Security System Costs, Contracts, and Cancellation: The Fine Print
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Judge a system by its total cost over the full term, not the advertised monthly price. A DIY setup runs roughly $200–$700 upfront plus $0–$35 a month. A traditional professionally installed contract is little or nothing upfront, on a term that is 36 months at every provider we can find publishing one, with monthly monitoring starting somewhere between $24.99 and $59.99 depending on the company, before cameras, add-on devices or equipment financing. Over five years the gap between the two paths can still top $2,000. Watch for auto-renewal clauses, mid-contract rate increases, and "no contract" that is really multi-year equipment financing.
Home security pricing is engineered to make the first number you see small and the last number you pay large. "Free installation" recovers its cost in the monthly rate. "$0 down" means a five-year equipment loan. "No contract" sometimes means the monitoring has no contract while the equipment financing very much does. This page collects the fine print - contract mechanics, termination math, and the questions that surface all of it before you sign. Every price here is re-read on a rolling schedule from the provider's own page, and each figure carries the date we last read it.
Prices below are approximate and carry the date we last read them on the provider's own page. Verify current pricing directly with providers before you buy: promotional layers in this industry change weekly, and we deliberately quote list prices rather than whatever promotion happens to be running.
Upfront costs: what equipment really runs
| Path | Typical upfront | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| DIY starter kit (apartment / small home) | ~$160–$300 | Ring's 8-piece Alarm kit listed around $250–$305; Wyze's core kit around $112 plus hub; SimpliSafe packages started around $250 |
| DIY kit, typical 3-bed house | ~$300–$700 | SimpliSafe's seven packages run $250.96 (Foundation, 4 pieces) to $733.90 (Beacon, 10 pieces) at list, re-read on its own shop page 2026-09-17 and unchanged on a fourth consecutive reading; a 50% promotional layer was displayed alongside every one of those list prices on that date. Steep discounts are near-constant at Cove and common elsewhere |
| Pro-installed system (ADT, Vivint) | $0 down to $600+, or financed | Equipment packages often reach $600 to several thousand dollars, spread across financing (see below); install/activation fees vary by promotion |
| Reusing an existing wired system | ~$0–$200 for a communicator | Often the cheapest path of all - see using old ADT equipment and what to do with an inherited alarm |
Two pricing behaviors to know. First, list prices in this category are soft: Cove, for example, was advertising 70% off most equipment in mid-2026, and Black Friday/Prime Day discounts on DIY kits are dependable. Never pay list without checking. Second, "free equipment" from contract providers isn't free - it's amortized into 36–60 months of elevated monthly payments. Always compare total cost over the full term.
Monthly costs
- Self-monitoring: $0 on most DIY brands (Ring, Abode, eufy, Wyze); camera cloud storage typically $3–$10/month if you want it. SimpliSafe's Self Monitoring plan with camera recordings is published at 33¢ a day (read 2026-08-26), which converts to about $10.04 a month.
- No-contract professional monitoring: roughly $10–$43/month. eufy around $9.99; Wyze $19.99/month (Cam Unlimited Pro, $16.67/month if you pay $199.99 for the year), because that is the only Wyze plan that includes "24/7 emergency dispatch (police / fire / medical)" - the $9.99 Cam Unlimited tier below it is self-monitoring, and gives you arm and disarm in the app but nobody to call the police for you (wyze.com/pages/service-plans, read 2026-09-17); Ring $19.99/month or $199.99/year for Ring Home Pro, the tier that adds 24/7 professional monitoring and cellular backup (ring.com/plans, read 2026-09-15); Cove about $23.42 (Basic) to $43.50 (Premium) and SimpliSafe about $23.12 (Standard) to $33.46 (Core), both converted by us from the daily rates they publish; Abode $26.99/month or $245.99/year for Pro, which is the tier where an alarm is forwarded to the monitoring centre automatically rather than only when you act (goabode.com/plans, read 2026-09-15). The gap between a brand's cheapest plan and its cheapest plan that actually dispatches anyone is the single most common way this category is mis-shopped. One thing worth knowing before you compare any of these: re-checked on August 28, 2026, neither Cove nor SimpliSafe publishes a monthly price on its own plan page at all. Both quote a daily rate. Cove lists $0.77, $1.10 and $1.43 a day; SimpliSafe lists 76¢ a day for Standard, $1.10 for Core, $1.66 to $2.66 for Pro and Pro Plus, and 33¢ for Self Monitoring with camera recordings. The monthly figures on this page are those daily rates multiplied by 365 and divided by 12 (Cove: $23.42, $33.46 and $43.50; SimpliSafe Standard: $23.12), labelled as our arithmetic because neither company publishes a monthly price. A daily rate is harder to add up over a year, and it is the one you see first.
