Security is priced by the count, and by the path the wire takes
Most of a security quote is counting: cameras, sensors, cable drops, a recorder and a panel. Each has its price with the equipment in it, and a homeowner can count them standing in her own hallway. What she cannot see is the part that moves the number most: how the wire gets from the camera to the recorder. An open attic over a one-story house is an afternoon. Two finished stories with no attic access is a day of fishing cable through walls, and a form that ignores it is wrong by a fifth.
So this page prices the counts the way you already do, puts the cable path in as one honest percentage, and keeps one thing out on purpose: the monthly monitoring. That is a contract with the monitoring company, priced and signed separately, and the form asks how she wants it monitored without letting that answer move the install price by a dollar.
The flow also asks for a photo of the outside of the house, and the lead tells you to ask for those pictures on the callback. Attaching the image itself to the lead is on the roadmap, which is why it is not a tick in that list.
The eight things that set a security number
Three counts, three pick-ones, a yes or no and a ZIP, and one of the pick-ones moves nothing on purpose. You build the set once in the dashboard and every rate in it is a field you own — you can change a per-camera rate the day your distributor changes the price without touching your website.
Cameras
Counted and multiplied, with the camera in the rate: supplied, mounted, cabled back and aimed with her. On the demo, $310 a camera. Tell her in the help text that most houses want one at each door and one over the driveway; she will count her doors before she counts anything else.
The recorder
A pick-one that adds dollars once: supply a recorder, she has one already, or this is an alarm with no cameras. $450 on the demo. Say in the help text why it matters to her: the footage stays in her house when the internet is down.
Door and window sensors
Counted and multiplied: $85 a sensor on the demo, motion sensors included. One on every outside door and on the windows she wants covered, which is a number she can work out room by room.
The alarm panel
A yes or no with a flat amount behind it: $595 on the demo for the panel, a keypad, a siren and a cellular communicator, so the alarm still reports with the phone line cut.
Network cable drops
Counted and multiplied: $165 a drop on the demo. A wired jack where the desk, the TV or the access point is, cabled back to her router and tested, priced the same way as everything else she can count.
How the wire gets there
Open attic or unfinished basement at the rate, finished walls fished +20%, two finished stories with no attic access +30%. A percentage on the whole job, because a hard cable path slows every camera and every sensor at once, and the help text says it is figured across the job.
Monitoring
Self-monitored, professionally monitored, or not sure. A pick-one with no money on any answer. It is on the form so the lead tells you what she wants, and it is off the price because a monitoring contract is a monthly fee with its own term, which belongs in writing on its own page.
Travel zone
List your ZIPs by zone, whole ZIPs or three-digit prefixes, and the widget prices the trip from the ZIP she types, most specific match first, as a flat charge, a percentage, or both. Our demo shop charges nothing in its home county and $75 out to the ring beyond it, so the same system comes back $3,915 to $4,785 at home and $3,983 to $4,868 in Bethesda. Set one zone to "outside my area" and it declines politely while still capturing the lead.
A real camera and alarm system, start to finish
Eight questions, about a minute. This is the exact sequence running on the instant service of our own low-voltage demo account, answered for four cameras and an alarm in a finished house in Bowie — and the total at the bottom is what the live engine returns for these answers, not a figure anybody typed into this page.
| # | What she is asked | What she answers | What it does to the price |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | How many security cameras? | 4 | 4 × $310 = $1,240, cameras included |
| 2 | Do you need a video recorder? | Yes, supply and set up a recorder | A flat $450 for the job |
| 3 | How many door and window sensors? | 8 | 8 × $85 = $680 |
| 4 | Do you want an alarm panel and keypad? | Yes | A flat $595: panel, keypad, siren, cellular communicator |
| 5 | How many network cable drops? | 4 | 4 × $165 = $660 |
| 6 | How will the wire get there? | Finished walls and ceilings, fished | +20% on the whole job. Open attic 0%, two finished stories with no attic +30% |
| 7 | How would you like the alarm monitored? | Professional monitoring, quoted separately | Nothing, on any answer. It is recorded for the callback |
| 8 | Got a photo of the outside of the house? | Offered | Nothing. A photo never moves the price |
| The arithmetic, in the order the engine runs it | $1,240 + $450 + $680 + $595 + $660 = $3,625, then the one percentage answer, finished walls at +20%, applies once to all of it: → $4,350 | ||
| She sees | $3,915 – $4,785 | ||
| What lands in your inbox, the second she submits | Name, mobile, ZIP, all eight answers including how she wants it monitored, and the photo flag | ||
Every rate in that table belongs to the demo account, not to a Tailgate Office price list — you set all of them yourself, and you can change one without touching your website. What is not illustrative is the total: $3,915 to $4,785 is what the engine returns for those eight answers, for the equipment and the installation, with any monitoring contract priced on its own.
