How to price locksmith jobs, from a midnight lockout to a master key system

Locksmith work runs from a car opened in a parking lot at midnight to a master key system for an office building that takes a week to design and install. One hourly rate can't price both well. What works is the same structure on every job: a cost per hour from your own books, a service call that pays for the drive, task times for each unit of work (an opening, a cylinder, a key, a door), parts at cost, and your margin on top. The general version of that method is in how to price service jobs. This guide shows how it applies to lockouts, rekeys, car keys, hardware and commercial accounts.

Your price structure also matters to callers trying to tell a real shop from a bait-and-switch operation. Connecticut's Department of Consumer Protection, in a consumer alert issued in July 2026, described a bait-and-switch in which a caller is offered a low price for opening a lock, then the person who shows up says the job is "more complicated than anticipated" and raises it. The department told consumers to ask for a full price upfront, including service and travel costs, and to ask for a written quote before work begins. The same alert tells them to ask the technician for identification and to hang up on a business that cannot give an exact address. Set up your pricing so you can give that full price on every call, and make sure your techs carry ID that matches the business name the caller found.

What units drive a locksmith price?

• The trip. Drive time to the job, set by distance and time of day. It happens before any work does.
• The opening. House, car, commercial door or safe, and the method: picking or bypass, or drilling and replacing the cylinder. Non-destructive entry on a standard residential lock is a short task. A high-security lock or a safe is a different job.
• The cylinder. Rekeys and keyed-alike work are priced per cylinder: remove, repin, test, reinstall. Master keying adds master pins to the chambers, plus design time for the system.
• The key. Duplicates, keys cut by code, transponder keys, smart keys and fobs. On a car, whether a working key still exists changes the job completely.
• The door. Hardware installs priced per door: a deadbolt in an existing bore, a new bore and strike, a lever set, a closer, an exit device.
• The system. Master key design, the key chart and the records you keep for an account, priced as a project.

Keep each unit as its own line on your price sheet and on the invoice. A caller who hears "service call plus a per-cylinder rate" understands what they are buying, and your tech can price a fourth cylinder or a spare key on the spot without calling the office.

How do you set task times?

Log jobs in pieces for a few months: drive, ownership check, the task itself, testing, invoicing and payment. Then use the typical time for each task across all your techs. A sheet built on your quickest tech's best night will lose money for everyone else.

The ownership check is a real step with a real time cost. Asking for ID, matching it to the address or the vehicle registration, photographing documents where the customer agrees, and recording it all on the job takes minutes on every lockout and every car key job. Put those minutes in the task time. They also protect you if a job is ever questioned.

Note what makes a task run long: a worn or damaged cylinder, an interchangeable core with no control key on site, a vehicle that needs codes from the automaker before a key can be made, a door that has to be adjusted before a new deadbolt will throw cleanly. Price the common ones as known add-ons instead of absorbing them job after job.

What should the service call and after-hours rates cover?

The service call pays for getting to the job and setting up. The fee can't depend on a repair following, since some callers get back inside before you arrive, or decide a rekey can wait until next month. Set it from your average drive time at your cost per hour, plus margin, and state a rule for callers who cancel once you are already on the road.

After-hours rates should come from what nights actually cost you:

• On-call pay for the tech who is available, whether or not the phone rings.
• Overtime, where it applies. The overtime guide for field crews covers the federal basics.
• Fewer jobs per hour, since night calls are scattered and rarely chain together.
• Answering and dispatch costs for the hours your office is closed.

Write the night, weekend and holiday terms into your phone script and say them before dispatch. Whoever answers (you, a dispatcher or an AI receptionist) should give the same range the same way: the service call, the likely task price, and what would push the total to the top of the range.

Parts margin and tools that belong to certain jobs

Hardware, cylinders, pins, key blanks, transponder keys and fobs are your materials. Price them with one margin policy applied the same way on every line. A markup percentage figured on cost yields less money than the same margin percentage figured on price; the job price calculator lists the equivalent markup for any margin. Parts margin pays for sourcing, the stock riding in the van, blanks that get miscut, and the trip back when a lock you installed fails.

Offer hardware in tiers: a standard lock, a sturdier residential grade, a high-security cylinder. Put a price on each and say in plain words what the extra money buys, so the customer chooses and nobody argues. The good, better, best quotes guide shows how to lay that out. If you sell restricted or high-security key systems, ask the manufacturer what its dealer program requires, and count the record-keeping time in the system price.

Automotive work brings tools only some jobs use. Key programmers, their software subscriptions, code-cutting machines and vehicle security credentials should be charged to the car key jobs that need them, not spread across every lockout. The National Automotive Service Task Force's support site says a locksmith who programs keys, orders codes or provides immobilizer resets needs to be registered with NASTF, and that full access to automaker security functions comes with its Vehicle Security Professional (VSP) credential. NASTF says it does not provide codes or programming itself; the credential gives access to security information directly from automakers. The VSP credential is billed on a two-year term, and additional technicians who are W-2 employees get subordinate accounts with a two-year fee of their own (the same page lists the current fees), so the cost grows with the number of techs you send on car key calls. Divide the yearly cost of each automotive tool and credential (half of each two-year credential fee) by the car key jobs you expect, and add the result to those jobs as a direct cost, as the worked example does.

Worked example: a rekey, a night lockout and a car key

The numbers below are hypothetical, picked only so the math is easy to check. Real wages, overhead, task times, part and tool costs, job counts and margins differ from shop to shop, and nothing here is a market price. Prices follow the same formula the job price calculator uses: multiply the hours by the labor rate and again by the overhead rate, add parts and tool costs, and divide that total cost by one minus your target margin.