- Takeover monitoring of an existing wired system: from roughly $8–$10/month (GeoArm, Alarm Grid).
- Contract providers that publish the whole ladder: Frontpoint states all three of its monthly prices and its term on one page anyone can open. Ultimate is "regularly priced at $49.99 per month, plus tax", Interactive $44.99, and Video-Only "starting at $14.99", each "governed by a 36-month contract", with early termination costing "80% of the monthly charges for the remainder of the contract term" (frontpointsecurity.com/offer-details, read 2026-09-17 and unchanged). Read the Video-Only price carefully before treating it as a cheap way in: it buys the video features and an in-app panic button, on the same 36-month term as the plans above it. Frontpoint also publishes a 30-day risk-free trial from the day you receive the system, with a restocking fee of up to $150 if the return is late or incomplete.
- Traditional contract providers: ADT Self Setup professional monitoring from $24.99 to $37.99/month depending on the kit, month-to-month and requiring AutoPay enrolment (ADT's own shop terms, verified 2026-08-09); ADT professionally installed plans from $59.99/month, which is a floor rather than a range: as of 2026-08-09 that figure appears only in the fine print of ADT's current promotion ("36 mo. pro monitoring plan starting at $59.99/mo"), and ADT publishes no monthly price at all on its main security page, its package comparison page or its DIY comparison page, while adt.com/pricing returns a "not found" page. Brinks Home publishes "Protection starts at just $29.99/month" alongside free professional installation on its own how-to-buy page (read 2026-08-20), and states no contract term there; Vivint's how-to-buy page was rebuilt at some point before August 22, 2026, and as read on August 22, 2026 it carried three different monthly monitoring figures at once: "Vivint Monitoring starts at $24.99/mo" in the hero, "Vivint 24/7 Professional Monitoring Starting at $44.99/mo" further down the same page, and "$29.99/mo." inside the HomeProtect offer terms at the foot of it. None of them was hidden and none of them was wrong; they describe different bundles. On a re-read of the same URL on September 22, 2026 the visible page carries only two figures, "Equipment starts at $199.99" and "Vivint Monitoring starts at $24.99/mo". The financing ladder and the offer-terms block have not been deleted: they are still in the page, inside pop-up panels it does not display until they are opened. That does not make the higher numbers obsolete, because the $29.99 monitoring figure and a full package list are still published in Vivint's own pricing article, but it does mean the page a shopper lands on tells them less than it did three weeks ago. The practical consequence is unchanged: the number you quote back to a salesperson depends entirely on which Vivint page you read, and every one of them is before cameras, before add-on devices and before the equipment loan payment. Vivint's own pricing article publishes a package list, including upfront equipment prices, 0% APR monthly equivalents and approximate monitoring for each package, while its buying page routes you to a phone call. See our audit of published installation and setup fees for what those two paths cost side by side.
The 5-year math makes the stakes clear: $9.99/month is about $600 over five years; $49.99/month is about $3,000 - before equipment. Which level of service you actually need is the subject of our monitoring decision guide, and the current monthly figure for every provider we track, with the read date against each one, is in what alarm monitoring costs per month.
