Pricing Security Installations Without Underselling Your Crew

Say a two-person crew quotes a camera and video doorbell install at four hours. The wiring path turns out to run through a finished basement ceiling, a mounting bracket is missing from the van, and the homeowner needs a longer walkthrough than anyone planned. The crew leaves after six and a half hours, plus the drive back to the shop. On paper the job was sold. In practice, the business paid for most of that afternoon.

Underpricing rarely comes from one big mistake. It comes from small costs that never make it into the quote because nobody sees them on the job site. This article walks through where those costs hide and how to build prices that respect the work your crew actually does. It won't give you numbers to copy, because your costs, your market and your local rules are your own.

Know what an hour of crew time really costs

The starting point is your loaded labor cost. That's not just wages, but everything the business pays to have a technician available for an hour of billable work. It usually includes payroll taxes, workers' compensation insurance, health benefits if you offer them, paid time off, vehicle costs, tools, phones, uniforms and ongoing training.

Next, look at how many hours in a week are actually billable. Technicians spend time loading vans, picking up parts, driving between jobs, sitting in meetings and handling paperwork. If you divide your total technician cost by billable hours instead of paid hours, you get a more honest number. It will almost always be higher than the hourly wage suggests, and that's the figure your pricing has to cover before there's any profit at all. If you're not sure of your loaded cost, your accountant can help you pull it from last year's books.

Count the time nobody sees

Walk through a typical job from the first call to the final follow-up and list every step that takes someone's time:

• Site visit or remote assessment, and writing the quote
• Ordering, picking up and staging equipment
• Drive time to and from the property
• Setup, floor protection and cleanup
• The install itself, including testing
• Homeowner walkthrough and app setup
• Permit applications or alarm registration paperwork, where required
• Follow-up calls, adjustments and warranty visits

Some of these belong to office staff rather than the crew, but they're all costs. A common approach is to build a standard allowance for drive and setup into every job, then adjust for properties outside your usual service area. Warranty callbacks are harder to predict, so track them for a few months and build a realistic allowance into your pricing rather than hoping they won't happen.

Materials, markup and the small parts

Devices are easy to price because they have a clear cost. The small stuff is where margins leak: wire, connectors, anchors, mounting plates, weatherproof boxes, batteries, labels and the extra length of cable you always seem to need. If your quotes include only the main devices, you absorb those costs on every job.

Keep a materials kit list for each common job type and cost it out once. Update it when supplier prices change. Whether you show materials as a line item or fold them into a package price is a presentation choice, but the cost has to live somewhere.

Markup on materials also covers real expenses: ordering time, storage, shrinkage, returns and the risk of equipment that fails early and has to be swapped under warranty. That isn't padding. It's part of running an honest business that can stand behind its work.

Price the difficulty, not just the device list

Two jobs with the same equipment list can take very different amounts of time. Wiring a single-story home with an open attic is not the same as fishing cable through a two-story house with plaster walls and finished ceilings. Masonry, tall eaves, detached garages, older electrical and tight crawlspaces all add time.

Build a few difficulty adjustments into your quoting process so whoever writes the quote can account for what they see. Photos from the homeowner or a quick site visit are often worth the time on larger jobs. If you quote without seeing the house, write your assumptions into the quote so the homeowner understands what's included and what would change the price.

Older homes deserve special attention. Previous owners may have left behind abandoned wiring, dated panels or hardware that has to come out before new equipment goes in. Ask about it up front, and decide whether removal is included or priced separately.

Permits, registration and local fees

Some installations need a permit, and the requirements vary widely by city and county. One city may require a low-voltage permit and an inspection for certain alarm work, while the next town over may not. Many local governments also require homeowners to register monitored alarm systems, sometimes with a fee, and some place duties on the installing company as well. Fire alarm work often has separate rules and separate licensing.

Know the requirements in each place you serve, and decide how you'll handle them in your pricing. Some businesses pass permit fees through as a separate line, while others fold the time to apply into the labor estimate. Either way, the hours spent on paperwork and inspection visits are real, and the homeowner should understand what's required and who's taking care of it.

Questions to ask before you send a quote

• Have we seen the house, or are we working from assumptions we've written down?
• Does the labor estimate include drive, setup, cleanup and walkthrough time?
• Are the small materials included, not just the main devices?
• Is there anything about the construction that will slow the crew down?
• Is there old equipment to remove, and does the quote say who handles it?
• Does this city or county require a permit, inspection or alarm registration for this work?
• How will we handle it if the job runs long because of something we couldn't see?
• Would we be comfortable doing this job at this price every day for a month?

Revisit your prices on a schedule

Costs change quietly. Wages rise, suppliers adjust prices, fuel costs move and new permit rules appear. Set a regular time, perhaps once or twice a year, to compare quoted hours with actual hours on recent jobs and to review your material costs. If a certain job type keeps running over, the quote is the problem, not the crew.

When you do raise prices, explain the change plainly to repeat customers and referral partners. Many people understand that costs move. What bothers them is being surprised.

Pricing well also depends on knowing the kinds of homes you'll be working in. SecureYrHome's homeowner and property data tools show the property types and home ages in your service area, so your quoting assumptions match the houses your crews are likely to see. The rest comes down to honest math and paying attention to where the hours go.