Service Actuel vs Cleo: a Montreal cremation comparison for 2026

You're comparing cremation providers in Montreal, and two names keep coming up: Service Actuel and Cleo. One advertises a $997 cremation out of a funeral home on Rue de Verdun. The other offers a fixed, all-inclusive price across Quebec and Ontario with personal delivery of the ashes to your home. Both are licensed Quebec providers. Both publish their pricing, which is rarer in this market than it should be.

This guide lays out a side-by-side look at Service Actuel vs. Cleo so you can match the provider to your family's actual situation. We'll walk through what each one costs, what's included at every tier, where their service models genuinely overlap, and where they're structurally different.

For a broader market view, our complete breakdown of cremation costs in Quebec puts both providers in context with everyone else in the province.

Who is Service Actuel?

Service Actuel is a funeral home located at 4500 Rue de Verdun, Verdun, QC H4G 1M3. The Verdun salon operates an on-site crematorium and offers a tiered menu that runs from simple direct cremation up to a full cemetery funeral. Phone intake is available 24/7 at 514-367-8387, with toll-free numbers at 1-866-239-5713 and 1-888-874-9230. Service is bilingual French and English, with a French-primary audience.

Their published service area covers Greater Montreal, Laval, the North Shore, the South Shore, and elsewhere in Quebec. Any Service Actuel Verdun review you read across the aggregator sites averages around 4.2 stars. Sentiment skews to staff compassion and pricing that families describe as reasonable, and complaints about pricing surprises aren't a pattern in publicly available reviews.

In plain terms: Service Actuel is a credible, established Verdun funeral home that publishes the lowest all-inclusive headline price for direct cremation we could find in Greater Montreal. They're not a budget storefront, they're a tiered funeral home that happens to publish its simplest tier transparently.

Service Actuel's cremation packages and pricing

Service Actuel publishes four core funeral-service packages on their site, plus a separate attendance-at-the-crematorium tier referenced in third-party coverage. All published prices exclude taxes and the Quebec government registration fee, and a few add-ons are listed openly.

Cremation in all Simplicity, $997 The simplest direct-cremation tier. Includes the death certificate, the cremation container, ash transport, and delivery of the ashes to the family at the Verdun funeral home. The family travels to 4500 Rue de Verdun to collect them; the FAQ on Service Actuel's site references a mail-delivery option as well, confirm with them whether it's bundled or priced separately.

Ceremony at Place of Worship, $1,687 Adds a funeral director and reception coordination at the worship location of your choice. Reception fees at the venue itself may apply separately.

Ash Ceremony, $1,777 Adds two-hour use of a viewing hall and a cardboard ash container, with ashes delivered to the family.

Attendance at the Crematorium, approximately $2,817 A package that lets the family be present at the cremation, with embalming and additional coordination. This tier appears in third-party summaries; verify the current figure on Service Actuel's site before you sign.

Cemetery Funeral Service, $4,267 The full traditional tier. Wooden coffin, embalming, funeral director, carriers, and hearse transport.

Publicly disclosed extras you should factor in

• Taxes and the Quebec government registration fee are not included in the headline price
• Emergency transportation when the death occurs outside the mortuary: $200 + tax
• Additional charges for individuals 250+ kilograms or with pacemakers
• Reception fees at place of worship may be charged by the venue

These line items are listed openly on Service Actuel's Montreal cremation page. They're not surprise charges in any meaningful sense, they're tier add-ons standard for a funeral home of this scope.

Which tier matches which family situation

If your parent wanted a simple cremation with no ceremony, and you're comfortable driving to the Verdun funeral home to collect the ashes, the $997 Cremation in all Simplicity tier fits.

For a religious service at a church, mosque, synagogue, or temple, the $1,687 Ceremony at Place of Worship tier handles the coordination. The worship venue itself will charge its own fees.

If you want a brief viewing or ash ceremony at the funeral home, the $1,777 Ash Ceremony tier covers two hours in the salon's viewing hall.

If you want to be present when your loved one is cremated, the attendance tier (around $2,817) is the package built for that. It includes embalming, which the simpler tiers don't.

If you want a full traditional funeral with a coffin and cemetery burial, the $4,267 Cemetery Funeral Service tier is the comprehensive option.

Who is Cleo, and what does Cleo do?

Cleo is a direct-cremation specialist. We do one thing, cremation, with one fixed all-inclusive price per province. We operate across Greater Montreal, Laval, the South Shore, the West Island, and the North Shore, as well as Ontario with its own provincial pricing. Phone and online intake are available 24/7 at (438) 817-1770.

The structural choice that defines Cleo: one product, one fixed price, quoted up front. The number you receive on the first call is the number on your invoice. Transportation, cremation, the death certificate, a basic urn, and personal hand-delivery of the ashes to your home are all included. There's no ceremony tier, no viewing room, and no cemetery service. We don't offer those, and we'll say so plainly if a family wants them.

