On BioAnalysis.ca, 16S rRNA or ITS data analysis costs $25 CAD per sample for Amplicon Basic and $45 CAD per sample for Amplicon Complete, with no subscription and the first 3 analyses free. That price covers the analysis of FASTQ files you already have. Sequencing is a separate cost, paid to a core facility or sequencing provider. Doing the analysis yourself costs no software licences, but it does cost computing time and skilled staff hours.
What are you paying for in a 16S study?
A 16S study has three separate costs, often from different providers:
- Sequencing: DNA extraction, PCR amplification, library preparation and the sequencing run. This is done by a university core facility, a genome centre or a commercial provider, and produces FASTQ files.
- Bioinformatics analysis: turning FASTQ files into ASV tables, taxonomy, diversity and statistics. This is what BioAnalysis.ca does.
- Interpretation: deciding what the results mean for your question. Good reports and clear statistics shorten this step, but it remains the researcher's job.
When comparing quotes, check which of these each price includes.
How much does BioAnalysis.ca charge?
| Tier | Price per sample (CAD) | Typical turnaround | Includes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Amplicon Basic | $25 | ~30 min | Primer removal, DADA2 ASVs, SILVA or UNITE taxonomy, composition, PDF and web report |
| Amplicon Complete | $45 | ~1 hour | Everything in Basic, plus phylogeny, alpha diversity, rarefaction, PICRUSt2, multi-sample statistics (beta diversity, PERMANOVA, ANCOM-BC2) and a data package |
Prices are in Canadian dollars. There is no subscription or minimum order. For large batches or core-facility accounts, email [email protected]. Full details are on the pricing page.
Worked examples
- A 6-sample pilot at Amplicon Basic: 6 × $25 = $150 CAD.
- A 24-sample study comparing two groups at Amplicon Complete: 24 × $45 = $1,080 CAD.
- A 96-sample plate at Amplicon Complete: 96 × $45 = $4,320 CAD before any volume pricing.
What does it cost to analyze 16S data yourself?
The software is free. QIIME 2, the DADA2 R package and mothur are all open source. The real costs are elsewhere:
- Computing: small studies can run on a well-equipped workstation. Larger ones need a server or cluster. Canadian academic researchers can apply for free access to the Digital Research Alliance of Canada clusters, but jobs wait in a shared queue.
- Reference databases: SILVA and UNITE are free to download, but classifiers must be trained or downloaded for the right version and region.
- Staff time: setting up an environment, choosing truncation lengths, troubleshooting primer and merge problems, running statistics and making figures. For someone new to the tools, a first study typically takes days; an experienced analyst may need several hours.
A simple way to compare: multiply the hours you expect to spend by what that time costs your lab. At an illustrative $50 per hour, 10 hours of setup and troubleshooting cost $500, about the same as analyzing 20 samples at Amplicon Basic.
Doing it yourself is the right choice when you need non-standard methods or want to build in-house expertise. A hosted pipeline is usually faster and cheaper for standard studies and for labs without a dedicated bioinformatician.
What questions should you ask any 16S analysis provider?
- Which reference database and version is used (for example SILVA 138.2)?
- Are results reported as ASVs or OTUs?
- Are primers checked before the run, and what happens if reads cannot merge?
- Which statistics are included: alpha and beta diversity, PERMANOVA, differential abundance?
- Do you receive the raw tables (ASV table, taxonomy, metadata) as well as figures?
- Are tool versions and parameters documented for the methods section?
- Where is the data processed and stored? This matters for many Canadian institutions and ethics approvals.
- How long is the turnaround, and is a re-run charged?
Where can you get 16S sequencing in Canada?
Many Canadian universities run genomics core facilities that offer 16S amplicon sequencing, as do national genome centres and commercial providers such as the Centre d'expertise et de services Génome Québec in Montréal, the Integrated Microbiome Resource at Dalhousie University in Halifax, and Microbiome Insights in Vancouver. Prices depend on sample numbers, extraction and the sequencing platform, so ask each provider for a current quote, and ask which primers they use. Once you have FASTQ files from any provider, you can analyze them on BioAnalysis.ca.