The purpose of this paper is to shed some light on the costs associated with initial public offerings (IPOs), and this is performed by undertaking a large sample of Canadian and United States IPOs. More specifically, we gather information in the universe of firm-commitment and best-effort IPOs in Canada and in the United States, from 1997 to 1999, and measure their direct and indirect costs. Overall, we are able to confirm that the Canadian market is superior to its U.S. counterpart in terms of IPO costs. In other words, do Canadian firms have access to equity capital on a competitive basis in comparison with U.S. firms. However, we confirm that the going public process is costly, particularly for small firms.