If you're new to the term, direct cremation simply means cremation handled without a traditional funeral service, no embalming, no viewing, no ceremony bundled in. Many families add a memorial later, on their own terms, after the ashes have come home.

For Cleo's current Quebec rate and full inclusions, see our direct-cremation service page.

Service Actuel vs Cleo: a side-by-side look at what each includes

Here's the comparison most families want to see laid out flat. The Service Actuel column refers to their simplest tier, Cremation in all Simplicity, since that's the direct comparator to Cleo's product.

The rows where Service Actuel and Cleo genuinely diverge are the ones that matter most for the booking decision. The next two sections walk through them.

Service Actuel vs Cleo: where they overlap and where they differ

Both providers are licensed Quebec operators. Both publish all-inclusive base prices for simple cremation, both offer 24/7 bilingual phone intake, and both handle Quebec death-registration paperwork as part of the service. Both also offer pre-arrangement with the 90% trust deposit required by Quebec's Office de la protection du consommateur. Those protections apply equally. They're the legal floor that any registered Quebec funeral provider operates under.

That said, the service model itself differs in three places.

Ashes return. Service Actuel's $997 package includes "delivery of the ashes to the family at the funeral home." In practice, that means a family member travels to 4500 Rue de Verdun and collects them at the salon. The FAQ on their site references a mail-delivery option, which may or may not be included at the $997 price point. Confirm before signing.

By contrast, Cleo's model is the opposite. A Cleo representative personally drives the ashes to your home as standard, included in the all-inclusive price. For families who live in Verdun or close to it, this difference is minor. For a family in Brossard, the West Island, or Saint-Jérôme, it's a 30–60 minute drive each way during a week when nobody has spare time. For an out-of-town family, it's a logistical wall.

Service-area model. Service Actuel operates one funeral home, the Verdun salon, and services a wide catchment from that single location. Cleo operates an online and phone intake model with field collection. There's no single physical address you visit. We come to you across the entire Greater Montreal region, Laval, the South Shore, the West Island, and the North Shore, and we operate in Ontario as well.

Tier-and-add-on vs one fixed price. Service Actuel's $997 is the entry tier of a five-tier menu. If your family decides midway through that you'd like a brief ash ceremony or a church reception, Service Actuel can scale you up inside the same provider relationship. Cleo, by contrast, doesn't do tiers. We quote one price for direct cremation. If you want a ceremony or a viewing, we'll be honest that we don't offer those. You'd either need a different provider, or you can plan your own memorial separately after the ashes come home.

Neither model is the "right" one. They answer different questions. The next section maps the questions to the answers.

Service Actuel vs Cleo: which option fits which family?

Choose Service Actuel if your family lives within an easy drive of the Verdun funeral home. The simplest tier also fits when:

• You're comfortable picking up the ashes in person at 4500 Rue de Verdun
• You want the lowest published all-inclusive headline price in Greater Montreal
• You may want to scale up into a worship ceremony, an ash ceremony, or a cemetery funeral with the same provider

Choose Cleo if your family wants personal hand-delivery of the ashes to your home. The all-inclusive model also fits when:

• You live outside a comfortable Verdun catchment
• You're arranging from out of province
• You want one fixed price quoted up front for direct cremation only
• You need Ontario coverage as well as Quebec

The single line item that changes the decision for most families is the ashes-return model. If you're handling this from a hotel room in Toronto, from a kitchen table in Pointe-Claire, or from your office on a Wednesday afternoon when you've already used your bereavement leave, the question of whether someone has to drive to Verdun matters. If you live a block from the salon, it doesn't.

For families managing a cremation from out of town, our complete remote-arrangement guide walks through how the full pickup-to-delivery flow works without you being in the city. Our guide to managing financial affairs after a death from out of province covers the administrative layer that comes after, settling Quebec-side estate tasks from another time zone.

Questions to ask any Montreal cremation provider

Whichever provider you call, these are the questions that surface the realistic total, not just the headline price. We'd encourage you to ask all of them on the same phone call, and write the answers down. Both Service Actuel and Cleo should answer these clearly.

• What's included in the advertised price, and what isn't?
• Are taxes and the Quebec government registration fee included, or charged on top?
• Are there transport surcharges if the death occurs outside the standard service zone, outside the mortuary, or outside business hours?
• Is the cremation container or urn included? What other container or urn options exist, and what do they cost?
• How and where will the ashes be returned, at the funeral home, by mail, or by personal delivery to my home?
• How long is the typical wait between intake and cremation? (For context, our guide to the cremation timeline and what to expect covers what a normal answer looks like.)
• Who handles the Quebec death-registration paperwork, the déclaration de décès, returning the RAMQ card, and applying for the QPP death benefit?
• Are after-hours, weekend, holiday, or special-circumstance surcharges applied (for example, pacemaker removal, body weight thresholds, or death outside the mortuary)?

