Free Professional Installation: Which Providers Offer It, and What It Actually Costs

By the Home Security Systems & Alarms editorial team · Research-based (no hands-on testing) - see how we evaluate · Last updated September 3, 2026

Update log: September 3, 2026 - retitled and reframed. The page already contained the answer to the question readers actually ask, which is who installs free and what the free install costs, but it was headed "Who Publishes a Number", a framing that describes our method rather than the reader's question. The body research is unchanged. What is new is the summary box below, a section that answers the free-installation question directly, and one added FAQ entry. Vivint's two prices were re-verified at source on September 3, 2026 and are unchanged: $199.99 with free professional installation on a 36-month agreement, $349.99 with no long-term contract and installation an additional $199.

Update log: August 28, 2026 - the ADT row, the ADT paragraph and this page's FAQ structured data all quoted "min. $349 pro installed system purchase" from ADT's deals page, read August 17, 2026. Re-read on August 28, 2026 that sentence is not on that page in any form, and the offer instead reads "$99 home security system includes Google Nest Cam and installation" with a 36-month contract, Pro Monitoring from $59.99/mo and credit approval. All three places now state what the page says today and keep the August 17 reading as dated history. The paragraph's conclusion was rewritten rather than repriced, because the durable point was never the $349 itself: the advertised entry price is a condition of a three-year monitoring agreement. No other provider's figure changed, and ADT's monthly rate did not change.

The monthly price is the number everyone advertises. The one-off charges are the numbers that decide what the first bill looks like, and they are much harder to find. So on August 17, 2026 we opened five providers' own websites and asked one narrow question of each: can a shopper find out what setup costs before speaking to anyone?

Two of the five publish a figure. Three do not. And the most useful thing we found was not a fee at all. It was a provider that publishes two different prices for installing the same box of hardware, which lets you calculate, from that company's own numbers, exactly what "free installation" is charging you.

What each provider publishes

Read that table for its shape rather than for a winner, the same way we read the contract-terms audit on our costs guide. The two companies that publish a number are also the two that sell self setup as the normal path, so the fee is an upgrade with a price rather than an unavoidable cost with a quote attached. The two that publish nothing are the two where a conversation comes first.

That is not automatically sinister. An installer's time genuinely varies by house, and a company that quotes per job can reasonably decline to print one number. But it does mean the shopper cannot compare, and it is worth noticing that the variation argument does not stop SimpliSafe from publishing a floor.

Which providers offer free professional installation

This is the version of the question most people actually search, and it needs one distinction before it can be answered honestly. Free because nobody comes to your house is a different thing from free because the installer's time has been folded into something else you are signing. Both get advertised with the same word.

So the honest summary is that one provider in five advertises free professional installation, and it is conditional on a three-year agreement. That is not a criticism of Vivint on its own. It is how the professionally installed side of this industry is built: the technician visit is a customer-acquisition cost, and it is recovered over the term. What makes Vivint worth reading closely is not that it does this. It is that it publishes both prices for identical hardware on the same page, which almost nobody does, and that lets you work out what the condition costs instead of guessing.

If you are comparing on this basis, the question to carry into the sales call is not "is installation free". It is "what is the price of this same equipment package with no agreement, and what does installation cost then". If the answer is not published, you are being asked to accept a discount without being told its size. Our five-year cost calculator puts any of these paths on the same footing, and the no-contract options are worth reading before you decide the three years are worth $529.

The number Vivint publishes without meaning to

Vivint's own pricing article describes its HomeProtect package, which it lists as one Security Hub, three door and window sensors, one motion sensor, one keypad and a yard sign. Identical hardware, and the article gives it two prices:

• $199.99 upfront. Vivint's wording: this "includes all equipment, free professional installation, and a reduced $24.99 monthly monitoring fee when signing a 36-month agreement."
• $349.99 upfront. Vivint's wording: this "does not require a long-term contract - simply pay your $29.99 monthly monitoring fee and have the flexibility to cancel anytime. Professional installation is an additional $199."

The disclosure beneath the package states the same thing from the other direction: the equipment package "is regularly priced at $349.99, with professional installation priced at $199 and Vivint system monitoring at $29.99/mo., unless otherwise advertised."