Three things to notice. The per-cylinder line lets a tech price any number of doors in the driveway. The night lockout costs $23.08 more than the daytime one because the labor hour costs more; the task still takes one hour, and the higher rate is easy to explain to a caller because it comes from real costs. And the car key carries its share of the programming tools, so lockout prices don't quietly pay for equipment that lockouts never touch. An all-keys-lost job would take more hours and may need codes from the automaker, so price it as its own entry.

Commercial accounts and recurring work

Most residential locksmith work is one-time. The recurring income is commercial: property managers who rekey at every turnover, offices that lose keys when people leave, schools and churches with heavy-use doors whose closers and exit devices need regular service.

• Turnover rekeys. Agree a per-unit price with each property manager in advance, based on the cylinders in a typical unit and your timed rekey rate. Batch units at the same property into one visit.
• Master key systems. Price the design, the key chart, the pinning per cylinder, the keys and the ongoing records as separate parts of one project. Keep charts and codes in an access-controlled system, because they are as sensitive as the keys.
• Hardware service agreements. Scheduled visits to adjust closers, check exit devices and service locks, priced per door per visit and billed monthly. The recurring service billing guide covers card-on-file and invoicing.

Scope commercial hardware on a walk-through. Where the 2010 ADA Standards apply, section 404.2.7 requires handles, pulls, latches and locks on doors to meet section 309.4 (operable with one hand, without tight grasping, pinching or twisting of the wrist), with operable parts between 34 and 48 inches above the floor. Section 404.2.8 sets a minimum closing time for door closers, and section 404.2.9 caps the force to open an interior hinged door, other than a fire door, at 5 pounds. A knob that has to become a lever, or a closer that needs adjusting, changes your parts and your time. Ask about it before you price the job, and leave compliance calls to the owner and their architect or code official.

Travel, zones and route density

Lockouts don't wait for a route, so drive time swings more on emergency calls than on booked work. Two tools keep it in check:

• Service zones. A core area with your standard service call and an outer zone with a higher one, drawn from your dispatch data and stated on your website.
• Scheduled work by area. Rekeys, hardware installs and spare keys can usually wait a day or two. Book them where you will already be, and hold same-day slots for emergencies.

Watch drive time per completed job by zone and by hour. A zone that keeps producing long night drives for small tickets needs a higher fee or less advertising. Car key calls can come from parking lots outside your usual area, so get the exact location and the vehicle before you price the trip.

Quoting on the phone, from photos or on site

Lockouts and residential rekeys can be quoted on the phone as a service call plus a task price range. Ask for:

• The address or exact location, and who owns the home or vehicle.
• A photo of the lock face or the key, which shows the brand and often the type.
• How many cylinders, and whether they should all work with one key.
• For cars: year, make and model, what kind of key it uses, and whether the owner still has one that works.

Commercial hardware, master key systems, access control and safes need a site visit before a price. Charge for the visit or credit it to the job, but don't give a firm number on a system you haven't seen. Put every quote in writing before work starts, which is what the Connecticut alert tells consumers to ask for, and text it to the customer to approve. A custom CRM can hold your price sheet, each job's ID record and the restricted key records for each account in one place.

Selling upgrades during a call

A lockout can turn into new locks for the whole house. Price the upgrade from the same per-door and per-cylinder lines, and watch the paperwork. A sale closed in the customer's home for $25 or more can fall under the FTC's Cooling-Off Rule, and then the buyer has until midnight on the third business day to cancel. The FTC's consumer guide lists the paperwork the seller owes the buyer, cancellation forms included. The rule's exclusions come with conditions. The emergency exclusion requires a separate, dated and signed statement in the buyer's own handwriting describing the emergency and waiving the right to cancel. The exclusion for repair visits the buyer requested does not cover additional goods or services beyond the replacement parts the repair needed. Talk to a lawyer about how the federal rule and your state's rules apply to your forms; this is general information, not legal advice.

Callbacks and warranty costs

Locksmith callbacks tend to be small: a deadbolt that drags because the strike sits slightly off, a rekeyed cylinder that sticks, a spare key cut a hair off, a fob that loses its pairing, a keyed-alike set where one lock refuses the key. Each one costs a trip and the tech's time at your cost, with nothing billed.

Track callbacks by job type and by tech for a year. Total their cost, divide by the jobs of that type, and add the result as a reserve in those task prices. Then fix the process behind the worst offenders: try every key in every lock before leaving, cycle every deadbolt with the door shut, and confirm every programmed key starts the vehicle. When a manufacturer's warranty replaces a failed lock, your trip back to install it is still your cost unless your terms say otherwise. Spell out your labor warranty in writing; the warranty policy guide shows how.

Locksmith pricing mistakes

• A low phone price that grows on site. Give the full range before dispatch, trip included.
• Night rates set by guesswork. Build them from on-call pay, overtime and slower hours.
• Free extra keys and free strike adjustments. Small giveaways add up over a year.
• Programming tools spread across every job. Lockout prices rise for no reason and car key prices fall below cost.
• Pricing an all-keys-lost car job like a duplicate. It takes longer and may need codes from the automaker.
• Leaving the ID check out of task time. It is part of every lockout.
• Quoting commercial systems from a phone call. Walk the building first.

New to the trade? How to start a locksmith business covers training, licensing checks and the van. Our locksmith industry page shows the website, phone and dispatch setup we build for locksmiths. Find the floor under every line of your price sheet with the hourly rate calculator.

Frequently asked questions