Contract lengths and what they really mean
| Provider type | Typical term | Early exit |
|---|---|---|
| DIY brands (SimpliSafe, Ring, Abode, Cove, Wyze, eufy) | Month-to-month | Cancel anytime; you own the equipment |
| ADT (professional install) | 36 months, and 24 months in California. Both figures are ADT's own, from the offer terms on its legal pages | "75% of the total remaining monthly charges", stated in capitals in Paragraph 2 of ADT's published Monitoring Contract Terms. No termination charge is due if you cancel during a 30-day renewal period |
| Brinks | 36 months reported | ETF reported around 80% of the remaining balance (third-party figure - confirm against your own contract) |
| Vivint | Month-to-month monitoring if equipment is paid upfront; otherwise tied to an equipment loan. Vivint publishes its own financing terms and publishes two different maximums on one page: "terms up to 36 months at 0% interest" in the pricing section, above a 12/18/24/36-month ladder, and "0% APR for up to 60 months, with terms varying by offer" in the offer terms below it (both read 2026-08-29 and both still present on 2026-09-22, but only inside pop-up panels the page does not display by default; Vivint's separate financing page states the range in plain visible text as "36 to 60 months", read 2026-09-22, so read your own agreement). | Cancelling generally requires paying off the equipment balance |
Read the term as a debt: a 36-month contract at $50/month is a $1,800 commitment, and the ETF clause determines how much of it you owe if life changes. Moving is the exception people are most often told wrongly about. ADT's own support site says that a move requires cancelling "in most cases", because monitoring contracts are "typically tied to the location of the home being monitored", and its residential terms state that a professionally installed system remains ADT's property. Whether your provider will transfer the term, restart it, or end it is a question to settle in writing before you list the house; our guide to moving with a security system sets out what each of six providers publishes.
Which companies will tell you the terms before you call
We re-read providers' own pages on a rolling schedule. On August 16, 2026 we read five of them for contract language rather than for price, and the interesting difference was not the length of the term. It was whether a shopper can find the term at all without first handing a salesperson a phone number.
| Provider | Is the term published on its own site? | Is the early-exit fee published? | Where you find it |
|---|---|---|---|
| Frontpoint | Yes. 36 months, stated for all three monitoring plans | Yes, with the formula: "an early termination fee of 80% of the monthly charges for the remainder of the contract term" | A standing Offer Details page linked from the site footer |
| ADT (professionally installed) | Yes. "36 mo. pro monitoring plan starting at $59.99/mo" | Yes. The deals-page fine print says only "Early term fees", but the "terms here" link on that same fine print leads to a page that quantifies it: "ADT may charge 75% of the monthly service charges due for the balance of the initial contract term". The full clause is in ADT's Monitoring Contract Terms, Paragraph 2 | Promotional fine print on the deals page, one click from the quantified figure |
| ADT Blu (self setup) | Yes. "no long-term contracts" | Not applicable | The same deals page |
| Cove | Yes. "No Contracts, Cancel Anytime", listed as a feature on every tier | Not applicable | On the monitoring plan page itself |
| SimpliSafe | Not on its monitoring plan page, which carries per-day prices and a feature grid and no term at all | Not applicable | Not on that page |
| Vivint | Partly. Vivint publishes a financing ladder on its own how-to-buy page ("terms up to 36 months at 0% interest", with 12, 18, 24 and 36-month tiers by order size) plus the HomeProtect offer terms. What it does not do is publish one financing maximum: the offer terms on the same page say up to 60 months. It still publishes no monitoring contract length, and still routes a real quote to a phone call (read 2026-08-29; on a 2026-09-22 re-read the ladder and the 60-month sentence are both still in that page but hidden inside pop-up panels, leaving the visible page showing only "Equipment starts at $199.99" and "$24.99/mo") | No | Financing terms on the how-to-buy page; monitoring term not published |
Read that table for its shape rather than for a winner. The provider stating the harshest exit terms here, Frontpoint at 80%, is also the one stating them plainly on a page anyone can open without talking to a human being, and ADT's 75% is one link away from its own promotional fine print. The provider publishing the least, Vivint, is not offering a shorter commitment in exchange; it is offering the same kind of commitment with the paperwork arriving later, once someone is already in your living room. "We will build you a custom quote" is a pricing strategy, not a courtesy.
A practical use for this: before any sales conversation, open the provider's own terms page and save the term length and the exit clause. If you cannot find either one, that is your first question, and the answer belongs in writing rather than in a conversation.
Is a five-year contract normal?
