How to price and sell security maintenance contracts
Turning one off installs into monthly income: what to include, how to price it and how to collect it.
Installs pay the bills this month. Maintenance contracts pay them every month. For most CCTV and alarm companies, the difference between a business that’s always chasing the next job and one that can plan ahead is the size of its recurring service income.
This guide covers what to put in a maintenance contract, how to price it, how to sell it and how to collect it without spending your evenings chasing payments.
Decide what the customer is actually buying
A maintenance contract is a promise. The customer is paying for peace of mind, so the contract needs to say clearly what they get. Most installers end up with two or three levels.
| Level | Typically includes |
|---|---|
| Basic | The scheduled maintenance visits the system needs, a written report after each one, and priority over non contract customers for callouts |
| Standard | Everything in Basic, plus remote support (app problems, password resets, footage exports) and labour on callouts |
| Premium | Everything in Standard, plus parts on faults up to an agreed limit and a faster response time |
Keep the levels few and the differences obvious. If a customer has to read the small print to see why one costs more, it’s too complicated.
Whatever you offer, write down what isn’t included: damage, misuse, new equipment, and work outside normal hours. Most disputes come from a customer assuming something was covered.
Price it from your costs, not from your competitors
It’s tempting to copy whatever the company down the road charges. A better starting point is what a year of the contract actually costs you to deliver.
Add up the engineer time for each visit, including travel, the cost of consumables such as batteries, the office time spent booking and invoicing, and a fair share of callouts. Then add your margin. Divide by twelve for a monthly price.
As an example only: if two visits a year take three hours in total with travel, your engineer time costs £40 an hour, batteries and sundries average £30 and office time is worth another £20, the year costs about £170 to deliver. Add a healthy margin and you’re looking at a contract around £20 to £25 a month. Your own numbers will differ, and they should, because your costs are yours.
Review prices once a year. Give customers written notice before an increase and explain it plainly. Most will accept a modest annual rise; very few accept a large one after years of no change.
Sell it at the install, not afterwards
The best time to sell maintenance is when the customer is signing for the install. They’ve just decided to spend money protecting their property, and keeping the system working is the obvious next step.
Put the maintenance price on the quote as a line of its own, not a footnote. Explain what happens without it: batteries fail, detectors drift, monitored systems can lose police response and insurers can refuse claims. Then let the customer decide.
For customers who didn’t take a contract, the annual service visit is your second chance. A customer who has just paid for a one off service is a good candidate for a plan that spreads the cost.
Collect it by Direct Debit
Annual invoices for maintenance get forgotten, queried and paid late. Monthly Direct Debit solves most of that: the payment arrives on its own and the customer barely notices it.
The catch is that Direct Debits fail quietly. A bank account changes, a mandate is cancelled, a payment bounces, and nobody notices until the next visit is due. Make checking failed collections a weekly habit and contact the customer the same week. A friendly message soon after a failed payment recovers far more than a firm one six months later.
Deliver what you promised
A contract only renews if the customer feels they got value. Send each customer a booking link when a visit is due, turn up when you said, leave a clear report with photos and make sure they know how to reach you when something goes wrong. Customers who see that happening every year don’t cancel.
Where CRM Ground fits
CRM Ground shows every customer’s GoCardless plan, its price and next collection date, and flags plans whose payments have failed or been cancelled. Service invites go out with a booking link at 8am on the day you pick, engineers send branded reports from site, and everything lands on the customer’s record. See how payments and service plans work.
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