Pricing
Sixteen jobs, the whole list, and the door that decides them.
All sixteen jobs are printed here, fourteen with ranges and two quoted once the doors have been counted on site. What moves a figure inside its range is which door it is and how it opens. One cylinder on a house in the old part of town takes the low end. A door that reads a credential, with a mechanical cylinder under the panel that has not been turned in years, takes the time that cylinder has been owed. Say which door stopped you and the range closes to one figure. A range covers that work anywhere in town, and the only thing the clock is allowed to add sits in the table below: $52 after 8pm, $92 after midnight.
Emergency Locksmith
OverviewResidential Locksmith
OverviewCommercial Locksmith
OverviewAutomotive Locksmith
OverviewThree tiers, and what each one adds
All the clock is allowed to do, on six common jobs
Every figure below is the low end of that job's published range with the hour already inside it, said the way you would hear it on the phone. Between 8pm and midnight a job carries $52, and between midnight and 7am it carries $92. Nothing else on the clock changes a number, and neither a weekend nor a holiday does.
| Job | 7am–8pm | 8pm–12am | 12am–7am |
|---|---|---|---|
| House lockout | $135 | $190 | $230 |
| Car lockout | $109 | $164 | $204 |
| Business lockout | $145 | $200 | $240 |
| Lock replacement | $129 | $184 | $224 |
| Car key replacement | $159 | $214 | $254 |
| Key fob programming | $95 | $150 | $190 |
The $89 visit is inside every figure in this table rather than underneath it. These are low ends, and what lifts a job off them is the door. A leaf that has dropped on its hinges, a bore cut narrower than the modern standard, a strike that has to be moved and its mortise recut: any of those lands the figure higher in the published range, and it is said on the call rather than found on the receipt.
Why a range
A range is wide because of which door it is
The same job on two doors in this town lands at opposite ends of one range, and the difference is which of the doors it is and how long the metal in it has stood unused. Four things settle it, in the order they come up on the call.
Which door first, the clock second
What moves a figure inside its range here is the door in front of the technician. A cylinder in daily use sits near the bottom. A cylinder that has sat under a reader untouched for years has to be stripped, cleaned and repinned before it will take a key at all, and that is what costs. The clock is allowed one thing only: $52 between 8pm and midnight, $92 between midnight and 7am, folded into the figure before you agree to anything.
Which of the doors it is
A lobby door off the sidewalk, a gate at the garage ramp, the apartment door at the top of the stair and a row of mail doors in the alcove all book under one job name and are four separate pieces of work. Name the one that stopped you and most of the spread is gone before anybody drives out.
How long the metal has stood unused
A cylinder somebody turns every day is a different job from the same cylinder sitting under a reader that has done the work for eight years. The second one is dry, full of dust and often will not take the key that was cut for it. Age on its own is not what costs. Neglect is.
Whether the lock can be kept
A key that needs force is more often a cylinder due for a strip, a clean and a repin than a lock that is finished, and that work sits inside the visit rather than on the bill as parts. Where a cylinder genuinely is finished it is replaced at $133 to $345, and you hear which of the two yours is, with the reason.
FAQ
What people ask once they hear a figure
The lobby reader is dark and my fob does nothing. What can you actually do?+
Open the door. Behind that panel, or under a cover on the lock itself, sits a mechanical cylinder working the same latch, and in most cases it picks open without damage. That is a lockout at $138–$252, plus the hour if it is late, which it usually is. What is outside our reach is the reader itself and your place on the building's fob list, because that side belongs to management. If the cylinder turns out to be seized from years of standing idle, it gets serviced or replaced while the van is there, named and priced before the work starts.
What does the hour add to the figure?+
Weekends and public holidays are billed at ordinary daytime rates here, so a Saturday costs what a Tuesday costs. The clock is the thing that moves a total: $52 for an arrival between 8pm and midnight, $92 between midnight and 7am. Both sit inside the number you are quoted before you agree to anything. A lockout that runs $150 in the afternoon is quoted as $202 at ten at night and $242 at two in the morning, and there is no third version waiting at the door.
Someone new is moving into the unit. What actually needs changing?+
Two different jobs, and only one of them is ours. The credentials get switched off rather than recut: the outgoing fob or card comes off the building's list and stops opening the lobby, the gate and the package room, and that is arranged with whoever manages the building. Everything mechanical is the second job. The unit door takes new pins at $32–$50 per cylinder so the old metal key dies with it, the mail box and any storage lock get looked at, and the override cylinder is checked while the van is on site. People move on work cycles here, so this is one of the most ordinary calls on the list.
We just bought an old house near the park. What is worth doing in the first month?+
Three things, in this order. Repin every exterior cylinder at $32–$50 each, because the keys handed over at closing have passed through an agent, a stager, a painter and a cleaning crew, and bring the front, the back, the garage service door and the gate onto a single key while the van is already there. Next, check whether any exterior door is running on a knob latch alone, which on these streets is common, and put a real deadbolt on it at $133–$345. Then look at the strike plates: on a house that has settled, the bolt often catches the edge of the hole instead of dropping into it, and moving a strike costs almost nothing against what it fixes.
The same job, two buildings, two very different figures. Why?+
Mostly the door, not the lock. Three things move a job inside its range: the condition of the leaf and whether it still hangs square, what has already been cut into it and how the strike meets the bolt, and the clock, since $52 rides on an 8pm arrival and $92 on one after midnight. On a keypad lock that is exactly why $205–$505 is a range and not a price. Describe the door on the phone and the range collapses to one number, which is the number that ends up on the receipt.
Open 24 hours, 7 days
Say what the door reads, and the rest of the call is short
Mountain View and the mid-Peninsula, at any hour. A fob, a card, a code or a plain key, and how many doors stand between the sidewalk and you — that decides the work, and the work decides the number. The number comes back on the same call with the $89 call-out and the clock already inside it, and it is the number on the receipt. The labor carries 90 days, in writing.