No for monitoring, and genuinely unclear for equipment financing, because Vivint publishes two different maximums on the same page. The longest monitoring term any provider above publishes is 36 months. For equipment financing, Vivint's how-to-buy page, read again on August 29, 2026, states in its pricing section that it offers "terms up to 36 months at 0% interest" above a ladder that stops at 36 months, and states in the "Financing Options" paragraph of the offer terms further down the same page that "Qualified customers may finance at 0% APR for up to 60 months, with terms varying by offer." Both sentences are Vivint's, on one URL, on the same day. We quote both rather than picking the friendlier one or the more alarming one. When we re-read that URL on September 22, 2026, both sentences were still in the page but neither was on display: each now sits inside a pop-up panel, so the page a shopper reads shows only "Equipment starts at $199.99" and "Vivint Monitoring starts at $24.99/mo". Vivint's separate financing page, read the same day, puts the range in plain visible text: "Financing lets you spread equipment costs over 36 to 60 months." A financing term you were quoted in August is still the term on your paperwork, so what changed is how hard Vivint makes the terms to find, not what you signed. Corrected September 22, 2026: we previously reported these sentences as removed.
The confusion is usually two separate documents being described as one. The monitoring agreement and the equipment loan are different contracts with different balances, and the loan does not end when the monitoring service does. So a quote can genuinely involve two commitments at once without either of them being five years long. Vivint publishes both figures on the same page, and neither is a third-party estimate. If your paperwork says 48 or 60 months, it is not out of line with what Vivint's own terms allow, and the number to check is the one on your agreement rather than the one in any ladder.
So when a quote mentions five years, the useful question is not whether that is normal. It is which of the two agreements the number belongs to, and what happens to the other one if you cancel. Our guide to what no money down home security actually costs works through a real offer where those two numbers come apart.
The clauses that bite
Auto-renewal
Many traditional contracts renew automatically at the end of the initial term - sometimes month-to-month, sometimes for a further fixed period depending on the agreement and state law (a number of states restrict long auto-renewals). The practical trap: cancellation usually requires notice within a specific window, in writing, and sometimes only after speaking to a retention department. Calendar your contract end date the day you sign, and ask exactly what the renewal term and notice window are.
Mid-contract price increases
ADT's published residential terms, for example, allow it to increase the service charge after the first year of the term. The offsetting consumer right in those terms: if you object in writing within 30 days of the increase notice and ADT doesn't waive the increase, you can terminate without the termination charge. Most customers never learn this. Whoever your provider is, find the rate-increase clause before signing and ask whether an increase gives you a penalty-free exit - then keep every increase notice you receive.
Early termination fees
Worked example using ADT's published structure (up to 75% of remaining monthly charges): cancel a $50/month, 36-month contract at month 12 and you can owe up to 75% × $50 × 24 remaining months = $900 - to stop receiving a service. This is why the "free" $850 equipment package isn't free. The main penalty-free exits are: the initial trial window (ADT has offered a 6-month money-back guarantee subject to conditions; others offer around 30 days), a qualifying objection to a rate increase (above), and - under the FTC's Cooling-Off Rule - three business days after signing a door-to-door sale. For the full step-by-step, the exact fee math, and every exit that can actually apply to you, see our dedicated guide on how to cancel ADT and when you can avoid the termination fee.
Equipment financing traps
Vivint's Flex Pay model is the clearest example of the modern structure: equipment is bought on a 0%-APR installment loan, and monitoring is billed separately. Vivint's own how-to-buy page, read August 22, 2026, publishes the loan terms as a ladder tied to order size, "Pay in 4" on any order, then 12 months at 0% from $299, 18 months from $599, 24 months from $999 and 36 months from $1,499, under the heading "terms up to 36 months at 0% interest". The offer terms lower down the same page, read August 29, 2026, put the ceiling higher: "Qualified customers may finance at 0% APR for up to 60 months, with terms varying by offer." A ladder and a ceiling are not the same claim, and on a loan that is billed separately from the service you can cancel, the ceiling is the number that decides how long you are paying. Monitoring on the same page is quoted as starting at $24.99, at $44.99 and at $29.99 in three different places, and rises with cameras and add-on devices. The marketing truthfully says monitoring has no long-term contract - but if you cancel, the equipment loan doesn't cancel with it. You owe the balance on hardware that mostly works only with the provider's service. Before accepting any financed equipment, ask: "If I cancel monitoring after 12 months, exactly what do I owe, and what does the equipment still do?" Already in a Vivint agreement and want out? Our dedicated guide to how to cancel Vivint covers the buyout math, the transfer option, and the documented penalty-free exits.
