a digital adoption plan tailored to the business)
• BDC 0% loan, last fiscal-year revenue of CAD 500,000 and below CAD 5 million (Amount: CAD 25,000 to CAD 50,000 · What it covered: Implementation of recommendations in a plan recognized by Boost Your Business Technology)
• BDC 0% loan, revenue of CAD 5 million or more (Amount: CAD 25,000 to CAD 100,000 · What it covered: The same implementation use, with a cap of CAD 200,000 per borrowing group)

Grow Your Business Online amounts and the 90% advisory cap are in ISED's Info Source 2025 update. The loan bands, the five-year term, and the borrowing-group cap are on BDC's CDAP page. BDC's footnote on that page also says ISED approved the plans and paid the grant, covering 90% of the eligible advisory cost up to CAD 15,000 per SME.

Grow Your Business Online was for consumer-facing businesses adopting e-commerce technologies. ISED used regional service providers to pay the grants and to hire, train, and deploy the e-commerce advisors. Those advisors were a youth work opportunity. Boost Your Business Technology also included training and work placement opportunities for youth. Both streams included youth work or training placements.

The loan was interest-free, with a five-year term plus 12 months of capital postponement, for a total of six years. It could be used only to implement recommendations in a digital adoption plan recognized by the Boost Your Business Technology stream. A business needed at least CAD 500,000 of annual income at the last fiscal year-end. Applicants also had to meet BDC loan terms and credit-worthiness. Passing the CDAP eligibility test did not, on its own, produce a loan. BDC says a declined request is reflected in the credit score because the application is a standard loan application.

Taking the plan grant did not require the firm to take the loan. A firm had six months from ISED approval of the digital adoption plan to complete the BDC loan application. Missing that window made the firm ineligible for the loan.

Assume a firm with CAD 3 million of revenue at the last year-end, one location, and a plan ISED had approved. On the published bands, the 0% loan range for that revenue was CAD 25,000 to CAD 50,000, and only for work named in the approved plan. The advisory grant could cover 90% of the plan-writing cost up to CAD 15,000, which left the firm paying the rest of the advisor invoice. A firm at CAD 8 million of revenue sat in the higher band, CAD 25,000 to CAD 100,000, still under the CAD 200,000 cap per borrowing group. Those bands were underwriting ranges, and credit review could land at the bottom of the band or at a decline.

What a signed grant agreement still means

BDC's answer to owners who never started is direct. A business had to have a valid, signed grant agreement before February 19, 2024 to be eligible for the ISED grant and BDC's 0% loan, and extensions are not permitted. If the question on your desk is "We want to use CDAP for our business but haven't started the process. Are we too late?", the February 19, 2024 stop date is the answer. An ISED account by itself is the same situation. "I have an account with ISED but have not yet completed the application process nor finalized a grant agreement." describes a file that never reached the signed-agreement test BDC required.

A signed agreement was a narrower case, and the deadlines inside it still governed. BDC says a firm that had signed a grant agreement but had not yet hired a digital advisor, or was still building the plan, stayed eligible only while the agreement was valid and the program deadlines for grant expenses and the 0% loan were met. That is the impact behind "What is the impact on my business if I've signed a grant agreement with ISED but have not yet signed up to work with a digital advisor?". Extensions were not permitted. The loan application window was six months after ISED approved the plan, which is the clock behind "How long do I have to apply for the 0% loan after my digital adoption plan is approved?".

ISED's Info Source 2025 update then closes the departmental record: Grow Your Business Online concluded on 31 March 2025, and Boost Your Business Technology concluded on the same date. The Grow Your Business Online note also says that stream launched in March 2022, ended in March 2025, and was appropriated annually through Budget Estimates. For a reader in 2026, those two dates sit together. New applications stopped on February 19, 2024, and both streams are recorded as concluded on 31 March 2025.

BDC's page, as of November 2026, still describes the historical loan and grant rules. It tells firms past the nine-month deadline to read ISED's Boost Your Business Technology terms. The question "We are now past the 9-month deadline as of February 19, 2024 but haven't completed our project. What are our options?" is the wording on that page. The terms BDC points to now sit on a URL that redirects away from the program guide, including the former program guide and the former grant page. If you have a signed agreement, read that agreement, then ask ISED or BDC about your file. Plan and advisor files were program-delivery records kept for ten years and then destroyed, according to ISED's personal-information bank in the Info Source 2025 update. Business contact information was shared with BDC so BDC could set up loans, and with grant administrators, student-placement organizations, and digital advisors.

Why some pages still read as if you can apply

Older articles and advisor pages still carry CDAP application language, and some mix up the dates. Use the two official dates. Boost Your Business Technology stopped taking new applications on February 19, 2024, on BDC's page. Both streams concluded on 31 March 2025, in the Info Source 2025 update. If a page invites a new CDAP application, it is describing a program ISED has already marked as concluded.

"Am I still eligible for ISED's Boost Your Business Technology grant or the BDC 0% loan offer?" is the practical form of the same question. Eligibility for that pair required the signed grant agreement before February 19, 2024, a plan path that met the expense deadlines, and, for the loan, an application inside six months of ISED's approval of the plan. A firm that only bookmarked the program missed that sequence.

