Straight answers
What CCTV costs, and what actually changes it
Two quotes for “four cameras installed” can differ enormously, and it isn’t always because one of them is overpriced. This page explains what genuinely moves the number, so you can tell a cheap system from a badly specified one — and work out which you actually need.
We don’t publish a price list, because a price without a site behind it is a guess. What we can do is be completely clear about what you get for spending more, and about when spending more is pointless.
Cameras: what each step up actually buys
Cameras are the biggest single variable, and the range is wide. Each tier below is a legitimate choice for the right site — the mistake is buying one tier while expecting another’s performance.
Entry
HiLook and equivalent- What you get
- A capable camera in good conditions. Infrared at night, producing a grey image that shows movement and general shape.
- Suits
- Covered areas, sheds, driveways with existing lighting, and sites where the job is to see that something happened.
- Where it stops
- At night, beyond a few metres, you'll see that a person was there — not reliably who they were.
Smart detection
Hikvision AcuSense and equivalent- What you get
- On-board person and vehicle recognition, so alerts fire for people rather than for moths, rain and shadows. A better sensor underneath it.
- Suits
- Anyone who wants notifications they'll still be reading in a month, and sites with trees, traffic or pets in view.
- Where it stops
- Still infrared at night, so the same colour limitation applies once the light goes.
Low-light colour
Hikvision ColorVu and equivalent- What you get
- Colour images after dark rather than grey infrared. In practice this is the single biggest jump in whether footage is usable.
- Suits
- Entry points, front doors, gates — anywhere identification actually matters. Most break-ins happen in the dark.
- Where it stops
- Wants some ambient light or a warm light source. In a genuinely pitch-black paddock, infrared still wins.
Premium
Axis and equivalent- What you get
- Better optics, stronger wide dynamic range for hard lighting like a bright doorway against a dark interior, longer firmware support, longer service life.
- Suits
- Commercial sites, difficult lighting, and systems expected to run for a decade rather than a few years.
- Where it stops
- Meaningfully more per camera. Overkill on a straightforward domestic job.
The rest of what you’re paying for
Cameras are the visible part. These are the items that separate two quotes with identical camera lists.
How long you keep footage
Retention is a hardware cost, not a setting. The recorder's drive size, camera count, resolution and frame rate together decide how far back you can look. Break-ins are often discovered days later — a business over a long weekend, a house after a holiday. A system that holds a week when you need day nine has failed at the only job it had. Two weeks is a sensible target and it's arithmetic, not optimism.
The network underneath it
IP cameras are network devices that need power over the cable and enough switch capacity to run all of them at once. A switch with insufficient PoE budget will run six cameras and drop the seventh, usually intermittently and usually months later. Putting cameras on their own network segment, separate from your laptop and your accounts software, is another line item that doesn't show up in a headline price.
Cable runs and access
This is the invisible half of any quote. A single-storey house with a crawlable roof space is a fundamentally different job from a two-storey render-and-cladding build with no ceiling access, even with identical cameras. Run length, roof type, wall construction, whether conduit is needed on an exposed wall — all of it is labour, and labour doesn't appear in a hardware list.
Where the cameras actually go
Positioning costs nothing in materials and everything in outcome. A camera covering a wide yard is doing detection; a camera at the pinch point everyone must pass is doing identification. Working that out means walking the property and thinking about how someone would approach it, which takes time before any equipment is chosen.
Remote access, done safely
Viewing cameras from your phone can be set up in two minutes by forwarding ports on your router straight to the recorder. It works, and it also puts your recorder on the public internet where automated scanners find it. Doing it through the manufacturer's proper cloud service takes longer to configure and doesn't expose the system.
Testing, and being shown how it works
A system isn't finished when the cameras are mounted. Reviewing night footage on the actual site, walk-testing detection, checking remote access from outside the network, and walking you through it — that's time on the job, and it's the part that gets cut when a price is driven down.
Sometimes the cheap system is the right answer
A well-lit carport, a shed, a second camera to cover a side gate — plenty of jobs are properly served by entry-level equipment, and quoting something grander would be selling you a problem you don’t have.
What matters is that the system is specified honestly. If a camera won’t identify anyone at night, you should be told that before you buy it, not after a break-in. That’s the whole difference, and it costs nothing to provide.
Questions worth asking any installer
Including us. If a quote can’t answer these, the number in it doesn’t mean very much.
- How many days of footage will this hold, at the resolution and frame rate you're quoting?
- Which cameras are for identification and which are for coverage — and which is at my entry point?
- What do the cameras do at night: infrared, or colour?
- Is a PoE switch included, and can it power every camera at once?
- How is remote viewing set up — through the manufacturer's cloud, or by opening ports on my router?
- Will I get the admin passwords and account ownership in writing?
- Will the footage be checked at night before you call the job finished?
- What happens if a camera fails in eighteen months?
Common questions
Why is one quote so much cheaper than another for the same number of cameras?
Because camera count is the least informative number in a quote. Two systems with four cameras each can differ by a factor of three, depending on whether the cameras see in colour at night, how many days of footage the recorder holds, whether a proper PoE switch is included, and how much labour the cabling actually takes. The difference is real, but it's in the parts that aren't in the headline.
Is a cheap system always a bad system?
No. An entry-level system that's honestly specified and installed properly is a perfectly reasonable choice for plenty of sites — a shed, a covered driveway, somewhere already well lit. The problem isn't a budget system. It's a budget system sold as though it will identify a face at 2am, because it won't.
Do you install budget systems?
Yes. If a straightforward system genuinely suits the site, that's what gets quoted — there's no point selling you cameras you don't need. What you'll get either way is an honest account of what it will and won't do after dark.
What's the single biggest upgrade for the money?
Low-light colour cameras at your entry points. Most break-ins happen in the dark, and clothing colour is very often the only usable description. Going from grey infrared to colour at night changes footage from 'someone was here' to something worth handing to police.
Why does storage cost extra?
Because it's a physical drive, and how far back you can look is set by camera count, resolution, frame rate and drive size together. Longer retention means a bigger drive. It's worth deciding deliberately rather than discovering the limit when you need footage from last week.
Can you quote without visiting?
For a straightforward home, often — enough can be established from a conversation and a look at the property. For anything commercial, or a site with awkward access, no. Too much of the cost sits in cable routes and access to guess at responsibly.
Want it specified honestly?
Tell us about the property and what you’re worried about. Servicing Brisbane, Logan, Gold Coast.