Would you rather try it than read about it? We keep a working example security and low-voltage company website with NapkinPrice™ embedded — the real engine, quoting live, on a page that is not ours. Put in those eight answers and see the same number come back.
Try the live demo site (opens in a new tab)The install has a price. The monitoring has a contract, and it is not in the number.
This is the one design decision that matters in security, so here is the whole of it in plain words rather than a promise that it all just works.
A security system is two purchases that homeowners hear as one: the equipment and the installation, paid once, and the monitoring, paid every month for as long as the contract runs. The questions the FTC’s consumer advice tells a homeowner to ask before she buys are about the second one: who monitors the system, what that costs, and how long she is signing up for. A quote that folds a guessed monthly fee into an install figure answers none of them and makes her trust the rest of it less.
So our demo keeps them apart, and so would we with you. The range is the equipment and the install; the monitoring is a question on the form that moves no money, and the disclaimer says the monthly fee, the term and the monitoring company come in writing before she signs anything. She sees an honest install number tonight, and you see on the lead whether she wants it monitored, which is the one thing you most need to know before the walk-through.
The percentage answer has one seam worth knowing. It pools and applies once to everything additive, so fishing wire through finished walls at +20% lands on the recorder and the alarm panel as well as on the cable runs — on the example above that is about $209 of the $4,350 midpoint. The help text says the wire path is figured across the job, and the walk-through is where it is trued up.
Security cameras and alarm systems — quotes instantly
$310 a camera, $85 a sensor and $165 a network drop on the demo, with $450 for a recorder, $595 for an alarm panel and the cable path moving the whole job. A $650 minimum is the floor under the final number, applied after every rule and the travel zone, so one camera on a recorder she already owns comes back $650 to $715. Past $15,000 it stops pricing, hands you the lead and shows her a plain "bigger than we can price online" note.
Home theater, whole-home audio and access control — site visit, never priced
Site-visit mode captures the request and shows no number at all, which is the honest answer to a theater room designed around speakers she has not chosen yet. It asks what she is planning, a theater, audio in every room, a door access system or cabling for a new build, and whether the house is built yet, because wiring before the drywall goes up is a different job. She gets a plain "we like to see it first" note; you get a lead worth bidding.
A service that quotes will not go live until it carries a real base fee or a real minimum. That is deliberate: a service with neither would happily return $0 to a homeowner, and one bad number on your website costs more than a day of setup. The camera service carries no trip charge, so it is the minimum doing that job.
Nobody answers a phone from inside an attic, and the call that books comes the week after a break-in down the street
You are flat on your back over a ceiling with a fish tape, or up a ladder at a soffit with a drill in one hand. She is not ringing about a hobby: something happened on her street this week, and she wants somebody out before the weekend. She books whoever answers her first, and in this trade the call you could not take is rarely a small one.
| What a missed security call is worth | On the demo account |
|---|---|
| Four cameras and an alarm, finished walls | $3,915 – $4,785 |
| The same system, two stories with no attic | $4,241 – $5,184 |
| Six cameras and a recorder, open attic | $2,079 – $2,541 |
| An alarm alone, ten sensors and the panel | $1,301 – $1,590 |
| One recovered system pays for | 19 months of the bundle |
| One recovered camera job pays for | 10 months |
Once texting is switched on, CallMitt™ writes back by text with your business name in the first words, so she replies into the same thread as her quote. The message is picked by the hour and the day, against the hours you actually keep — the demo shop answers 8 to 5, because the crew is in attics from eight and the last walk-through is booked for four, so a 5:15 call gets the after-hours version rather than one claiming somebody is by the phone — and every version asks what she is after: cameras, an alarm, or cabling.
Straight about where this stands. The forwarded-call hook is built and waits on your texting number, so today you log the missed call and nothing is sent: a reply queued now is retired rather than delivered when your carrier registration clears. Everything around it is built and running now: the five messages, the business-hours, weekend, holiday and vacation rules, the quiet hours, the opt-out handling, and the thread her reply lands in beside her quote.
How CallMitt Works Run Your Own NumbersA low-voltage technician is hired on two questions, and the first one is about attics
The first is not a skill question at all. The work is attics in August, crawl spaces in February and a ladder for most of the day, and a man who has not done it does not know yet whether he will keep doing it. The second separates a technician from a helper: has he terminated and tested network cable himself? Pulling wire is a morning’s teaching. A run that tests clean end to end, every time, is a skill, and a camera that drops off the recorder in week two is a callback you pay for.