What a digital adoption plan contained

Official wording is short, and it is the whole template that is still on a live page. Boost Your Business Technology gave grants so an SME could offset the cost of a digital advisor who would develop a digital adoption plan tailored to the business. ISED approved digital adoption plans and paid the grant. The 0% loan could fund only the recommendations in a plan recognized by that stream.

There is no live plan template on the old program URLs, because those URLs no longer serve program content. A scored checklist, a vendor shortlist, or a standard cost table is not in the wording ISED and BDC still publish. The operative pieces are a plan tailored to the business, ISED approval of that plan, a grant that paid for the advisory work, and a loan limited to the recommendations in the approved plan.

That structure still tells you what to produce for yourself. Someone had to look at how the firm worked, name technologies that fit, and turn those choices into work the firm could carry out. The grant paid for the writing of that plan, up to the 90% and CAD 15,000 cap. It did not, on the published rules, pay for the software, the migration, or the internal time to run the new process. Those costs sat with the firm, or with the 0% loan when the firm qualified and applied in time.

The percentage and the cap are enough to see who paid what, without guessing a typical advisor invoice. At 90%, a grant of CAD 15,000 is the full cap, so it lines up with an eligible advisory cost of about CAD 16,667. Any eligible cost above that left the firm paying the excess as well as the 10% share. Any eligible cost below that drew a grant of 90% and a firm share of 10%. That arithmetic is the published rule applied to a round cost. It is a way to read an old invoice, and it says nothing about what advisors billed in the market.

Implementation sat outside that invoice. For a firm under CAD 5 million of revenue, the 0% loan band was CAD 25,000 to CAD 50,000, and only for recommendations in the approved plan, and only if credit review agreed. The plan was the gate for the loan. It named the work the loan was allowed to follow. A 25-person firm that wanted software, migration, and training had to fit those items inside that band or pay the overflow in cash. The grant line and the loan line were different cheques.

How to build a digital adoption plan yourself

You can write the same kind of plan now. Four steps cover what the official description required a digital advisor to tailor to the business: how you work today, which technologies to adopt, and how you will implement them. Keep each step in a document your leadership can sign, because a later budget argument will go back to it.

1. Map the current processes that lose time or money. Walk one order, one bill, and one month-end close with the people who do the work. Write the system each step uses, who re-keys data, and where a number is trusted. A 40-person distributor with one warehouse might find sales orders in email, stock in a spreadsheet, and invoices in an accounting package. That map is the current-state section. Limit it to processes you can observe this month. A long catalogue of wishes makes the later cost step useless.
2. Name the job each system must do. Separate jobs that share one database from jobs a specialist tool should keep. Examples of jobs: take an order once, reserve stock, invoice from the shipment, and close the month without exporting three files. Write the job in a sentence a supervisor can test. The shipper sees available quantity before promising a date is a job. A vague goal such as a general technology refresh will not survive a vendor demo, because every product can claim it.
3. Cost the options in Canadian dollars on a one-year and a three-year view. Put software subscriptions, implementation, data migration, training time, and the internal hours your own people will spend in the same sheet. Ask each bidder to price data migration as its own line, with the objects they will move and the objects they will leave behind. Historical CDAP loan bands are a poor stand-in for this sheet. Those bands topped out at CAD 100,000 for a single borrower with revenue of CAD 5 million or more, and only after an approved plan. Your sheet has to stand on quotes.
4. Phase the work. Put the first phase on the jobs that remove re-keying or shorten the close. Leave extra warehouses, extra entities, and customer portals until the first phase has produced numbers you already use. Sequence the phases so each one can go live if the next one waits a quarter. The ERP implementation phases guide shows how to split that sequence so a first release is usable on its own.

Apply the four steps to the 40-person distributor assumed above, with one warehouse, orders in email, stock in a spreadsheet, and invoices in an accounting package. The current-state map has three handoffs: the order is retyped into the sheet, the sheet is retyped into the invoice, and month-end waits until those two files agree. The jobs for a first system are narrow: capture the order once, reduce stock when it ships, and create the invoice from the shipment. A customer portal, a second warehouse, and a new website are later jobs. They can sit on the same plan, under a later heading, so a demo does not pull them into the first purchase order.

The cost sheet for that firm has five lines, each with a one-year figure and a three-year figure, in Canadian dollars: subscription, implementation, migration of customers, products, and open orders, training days for the people who ship and who invoice, and internal hours priced at the wage you already pay those people. Leave the cells blank until a quote fills them. The old CDAP loan, had this firm qualified and held revenue under CAD 5 million, would have offered CAD 25,000 to CAD 50,000 at 0% for the approved recommendations only. If your quotes for the first phase land above that historical band, the gap is cash you plan for now, because that loan is not a 2026 facility you can apply to.

