Cost of a locksmith

One of the things I love about my job, is that there is rarely any question when it comes to cost; my prices are fair, competitive and the job needs doing. But every now and then someone asks for the price of doing work and then starts to quibble because they are not far from me, or the job is likely to be quick to do, or some other reason.

I could price every job on detailed analysis, but to be honest, that would add an extra time factor to my pricing to work out all the variants, and therefore less jobs in a day, and therefore higher prices to cover the losses, and you, the customer, waiting longer for me than is really needed. So instead, I treat everybody the same: All emergency work has a flat fee of £65 (at time of writing) whether it is five minutes or five hours. This charge has not changed for over four years as I write this at the beginning of 2022. There is no extra cost if you have an emergency at the weekend, or a bank holiday or at 3am. Most other locksmiths will change their costs for these things, but I have the philosophy that I chose to do this job, and you cannot control the time and day of the week your lock fails, or you lose your keys, so why should I punish you more because it is less convenient for me? If I am doing scheduled work, the cost goes up to £100 for half a day and £150 for a full day. Nice, simple numbers. I am so confident my prices are fair and straight forward, I advertise them on my website. You won’t find many others who do this. I also don’t charge VAT. I don’t meet the government threshold that requires it, so why cost you more money?

I have simple pricing, but you might think £65 is a lot, one customer today asking for a quote certainly did, some other trades don’t cost so much, do they? What does an electrician or a plumber cost? £30? £40? That is an hourly rate, and very often, they are with you for over an hour. If we go for a conservative £35ph, the trader can do three 2 hour jobs in a day easily and have £210. They won’t have to go very far as people need other trades more often than locksmiths and they keep their patches small. I asked a plumber to travel 15 miles and got all sorts of excuses. My patch is much bigger; Just yesterday, my calls were Norwich and Burnham Overy. So that was an hour to Norwich and over an hour to Burnham and nearly an hour home. Three hours unpaid driving for two jobs that got me £130 in labour costs. I have spent more fuel and more wear and tear on my vehicle than other traders who already make more in a day’s work. This is not a sympathy request, but an explanation of costs, often, I am doing free security checks which means a round trip with zero income.

Where else do I make my profit? On lock parts; My locks absolutely cost more than you will pay in a chain DIY shop. But I am a small business, I cannot buy in the bulk loads as they can, I cannot offset prices against other products, and I pay shipping fees. I then must cover the upkeep of my tools, the running of my vehicle and insurances, costs incurred from any training I do to improve my service. On my auto-locksmithing side, I have fees every time I plug my computer into a vehicle. I must also cover my guarantee to you. Because of the amount of locking products I buy, and the time some of those products sit in my van waiting to be used, the process of tracking down my orders to claim back on a faulty lock with my suppliers is so time consuming, it’s not worth the effort, so if I come back to you to replace a part, it is entirely at my own cost. Therefore, I am careful to use the best products every time so I can be as confident as possible you won’t call me back. I estimate 19 in every 20 recalls I get are genuinely down to customer error, or bad keys being cut, after my lock has been supplied and fitted, but I still come out and I still don’t charge. On top of this, there is marketing, running a website, operating a card machine and other costs.

So please forgive me when my prices do not drop ‘for cash’, or because you are only five minutes down the road from my base of operations. Please feel free to shop around, I am confident my prices are honest and transparent.

I read a very good quote today which made me smile; ‘Skilled locksmiths are not cheap and cheap locksmiths are not skilled.’ (I think you can apply this to most trades.)

I hope this blog piece clears up any doubts you may have about being ripped off or feeling you are being overcharged. I am always happy to explain my prices in person and as ever, if you do have any questions, please feel free to contact me via any of the methods mentioned on this site.

Thanks for reading.