Our complete Quebec cremation paperwork checklist walks through the documents you'll encounter either way, regardless of which provider you choose.

Frequently asked questions

How much does Service Actuel cremation cost?

Service Actuel's simplest tier, Cremation in all Simplicity, is advertised at $997 plus taxes and the Quebec government registration fee. Higher tiers run $1,687 (Ceremony at Place of Worship), $1,777 (Ash Ceremony), approximately $2,817 (attendance at the crematorium), and $4,267 (Cemetery Funeral Service). Verify current prices on Service Actuel's Montreal cremation page before you sign.

What's included in Service Actuel's $997 cremation?

The $997 Cremation in all Simplicity package includes the death certificate, the cremation container, ash transport, and delivery of the ashes to the family at the Verdun funeral home. Taxes and the Quebec government registration fee are excluded, and the package itself doesn't include embalming, viewing, ceremony, or a wooden coffin, those live in higher tiers.

Does Service Actuel deliver the ashes, or do I need to pick them up?

The $997 package returns the ashes to the family at Service Actuel's Verdun funeral home, meaning a family member travels to 4500 Rue de Verdun to collect them. Service Actuel's FAQ mentions a mail-delivery option; confirm with them whether it's bundled into the $997 price or priced separately. With Cleo, a representative personally hand-delivers the ashes to your home as standard, included in the all-inclusive price.

Where is Service Actuel located, and which areas of Montreal does it serve?

Service Actuel's funeral home is at 4500 Rue de Verdun, Verdun, QC H4G 1M3. Their published service area covers Greater Montreal, Laval, the North Shore, the South Shore, and elsewhere in Quebec, with the Verdun salon as the operating anchor.

Service Actuel vs Cleo: which is cheaper?

Service Actuel's $997 headline price is the lowest published all-inclusive direct-cremation price in Greater Montreal. Cleo's fixed all-inclusive price is published on our direct-cremation page, we don't quote a single number here because pricing differs by province. The realistic comparison depends on what each price actually covers end-to-end for your situation. Service Actuel's $997 excludes taxes and the government registration fee; Cleo's price is all-inclusive of taxes, paperwork, and home delivery of the ashes. For a fuller breakdown of how to compare providers fairly, see our true-cost-of-funeral guide for Quebec.

What's the difference between direct cremation and a traditional cremation with a ceremony?

Direct cremation is cremation handled without a funeral service, viewing, or embalming. Traditional cremation usually involves a ceremony, at a funeral home, a place of worship, or the crematorium, and may include embalming, a viewing, and a coffin or alternative container suitable for ceremony. Service Actuel offers both models in different tiers. Cleo offers direct cremation only.

Can I pre-plan cremation with Service Actuel or Cleo without paying everything upfront?

Both providers offer pre-arrangement under Quebec's funeral-services framework, which requires that 90% of prepaid amounts be deposited in trust. The exact pre-planning structure differs between providers. Ask each one for their pre-arrangement contract and review what's locked in, what isn't, and what happens if the provider changes hands.

Does Cleo serve Verdun, Laval, Longueuil, the West Island, and the South Shore?

Yes, Cleo operates across all of Greater Montreal, including Verdun, Laval, Longueuil, the West Island, the South Shore, and the North Shore. See our Montreal location page for service-area details.

Why doesn't Cleo offer a viewing or ceremony tier?

Cleo specializes in direct cremation, that's the only product we offer. If a family wants a viewing, a ceremony at a place of worship, or a traditional funeral service, we'll say plainly that we're not the right fit and point them toward providers who handle those. Many families plan a memorial themselves, on their own timeline, after the ashes come home, there's no rule that says the memorial has to happen the same week. For more on the model, see what's actually included in Cleo's cremation service.

So which one fits?

There's no universal answer to Service Actuel vs Cleo. There's a fit answer for your family.

If you live near the Verdun funeral home and are comfortable picking up the ashes at the salon, Service Actuel is a credible, established provider. Their public reviews are positive, their tier menu is transparent, and their $997 simple cremation is the lowest published all-inclusive headline price in Greater Montreal.

If you want the ashes delivered to your home, live outside the Verdun catchment, or are arranging from out of province, Cleo's model covers those situations. The same goes if you want one fixed price quoted up front for direct cremation only.

Whatever you decide, ask both providers the same questions, write down the answers, and pick the provider whose model matches the way your family actually needs this week to work.

If Cleo's all-inclusive direct-cremation model fits, we're available 24/7 at (438) 817-1770. One call and we'll walk you through it, pickup, cremation, and personal delivery of the ashes to your home.