The same structure is sold under a friendlier name: no money down. Three quite different arrangements share that phrase, and they behave differently the moment you try to leave one. Our guide to what no money down home security actually costs separates the three, works the arithmetic on a real dealer offer and a real early termination fee, and lists the five questions to ask before signing.
Equipment you don't own - or can't reuse
With DIY brands you own everything outright. With traditional providers, read the ownership clause: some equipment is leased, and even owned proprietary panels (like ADT Command) generally can't be taken over by another monitoring company, which quietly eliminates your leverage to switch. Details in our guide to reusing old ADT equipment.
Cancellation difficulty, compared
| Provider | How you cancel (as published/reported, July 2026) | Friction level |
|---|---|---|
| SimpliSafe, Ring, Abode, Wyze, eufy, Cove | Cancel subscription by phone/account settings; no penalty; keep equipment | Low - though some brands require a phone call and identity verification, and retention offers are common |
| ADT | Phone call required; retention pitch; ETF if in-term; written confirmation advisable | High in-term, moderate after term - third-party guides consistently describe multi-step retention flows |
| Vivint | Notice requirements plus payoff of any equipment balance - see our step-by-step guide to cancelling Vivint | High if financed; low only if equipment was paid upfront |
| Brinks | Phone-based cancellation with notice period; complaints about the process are common on consumer boards | High in-term |
General cancellation hygiene regardless of provider: get the cancellation confirmation number and a written/email confirmation, watch the next two billing cycles, and if you're moving, don't rely on the buyer of your home "taking over" the contract unless the provider confirms the transfer in writing.
Questions to ask before signing anything
- What is the total of all payments - equipment, monitoring, fees - over the full term?
- Is the equipment purchased, financed, or leased? Who owns it on day one, and at the end?
- If I cancel after 12 months, what exactly do I owe? (Make them show the ETF formula.)
- Can you raise my rate during the term? If you do, can I exit without penalty?
- What happens at the end of the term - auto-renewal length, notice window, and how notice must be delivered?
- If I move, what are my options and costs?
- If I later switch providers, can another company monitor this equipment, or is the panel proprietary?
- What's the trial/money-back window, and does it cover installation fees?
- Does my city require an alarm permit, and who pays false-alarm fines? (Check yourself here - fines and permit fees are a real recurring cost the sales process never mentions.)
- Which of these answers are in the written contract, and where? (If an answer exists only verbally, it doesn't exist.)
Next step: If the fine print above has soured you on contracts, our no-contract system comparison covers the month-to-month alternatives - and our choosing guide walks the whole decision from the top.
Put your own numbers in: our five-year cost calculator adds up equipment, fees, monitoring, and add-ons for two setups side by side, so you compare the real total instead of the advertised monthly price. For a worked head-to-head, see our ADT vs SimpliSafe true 5-year cost comparison, and for the one-off charges that never appear in a monthly price, our installation and setup fee audit covers which providers publish a figure and which will not.
Get the monthly price and permit digest
Every monitoring price on this site is re-checked against the provider's own published page on a rolling schedule, and several of those pricing pages have been restructured or withdrawn without notice this year. We will email you when a price we track changes, or when a new city is added to our alarm permit and false-alarm index. Occasionally, never as spam. We never sell your address and you can unsubscribe at any time.