Put “Now hiring — text CREW to your texting number” on the van and the yard sign. CrewFunnel™ asks seven short questions: is he 18 or older, is he comfortable in attics and crawl spaces and on a ladder all day, has he terminated and tested network cable himself, how many years has he done low-voltage or security work, how far out does he live, can he start inside two weeks, and what was the last job he worked on. Three are knockouts — under 18, not up for the attics, or living further out than you will drive — and the rest come back as a weighted fit score, years in the trade heaviest, the start date next and the cable question after it.
Two things about that scoring are worth copying. Distance is a knockout and never a weight, because a number answer scores higher the bigger it is, so weighting miles would rank the man furthest away at the top. And free text carries no weight, because any non-empty answer scores full marks and a weighted text box inflates every candidate who typed anything. Both are set that way on our demo job, and all seven questions carry a Spanish translation.
One honest note on delivery. Text-to-apply waits on your texting number, so today he answers those seven questions on your screening page rather than by text — same questions, same knockouts, same scoring, same pool. The keyword on the van takes over the day your carrier registration clears.
See how CrewFunnel works
A security system gets its review the week she stops checking the driveway
The last camera is aimed, the app is on her phone, and that evening she watches the driveway from the couch for longer than she will admit. That is the week she would write you a review. After that the system is just there, quietly doing its job, which is exactly what she paid for and exactly why nobody thinks to say so. The outfit with sixty reviews is not sixty times better than you; somebody there asks every customer, the week the system goes live.
HurraBell™ does the asking. Once review requests are switched on, you mark the job done — from the inbox, from your phone, or from your job software through Zapier — and the customer gets one request in your words, with your own Google review link, after a delay you pick: an hour, unless you change it. Three days later, one email reminder, unless the link has been opened or the customer has since texted you, messaged you from your website or had a call logged on her thread.
Review requests aren’t switched on yet, so none is sent today. When they are, the request goes by email once your Google review link is saved on the HurraBell page and your mailing address on the Account page. A text goes as well where the customer ticked the box on your quote form or visit booking agreeing to a review-request text, and only once your carrier registration clears, the same wait as every text on this site; until then it is email only.
See how HurraBell worksOne recovered system covers 19 months
A camera job alone covers 10 of them. In a trade where the shopper decides the week something happens on her street, the arithmetic is not close.
The Tailgate Office Bundle
Instant quotes on your website, missed-call text-back and text-to-apply hiring (texts go out once texting is switched on), and, once switched on, a review request after every job, plus customers, jobs, estimates and invoices in one place. 30 days free, no credit card, no setup fee, cancel from the dashboard.
Start Free TrialOnly need one of the tools? After the trial you can keep just that one at its own price; the office stays with the Bundle.
Low-voltage and security questions we get asked
You can price a range, and only a range — the widget never shows a single figure. The disclaimer under it is yours to write. On the demo it says the range covers the equipment and the installation at the shop's standard equipment tier, the monitoring is a separate monthly contract given in writing before she signs, and the price is confirmed after a walk-through. Nothing is ordered until she has that written number.
Because it is a different purchase: a monthly fee and a contract term, usually with a monitoring company, for as long as she keeps it. The questions the FTC's consumer advice tells a homeowner to ask are who monitors it, what it costs and how long the contract runs, and a guessed monthly figure folded into an install price answers none of them. Our demo asks how she wants it monitored, records the answer and moves no money on it.
That is what the cable-path question is for: an open attic at your rate, finished walls fished at a percentage, two finished stories with no attic access at a bigger one. It is the biggest swing on the job and she can answer it, roughly, from her hallway. The walk-through settles it, and the lead records exactly what she said so the conversation starts from her answer.
No, and you should not. Put theaters, whole-home audio, access control and new-build cabling on a site-visit service: it asks what she is planning and whether the house is built yet, shows no price whatsoever, and sends her a plain "we like to see it first" note. A theater is priced on equipment she has not chosen yet, and nobody should publish a number against that.
Our demo says no, and its instant service carries no season. Cameras go up the same way in January as in June. The field is there if your costs genuinely swing: a season is a percentage on a date window you set, applied to the job before anything about her address. But inventing one to fill the box is the fastest way to end up with a number you cannot defend.
Call it fifteen minutes for your text-back messages and your working hours, a minute, once review requests are switched on for your account, to paste your Google review link on the HurraBell page and your mailing address on the Account page, and about an hour to write the eight questions and load one rate card — per camera, per sensor, per drop, your recorder and panel amounts and your cable-path percentages. A service that quotes will not go live until it carries a real base fee or minimum, which is deliberate. No onboarding call, no setup fee and no contract: $199 a month buys all four tools.
Also do electrical service work, or locks and keys? See all the trade pages or ask us.
Quote the cameras while she is still counting the doors.
Set it up tonight. Free for 30 days, no card, no setup fee, cancel from the dashboard.