So the contract path is cheaper in three separate places at once: $150 less upfront, $199 less on installation, and $5 a month less on monitoring. Put those over the length of the agreement being asked for.

The difference is $529.00, which is about $14.69 a month. That is not our estimate of anything. It is subtraction performed on figures Vivint publishes about its own package, and it answers a question the industry almost never answers out loud: what is the discount for signing away three years? Here it is $529, stated by the seller, on one specific package, on one specific day.

Two honest qualifications, because the number is only useful if it is used correctly. First, these are the regular published prices and Vivint's own disclosure says "unless otherwise advertised", so a live promotion can move all of them. Second, the comparison assumes you keep monitoring for 36 months on both paths. If you would genuinely stay three years either way, the contract path is simply cheaper and the $529 is money you have no reason to spend. The $529 buys an option, not a service. It is worth paying only if there is a real chance you use it, which is a question about your life rather than about the equipment: a house you might sell, a job that might move, a rental you might leave.

What the arithmetic does kill is the phrase itself. "Free professional installation" is not free anywhere in this offer. Vivint prints its price two paragraphs away: $199. The installation is bundled, and the thing you pay with is the term. That is the same mechanism, in miniature, that our guide to what no money down home security actually costs works through at full size.

Setup charges are not the only one-off fees

Installation is the fee people ask about. It is rarely the only one, and the others tend to surface at the worst moment, which is after you have committed.

Minimum purchase requirements

ADT attaches a purchase condition to its advertised deal rather than an installation fee, and the condition changed between our reads. On August 17, 2026 the fine print required a "min. $349 pro installed system purchase". On August 28, 2026 that sentence was not on the page in any form, and the headline offer instead reads: a $99 system including a Google Nest Cam and installation, with a 36-month contract, Pro Monitoring from $59.99 a month, and credit approval. Either way the point for a buyer is the same and it is worth stating plainly: the advertised entry price is a condition of a three-year monitoring agreement, not a standalone purchase, so if you are comparing an advertised ADT offer against a DIY kit, the entry price and the 36-month commitment belong in the comparison together. Our ADT versus SimpliSafe five-year cost comparison runs that arithmetic to its conclusion.

Restocking and return conditions

Trial periods are advertised as risk-free and are usually genuine. The conditions are where the money is. Frontpoint publishes a 30-day risk-free trial with free return shipping, and then states that returns "initiated within 30 days but not postmarked until after the 30-day risk-free trial has expired", or returns that "do not include all of the equipment", "may be subject to a restocking fee of up to $150".

Both halves of that are easy to trip over. A postmark date is not the same as a decision date, and a system that has been lived with for a month has usually had a sensor moved to a drawer. The practical version: if a trial is going badly, start the return with a week to spare and put every piece back in the box, including the parts that never came out of it.

Equipment you are financing rather than buying

Where equipment is financed rather than bought, the upfront charge can be small and still not be the real number, because the balance survives a cancellation of the monitoring service. That structure, and what it does to an exit, is covered in our no money down guide, and if you are already inside one, how to cancel Vivint covers the buyout arithmetic specifically.

The fee no provider will ever quote you

In many US cities an alarm system requires a permit, often with an annual renewal, and false alarms are fined on a rising scale. Neither charge comes from your security company, so neither one appears on any quote, in any promotion, or in any comparison written by a seller. They are charged by your city, they recur, and they attach to the alarm at your address rather than to the brand on it, which means switching provider does not make them go away.

This is genuinely the most commonly missed line in a home security budget, and it is the one we maintain our own data on. Our alarm permit and false-alarm fine index lists what individual cities charge, taken from their own ordinances. Look up your city before you assume the monthly fee is the whole recurring cost.

The fees that only appear when you move

One-off charges do not all arrive at the start. Moving house triggers a second set, and the same pattern repeats: Brinks publishes a $75 installation fee for the new address and Vivint publishes a $149 technician uninstall fee, both on support pages, while Vivint's page selling a full professional system move publishes no price at all. The larger cost is not a fee: ADT's own support site states that a move usually ends the agreement, because its contracts are tied to the monitored address, and the replacement system it offers movers carries a fresh 36-month term. We set all six providers' published moving terms side by side in moving house with a security system.

Does paying for installation make sense?

