What Changes a Locksmith Bill? The 6 Factors That Move the Price

Updated September 2026. Written and checked by the technicians at Safe & Secure Locksmith, 4105 Macdonald St, Vancouver. Every figure below matches our published price list. Call 604-734-7233 for a quote before anyone is dispatched.

Same job, different number

Two people call about the same thing on the same block and get different quotes. That is not a scam by itself, and understanding why is the difference between a fair invoice and one you should argue with. The base numbers are fixed and published on the prices page. What moves within them is the work.

1. The hour

This is the single biggest multiplier. A standard-hours visit starts at a $75 service call. From 5pm to 9pm the labour starts at $150. From 9pm to 8:30am it is $250 per hour. A 2am lockout is genuinely more expensive to serve than a 2pm one, and any shop that pretends otherwise on the phone is planning to explain it on your doorstep instead.

The practical advice: if the job can wait until morning and you have somewhere to be, it is worth waiting. If it cannot, ask for the overnight rate before you say yes, and write it down.

2. The hardware

A Kwikset deadbolt and a Mul-T-Lock cylinder are not the same object. Rekeying standard hardware is $25 to $45 per cylinder. High-security platforms such as Mul-T-Lock, Medeco and Schlage Primus are $60 to $120 per cylinder, because the pinning is more complex, the keys are controlled, and the blanks cost more. The same gap shows up in key cutting: a house key is $5 to $15, a restricted key cut to a registered code is $30 to $80.

None of that is a penalty for buying good hardware. It is what good hardware costs to service, and it is the trade-off you accepted when you bought a lock that cannot be copied at a kiosk. If you are choosing now, high security locks lays out the difference.

3. The door, not the lock

Most of the jobs that run long are not lock problems. A door that has swollen, a frame that has settled, a strike plate that was never aligned, hinges that have dropped: all of these make a lock feel broken when the lock is fine. The fix is carpentry as much as locksmithing, and it takes time.

This is also why a quote given over the phone is a range. We can tell you what a rekey costs per cylinder with confidence. We cannot tell you until we see it that your back door needs the strike mortised deeper. Why your strike plate matters explains what to look at before you call, and door repair covers the frame side.

4. How many cylinders

Rekeying is priced per cylinder, not per house. A townhouse with a front deadbolt, a knob, a back door and a garage entry is four cylinders, and the invoice reflects that. The good news is that the per-cylinder rate is the same for the fourth as the first, so keying an entire house to one key is cheaper per door than most people expect. That is the actual question behind can a locksmith make one key for all doors.

5. Access and travel

A ground-floor unit with parking out front is a different job from a fourth-floor walk-up with a loading bay you have to book. Commercial sites add sign-in, escorts and after-hours building access. None of this is billed as a surprise line item, but it is inside the range, and it is why the same rekey quote spans $25 to $45.

6. Parts

If a cylinder is drilled, seized or discontinued, it stops being a repair. A lock change installed is $80 to $160 plus hardware, and hardware ranges from a basic residential deadbolt to a commercial mortise body. Commercial lock changes run $80 to $380 per door for that reason. We will always tell you when a repair is not worth it rather than doing both and billing for both. See lock change Vancouver.

What a fair quote sounds like

A fair quote names the service call fee, the labour rate for the hour you are calling in, and a range for the work with the reason for the range. It does not start at a number that sounds too good and end somewhere else. If you want to sanity-check one you have been given elsewhere, call 604-734-7233 and ask. We will tell you if it is reasonable.

Article history

This article was published on the old site as Understanding Costs How Much Do Locksmiths Charge In 2025 and was rewritten in September 2026. The prices now come from one sheet rather than three contradictory ones, and every link points at a live page. The headline numbers live on the Vancouver locksmith price guide.