Alarm & CCTV pricing
What does an alarm system cost in New Zealand?
Answer seven quick questions and get a real installed price range for your own house — no phone call, no sales visit. We will also tell you whether wired or wireless is the better buy, including when the cheaper one is the right one. It is an estimate to budget from, not a quote — your fixed price comes after a free site visit.
Instant estimate
Price your own house
Every figure below is built from what we actually pay for Ajax hardware and what the work actually takes — not a padded guess. Change any answer and the price updates as you go.
Including GST, supplied and installed
Commercial jobs vary far too much to price from a form — access, cable runs, existing infrastructure and compliance all move the number. Give Joe a call on 022 538 3587 and he will walk the site with you. No charge, no obligation.
These figures are an estimate to help you budget — they are not a quote and not an offer, and nothing here is binding on either of us. They are built from current Ajax and TP-Link VIGI pricing and real install times, but a form cannot see your property: access, wall construction, cable routes and a dozen other things move the final number. Your fixed price comes in writing after a free site visit. All prices include GST at 15%.
Behind the number
What actually drives the price
How many rooms need covering
Motion detectors are the bulk of the hardware count. A three-bedroom house typically takes four; a five-bedroom, six. A second storey adds another, plus about 15% to the install time because the job stops being a one-level walk-around.
Which doors you want on the system
A contact on every exterior door is the usual ask. Each one is a small hardware cost and a few minutes to fit, so going from two doors to four moves the price by well under $200.
Whether there is already cable in the walls
This is the single biggest swing. A house with a dead alarm usually has sound cable running to the old sensor positions, and reusing it removes most of the labour from a wired install. A lined house with no cable at all is the opposite — pulling new cable is slow, invasive and rarely worth it.
Which brand goes on the wall
Ajax is a premium alarm system and priced like one — photo verification, a serious app and hardware built to last. On cameras the sums flip: a 5MP Ajax turret costs us close to twice a TP-Link VIGI of the same resolution. So unless you specifically want one Ajax app across both alarm and CCTV, VIGI is the sensible buy, and that is what the camera figures here are based on.
Cameras, which are a separate job
CCTV is always cabled, whichever alarm you choose, and it is the part that takes the time. Four 5MP cameras with a recorder is most of a day on site, and the recorder needs a hard drive that does not come in the box.
The honest answer
Wired or wireless?
Most installers will happily sell you the dearer system. Here is the arithmetic we use ourselves: a wired Ajax Fibra hub costs about $340 more at trade than the wireless one, and wired detectors only save around $9 each. That is roughly 37 devices before the hardware pays for itself. A normal house has nine. Wired is a longevity purchase — no batteries, ever — not a saving.
New build, walls open
We would fit: Wireless. Wired is the only time it is genuinely worth considering — cable is cheap to run before the linings go on. It still costs more, so buy it for the twenty-year life rather than the price.
Replacing an old alarm
We would fit: Wireless. If the old cable tests sound, a wired system can reuse it and skip the pulling. Still dearer than wireless, because the wired hub costs more than the saving on the detectors.
Existing home, no alarm cable
We would fit: Wireless. Not close. Pulling new cable through lined walls and ceilings is slow, invasive and the dearest option by a distance. We would talk you out of it.
Every install
What the price includes
- Ajax hub with 4G and Ethernet, so it stays online if the internet drops
- Keypad, and an internal siren loud enough to matter
- Motion detectors sized to the house, and contacts on the doors you nominate
- Full commissioning, the app set up on your phone, and a walk-through before we leave
- Two-year workmanship guarantee on the install
Going further? We also fit CCTV, 24/7 monitoring through Alarm Watch, and the full Ajax range.
Common questions
Alarm and CCTV pricing, answered
For a typical Auckland home, a wireless Ajax alarm supplied and installed runs roughly $2,050 to $2,600 including GST — that is a four-bedroom, single-storey house with contacts on three exterior doors. Smaller homes come in under that, and larger or two-storey homes above it. The estimator on this page gives you a figure for your own house in about thirty seconds.
Yes, and by more than most people expect. The wired hub costs about $340 more at trade than the wireless one, while wired detectors only save around $9 each. You would need roughly 37 devices before wired hardware pays for itself, and a normal house has about nine. Wired systems are worth buying for their life and robustness — no batteries, ever — but not to save money.
Often, yes. Plenty of Auckland homes have a dead DSC, Bosch or Paradox system with perfectly sound cable still running to the old sensor positions. If it passes a continuity test on the day, a wired Ajax system can run on it and you skip most of the cable labour. We check before we commit to it, which is why the estimate for that situation carries a wider range.
Four 5MP cameras with a recorder, supplied and installed on a straightforward job, is around $2,600 including GST. Cameras are always cabled, so the labour is the larger half — budget most of a day. Note that recorders ship without a hard drive, so storage is a separate line; anyone quoting you a recorder without one has left something out.
24/7 monitoring through Alarm Watch is about $39.95 a month. You do not have to take it — Ajax will push alerts straight to your phone for nothing, and plenty of our customers run that way. Monitoring buys you someone watching when your phone is face-down in a meeting or you are out of the country.
No. It is an indicative range built from real hardware and labour rates, and it is accurate enough to budget from. It is not a quote, because we have not seen your house. The site check is free and there is no obligation — and if the number moves, we tell you why before we do anything.
Want it confirmed on site?
The estimate gets you a budget. A free site check gets you a fixed price. No obligation, no hard sell — just an honest quote from an experienced Kiwi installer.