Often, no. Sometimes, clearly yes. The honest answer depends on the house and the household rather than on the system, and no salesperson is well placed to give it to you because the same conversation sells both answers.

Reasons the fee is usually skippable on a modern DIY system: the sensors are adhesive, the hub configures itself through an app, and both SimpliSafe and Cove describe self setup as taking under an hour. Paying $125 to $199 to avoid an hour of instructions is a defensible use of money, but it is a convenience purchase and should be recognised as one.

Reasons the fee earns its keep:

• Height and outdoor cameras. The parts of these systems that genuinely want a professional are the ones on ladders and exterior walls. Note that installers frequently price cameras separately from the base system.
• A house with existing wiring. If there is a legacy wired panel in a cupboard, the useful job is not sticking sensors to doors, it is deciding what to do with what is already there. Our alarm system takeover guide covers that path, which is frequently much cheaper than a new system.
• Nobody in the household wants to own the project. A half-installed security system protects nothing. If the realistic alternative is a box in a hallway for six weeks, the fee is cheap.
• You want the sensor placement decided by somebody who has done it before. Coverage is where most self-installed systems are weakest, which is why we wrote a separate guide on how many door and window sensors a house actually needs.

Four questions that get the one-off costs on the record

1. "What is the total of everything I pay before the first monthly bill?" Equipment, installation, activation, shipping, tax. One number. If the answer comes back as a monthly figure, the question has not been answered.
2. "Is installation quoted per job or per system, and does that price include the cameras?" Camera installation is commonly separate, and it is the part that most often needs a professional.
3. "If I return the system inside the trial, what do I pay?" Ask specifically about return shipping, restocking, and whether the deadline is the day you decide or the day the parcel is postmarked.
4. "Which of these charges disappear if I sign a longer agreement, and what is the agreement worth to you in cash?" This is the Vivint question generalised. Any charge a company will waive for a signature has a price, and that price is what the term is worth.

Sources

• SimpliSafe - Installation ("Two installation options"; professional installation described as a technician coming to the home, installing the system and connecting it to professional monitoring "all starting at $124.99"; self setup described as easy setup in minutes with app guidance) (accessed 2026-08-17)
• Vivint - Vivint Monthly Pricing: Real System Costs Broken Down (HomeProtect contents and both payment options: "$199.99. This price point includes all equipment, free professional installation, and a reduced $24.99 monthly monitoring fee when signing a 36-month agreement." and "$349.99. This upfront cost does not require a long-term contract... Professional installation is an additional $199."; disclosure text "regularly priced at $349.99, with professional installation priced at $199 and Vivint system monitoring at $29.99/mo., unless otherwise advertised") (accessed 2026-08-17)
• 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."; ADT Blu described as needing "no heavy-duty tools or professional install required. Plus no long-term contracts."; no installation charge published) (accessed 2026-08-17). Re-read 2026-08-28: the "min. $349" sentence is no longer present anywhere in that page, which now advertises "$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."
• Cove - Professional Installation With HelloTech (professional installation offered through partner HelloTech, self setup described as taking under an hour; no price stated on the page) (accessed 2026-08-17)
• Frontpoint - Offer Details (30-day risk-free trial with free return shipping; returns "initiated within 30 days but not postmarked until after the 30-day risk-free trial has expired" or that "do not include all of the equipment" "may be subject to a restocking fee of up to $150"; Ultimate $49.99, Interactive $44.99 and Video-Only from $14.99 per month, each "governed by a 36-month contract") (accessed 2026-08-17)
• Cove - Professionally Monitored Home Security plans (published rates of $0.77, $1.10 and $1.43 a day, "No Contracts, Cancel Anytime", 60-day risk-free trial) (accessed 2026-08-17)

Note on sourcing and method: every figure and quoted phrase above was read from the named company's own live page on August 17, 2026, not from another comparison site, and the access date is shown against each source. The only arithmetic on this page is the 36-month total for the two Vivint paths, which multiplies and adds Vivint's own published figures and shows its working in the table rather than asserting a conclusion. We have not tested any provider's installation service, we have no financial relationship with any company named, and none of them was contacted about this page. Promotions in this market change weekly and several of these providers have restructured their published pricing during 2026, so confirm current figures with the provider before you buy.