The hard step is the system choice inside steps 2 and 3. Two platforms can both claim the jobs on your list, and the cost sheet will not pick a winner if the demos used different scope. Flectic is an independent consultancy that implements both Odoo and Microsoft Dynamics 365. We earn no vendor quota on either, and we hold no certification from either vendor. On a free discovery call we compare budget, integrations, reporting, in-house capacity, and growth plans, then recommend one platform in writing before any configuration starts. The page that describes that work is ERP selection between Odoo and Dynamics 365. After the platform is chosen, Odoo implementation is where the phased configuration, data migration, and training for that platform are described.

Firms in construction, civil engineering, engineering services, architecture and planning, or accounting can also look at fixed-scope Odoo packages for five project industries. Those packages are a scope choice after you know Odoo is the platform. They do not replace the comparison when Dynamics 365 is still on the table.

How to phase the work after you pick a system

A digital adoption plan fails when the recommendations are broader than the people and the cash available this year. Phasing keeps each recommendation inside a budget someone can approve.

Start from the process map. Mark each job as now, next, or later. Now means the business loses orders, cash, or close days every month if it stays manual. Next means the job matters once the first database is trusted. Later means a second site, a new brand, or a wish from a demo. If everything is marked now, the plan is a catalogue, and the first invoice will prove it.

Then match people. Name the employee who will own the process in the new system, and the hours they can give during setup. A 20-person firm rarely has a full-time project lead. Say so in the plan, and shrink the first phase until the hours fit. Training belongs in the same paragraph as go-live, with a date and a role, because a system nobody has practised will fall back to the spreadsheet as soon as the first busy week hits.

Cost follows the phase marks. Implementation, migration, and subscriptions for the now column are the budget you can approve. Quotes for next and later stay in an appendix so they do not get spent by accident. The ERP roadmap guide is a practical way to keep that column order visible when a vendor asks to add scope.

Flectic starts every selection with a free discovery call. After it, Flectic sends a written proposal with a fixed price for each phase before work starts. You can approve one phase and leave the next one unsigned. That is the commercial shape of the four-step plan: the recommendation is written, the first phase has a price, and later phases wait until you ask for them.

Use the old loan rules only as a reminder of sequence. Under CDAP, the plan came first and the 0% money could follow only the approved recommendations, inside a six-month application window. Your own project has the same logic with your own cash: freeze the recommendation, price the first slice, and do that slice before you fund the rest.

What to check if your file predates the close

Three files are worth pulling before you call anyone.

The grant agreement, if you signed one before February 19, 2024. Read the expense deadline, the reporting dates, and any clause about unused funds. BDC has said extensions are not permitted. Your agreement is the document that names the dates that applied to you.

The plan approval, if ISED issued one. Count six months from that approval to the loan application. If that window closed, BDC's rule is that the firm became ineligible for the 0% loan. A grant for the advisory invoice and a loan for implementation were separate decisions. Taking one did not force the other.

Any decline letter from BDC. Credit-worthiness was always part of the loan, and a decline can show on the credit file because the request was a standard loan application. Program eligibility and loan approval were different tests. Owners who ask why a decline followed a pass on program eligibility are running into that split: the grant test and the loan test were never the same decision.

Also pull the revenue figure the application used. The floor was CAD 500,000 of annual income at the last fiscal year-end. Between that floor and CAD 5 million, the published band was CAD 25,000 to CAD 50,000. At CAD 5 million or more, the band was CAD 25,000 to CAD 100,000, with CAD 200,000 as the cap per borrowing group. If a related company borrowed under the same group, the cap could bind even when your own revenue sat in the higher band. That is a question for the loan file, and BDC is the party that underwrote it.

ISED's personal-information note is useful if you need to know who held your data. Contact details moved to BDC for loans and to grant administrators, student-placement organizations, and digital advisors for delivery. Plan and advisor records were scheduled for ten years and then destruction. If you need a copy of what was filed, ask the organization that holds the file, and ask while you still know the agreement number.

For everyone else, the practical path is the four-step plan in the previous section, funded from operations or from ordinary financing you arrange yourself. The departmental record of the two streams is that each concluded on 31 March 2025.

How Flectic can help

Flectic works with companies of 20 to 100 people in the US and Canada choosing between Odoo and Microsoft Dynamics 365. We compare budget, integrations, reporting, in-house capacity, and growth plans on both platforms, give a written platform recommendation before any configuration starts, and implement the chosen platform with the same senior consultant from discovery to launch. The discovery call is free, and Flectic then sends a written proposal with a fixed price for each phase before work starts. Book a free discovery call on ERP selection between Odoo and Dynamics 365.

Sources

• Canada Digital Adoption Program (CDAP), BDC, November 2026
• Info Source 2025 Update, Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada, November 2026
• Canada Digital Adoption Program: Privacy Impact Assessment Summary, October 2021, Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada, October 2021
• 2023-24 Departmental Results Report, Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada, November 2026
• Former Canada Digital Adoption Program home (now redirects), Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada, November 2026
• Former Boost Your Business Technology grant page (now redirects), Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada, November 2026
• Former Boost Your Business Technology program guide (now redirects), Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada, November 2026