Sources
- ADT - Residential Terms and Conditions (accessed 2026-07-02)
- ADT - Monitoring Terms & Conditions (rate increase and objection clause) (accessed 2026-07-02)
- SafeWise - How to Cancel Your ADT Contract (accessed 2026-07-02)
- SafeHome.org - ADT Contract Length, Cancellation Policy, Terms & Renewals (accessed 2026-07-02)
- HomeGuide - How Much Does ADT Cost? (accessed 2026-07-02)
- Security.org - Vivint Pricing & Plan Cost (accessed 2026-07-02)
- Vivint - Financing FAQ (accessed 2026-07-02)
- SafeHome.org - Vivint Contract Length & Cancellation Policy (accessed 2026-07-02)
- SafeWise - Home Security System Cancellation Policies (accessed 2026-07-02)
- Brinks Home - Terms of Service (accessed 2026-07-02)
- Brinks Home - How to buy a new security system ("Protection starts at just $29.99/month"; free professional installation; no contract term stated on the page) (accessed 2026-08-20)
- Security.org - SimpliSafe Package Costs & Monitoring Plans (accessed 2026-07-02)
- Security.org - Cove Cost and Pricing (accessed 2026-07-02)
- Ring - 8-Piece Alarm Security Kit (accessed 2026-07-02)
- SafeHome.org - Wyze Packages & Plans (accessed 2026-07-02)
- FTC Consumer Advice - Home Security System Shopping (Cooling-Off Rule) (accessed 2026-07-02)
- GeoArm - Alarm Monitoring from $8/month (accessed 2026-07-02)
- ADT - Deals & Special Promotions, offer fine print: "Req. min. $349 pro installed system purchase and 36 mo. pro monitoring plan starting at $59.99/mo. Early term fees." (accessed 2026-08-09). Re-read 2026-08-28: that sentence is no longer present anywhere in the page, and the offer now reads "$99 home security system includes Google Nest Cam and installation" with "36 mo. contract. Pro Monitoring Plan starting at $59.99/mo. Subject to credit approval."
- ADT - Shop (ADT Blu self-setup), promotion terms: "Requires month-to-month Pro-Protect monitoring plan for ADT Blu systems from $24.99 - $37.99/mo. depending on Kit selected (one month minimum) and enrollment in ADT AutoPay." (accessed 2026-08-09)
- ADT - Residential security terms and conditions: "Requires 36-month monitoring contract starting at $59.99/mo. (24-month monitoring contract in California, total fees from $1,439.76)"; "Upon early termination of 36-month monitoring contract, ADT may charge 75% of the monthly service charges due for the balance of the initial contract term"; "Professionally installed system remains property of ADT" (accessed 2026-08-19)
- ADT - Monitoring Contract Terms, Paragraph 2: "IF I CANCEL SERVICE OR OTHERWISE TERMINATE THIS CONTRACT DURING ITS INITIAL TERM ... I WILL PAY ADT 75% OF THE TOTAL REMAINING MONTHLY CHARGES ... NO CONTRACT TERMINATION CHARGES ARE DUE IF I TERMINATE, OR IF ADT CANCELS, DURING THE THIRTY (30)-DAY RENEWAL PERIOD(S)" (accessed 2026-08-19)
- Frontpoint - Offer Details, monitoring terms: Ultimate "regularly priced at $49.99 per month, plus tax, and are governed by a 36-month contract", Interactive at $44.99 and Video-Only from $14.99 on the same 36-month term, and "Early termination of the 36-month contract may result in Frontpoint charging an early termination fee of 80% of the monthly charges for the remainder of the contract term." Re-read and every figure verbatim unchanged (accessed 2026-08-16, re-read 2026-09-17)
- Wyze - Security Plans, the three published tiers and what each one includes: Cam Plus $2.49/mo billed $29.99/yr for one camera; Cam Unlimited $8.33/mo billed $99.99/yr, all cameras, whose security line is "Self-monitoring: arm / disarm & daily stats"; Cam Unlimited Pro $16.67/mo billed $199.99/yr, the only tier listing "24/7 emergency dispatch (police / fire / medical)". Monthly-billed equivalents $2.99, $9.99 and $19.99. Optional Cloud 60 add-on $2.99/mo per camera (accessed 2026-09-17)
- Ring - Plans, Ring Home Solo $4.99/mo or $49.99/yr, Multi $9.99/mo or $99.99/yr, and Pro $19.99/mo or $199.99/yr as the tier adding 24/7 professional monitoring and cellular backup; Virtual Security Guard $99.00/mo (accessed 2026-09-15)
- Abode - Plans, Standard $8.49/mo or $79.99/yr with the alarm forwarded to the monitoring centre only on user action, and Pro $26.99/mo or $245.99/yr with automatic forwarding and cellular backup; no contract (accessed 2026-09-15)
- SimpliSafe - Shop Packages, the seven-package list ladder re-read and unchanged: Foundation $250.96, Starter $282.94, Hearth $437.91, Lighthouse $482.93, Knox $520.87, Haven $558.86, Beacon $733.90, each displayed beside a 50% promotional price (accessed 2026-09-17)
