NAICS 81221Industry · 5-digitlocal market2 market records

Funeral homes

This industry comprises establishments primarily engaged in preparing the dead for burial or interment and conducting funerals. — Statistics Canada, NAICS 2022A

Establishments · CanadaA: 1,307
Under 10 employeesA: 64%

Size and shape

How many businesses there are and how small they are. Fragmentation is the first thing an entrant — or anyone selling software into this industry — needs to know, and it is one of the few things that is actually measured.

Canadian establishments by number of employeesA

1–444634%

5–938930%

10–1928722%

20–4916312%

50–99222%

100–1990—

200–4990—

500+0—

Of 1,307 Canadian establishments with employees, 64% have fewer than ten — mostly small operators.

Where they areA

Ontario46035%

Quebec30824%

British Columbia1159%

Alberta1129%

Largest four provinces by establishment count. Establishments with employees only — sole operators with no payroll are not in this table, so in trades and personal services the true number of businesses is higher.

How many new establishments are still tradingA

Other Services (except Public Administration), US · opened 2020

85.2%

1 year

71.8%

3 years

60%

5 years

42.1%

10 years

opened 2015

Measured, not forecast: the share of US establishments opening in one year that were still active later. It counts good operators and bad ones together, which is exactly why it is the honest answer to “what are the odds”. It is for the whole sector rather than this market, and the ten-year figure comes from an older cohort because no younger one has reached ten years.

No US figure is shown. County Business Patterns is coded to the 2017 US edition of NAICS; this code either does not exist there, names a different industry, or is outside the programme's coverage (most of agriculture, rail, postal and public administration are). A figure is attached only where both the code and the title agree.

How businesses here compete

The structural profile of subsector 812, which every industry beneath it inherits. This is analyst judgment from how the subsector is organised — not research into this industry, and not a measurement.

local competitionlow capitalUNVERIFIEDinherited from 812 Personal and laundry services

Salons, laundries, funeral homes and pet care: personal, local and repeat. Most are small by nature; funeral homes and dry cleaning are the capital-heavier exceptions, the first consolidating and the second shrinking.

Who sets the price: The operator, within a neighbourhood's going rate.
The software it runs on: Appointment booking, point of sale and payments — a crowded category sold on payment processing margin.

Market screens and studies

Market-entry records filed along this branch of the hierarchy. A record at or beneath this code is about this industry; one above it is about something wider that contains it.

Operating businessScreenedfiled at 812210

Funeral Home AcquisitionOne thing must be true

binding constraint: growth quality

The demographic tailwind is real and revenue per call is the number that decides whether it reaches the owner. Cremation is now the majority disposition — Service Corporation International, the largest operator in North America, reported a core cremation rate of 57.8% in the fourth quarter of 2025 and a comparable rate of 64.9% — and a cremation carries a fraction of the traditional burial ticket. SCI's own average revenue per funeral service was US$5,818 in 2025 against US$5,651 in 2024, a 3% rise that a company with national purchasing, pre-need portfolios and 1,485 locations extracted from a mix moving against it; an independent home has none of those levers. Volume growth flatters a shrinking average, and the consolidators bid first for the books with the best pre-need portfolios, leaving the independent buyer the homes with the weakest ones. Canada's own consolidator left the public market in 2024: Park Lawn was taken private at $26.50 a share, which removed the one domestic disclosure a buyer could have priced against. The practice management software here is screened separately.

NAICS 8122105 vendors named11 sourced figuresOpen →

Software serving this industry

The vertical software markets filed along the same branch — who sells to these businesses and who they would have to displace — and then the generic categories every business buys whatever it does.

Vertical softwareScreenedfiled at 812210

Funeral Home ManagementOne thing must be true

binding constraint: market size

Incumbent Passare, Gather, FrontRunner

Genuinely underserved and genuinely tiny. Roughly 19,000 US funeral homes at achievable ACVs gives a ceiling too low to justify a dedicated build, though it would suit a solo operator content with a lifestyle outcome. Nothing is disclosed here. Every vendor named on this record is private, or sits inside a parent that does not break the line out, so no revenue floor can be built and the market size is genuinely unknown rather than estimated.

NAICS 8122102 vendors namedOpen →

And what every business buys · 25 generic categories

Sold to every industry rather than this one, so they are filed against the software industry's own code. The same few vendors recur across most of them.

Companies in this industry · 9

Every company this research names that is filed here or beneath — the operators, and the vendors that sell to them — largest disclosed revenue first. The rank is within the company’s own six-digit industry.

Company	Filed under	Revenue	Rank
Arbor MemorialPrivate	Funeral homes812210	—	1/9
Batesville tech linesPrivate	Funeral homes812210	—	2/9
Carriage ServicesNYSE:CSV	Funeral homes812210	—	3/9
FrontRunnerPrivate	Funeral homes812210	—	4/9
GatherPrivate	Funeral homes812210	—	5/9
Park LawnDelisted	Funeral homes812210	—	6/9
PassarePrivate	Funeral homes812210	—	7/9
Service Corporation International (SCI)NYSE:SCI	Funeral homes812210	—	8/9
Viridian HoldingsPrivate	Funeral homes812210	—	9/9

Who works here

The occupations employed in Other services (except public administration), most concentrated in it first. The share is measured against the whole sector, not this industry — the published cross-tabulation stops there.

Concentrated in this sectorA

Hairstylists and estheticians One industry 88.3%

Support occupations in personal services Mostly one sector 64.5%

Automotive service technicians Mostly one sector 56.8%

Home care provider occupations One industry 23.3%

Social and community service professionals Mostly one sector 21.7%

Managers in social, community and correctional services Mostly one sector 18.4%

Machining, metal forming, shaping and erecting trades Mostly one sector 12.9%

Practitioners of natural healing One industry 11.1%

Specialized occupations in services Mostly one sector 8.8%

Program leaders and instructors in recreation, sport and fitness Mostly one sector 6.8%

These jobs are mostly done here. An operator in this industry is competing for them against others in the same industry, not against the whole economy.

And the jobs every business has

Shoe repairers, shoemakers and upholsterers Across the economy 27.9%

Technical occupations in electronics and electrical engineering Across the economy 7.8%

Legislative and senior managers Across the economy 6.6%

Other technical trades Across the economy 5.7%

Office administrative assistants - general, legal and medical Across the economy 5.2%

Administrative, property and payroll officers Across the economy 4.7%

Accounting, insurance and related business administrative occupations Across the economy 4.3%

Building maintenance installers, servicers and repairers Across the economy 3.7%

Financial, insurance and related administrative support workers Across the economy 3.3%

Customer and information services representatives Across the economy 3.2%

Found across at least fourteen of the twenty sectors. In a small establishment several of these are usually one person, or an outside provider.

All 162 occupations →

Inside this industry

1 row sits directly beneath 81221. Each has a base report of its own.

Code	Industry	Establishments · CA	What is known
812210	Funeral homes	1,307	Funeral Home Acquisition Funeral Home Management

Alongside it, under 8122 Funeral services

Code	Industry	Establishments · CA	What is known
81222	Cemeteries and crematoria	312	screened at 8122