- ADT - Deals & Special Promotions, offer fine print re-read for contract language: "Min purchase req'd. 36 mo. contract. Early terms fees apply." and, for the self-setup line, "no long-term contracts" (accessed 2026-08-16)
- Cove - Professionally Monitored Home Security plans, "No Contracts, Cancel Anytime" listed on all three tiers, with published rates of $0.77, $1.10 and $1.43 a day and a 60-day risk-free trial (accessed 2026-08-16)
- SimpliSafe - Monitoring Plans, published as per-day rates (76¢ Standard, $1.10 Core, $1.66 to $2.66 Pro and Pro Plus, 33¢ self monitoring with camera recordings) with no contract term and no monthly figure stated on the page (re-checked, unchanged, 2026-08-26)
- SimpliSafe - home-security-monitoring, the URL that previously carried SimpliSafe's monthly plan prices; returned SimpliSafe's own "Page not found" when checked, while SimpliSafe's own top navigation still links to it (accessed 2026-08-26)
- Vivint - How to Buy, the only Vivint surface still publishing a figure: "Equipment starts at $199.99" and "Vivint Monitoring starts at $24.99/mo" (accessed 2026-08-15)
- Vivint - How to Buy, re-read after the page was rebuilt: "We offer flexible financing options based on your order size, with terms up to 36 months at 0% interest", with tiers of Pay in 4 on any order, 12 months at 0% from $299, 18 months from $599, 24 months from $999 and 36 months from $1,499; three separate monitoring figures on the one page ("Vivint Monitoring starts at $24.99/mo", "Vivint 24/7 Professional Monitoring Starting at $44.99/mo", and "Vivint system monitoring at $29.99/mo." in the HomeProtect Offer Terms); HomeProtect equipment "regularly priced at $349.99, with professional installation priced at $199"; HomeProtect Pro requires "a minimum $749.99 expenditure on equipment (after discounts)" (accessed 2026-08-22)
- Vivint - How to Buy, whole-page re-read including the offer terms block: every figure above verbatim unchanged, and the "Financing Options" paragraph states "Qualified customers may finance at 0% APR for up to 60 months, with terms varying by offer", which the same page's pricing section contradicts with "terms up to 36 months at 0% interest". Professional installation is shown struck through at $199 and marked FREE in the promotional layer, while the HomeProtect Offer Terms on the same page still price it at $199 "unless otherwise advertised" (accessed 2026-08-29)
- Vivint - How to Buy, re-read including the page's pop-up panels: the visible page carries only "Equipment starts at $199.99" and "Vivint Monitoring starts at $24.99/mo", while the financing panel still carries the ladder ("terms up to 36 months at 0% interest"; Pay in 4 on any order, 12 months at 0% from $299, 18 from $599, 24 from $999, 36 from $1,499) and the offer-terms panel still carries "Qualified customers may finance at 0% APR for up to 60 months, with terms varying by offer" (accessed 2026-09-22)
- Vivint - Flexible Home Security Financing, visible page text: "Financing option: Spread equipment costs over 36-60 months with available financing", "Equipment payments billed by financing partner. Monitoring service billed separately by Vivint", "Buy now, pay over time. Up to 36 months at 0% APR* *Not all customers will qualify", and "You can pay off your financed equipment at any time with no penalties" (accessed 2026-09-22)
- Vivint - How to Buy, third re-read: the page published only two figures, "Equipment starts at $199.99" and "Vivint Monitoring starts at $24.99/mo". The $44.99 professional-monitoring line, the $29.99 HomeProtect offer-terms figure, the 12/18/24/36-month financing ladder and the "up to 60 months" sentence were all absent (accessed 2026-09-14)
- Vivint - Vivint Monthly Pricing: Real System Costs Broken Down, re-read and unchanged: packages at $649.99, $999.98 and $1,549.97 upfront (or four payments of $162.50, $249.99 and $387.49 at 0% APR) with approximate monitoring of $49, $54 and $59 a month; HomeProtect at $199.99 with free professional installation and "a reduced $24.99 monthly monitoring fee when signing a 36-month agreement"; HomeProtect at $349.99 with no long-term contract, "$29.99 monthly monitoring fee" and professional installation "an additional $199" (accessed 2026-09-14)