smart cams push 3-10/mo: local SD/NVR = 0
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What The CCTV Installation Cost Calculator Works Out
- Total cost over period: the system price plus the cloud subscription x 12 x years. UK home CCTV runs along a ladder: two DIY wireless smart cameras about GBP 120, a four-camera wired kit with recorder GBP 300, a professionally fitted wired system GBP 700 and a 4K PoE-and-NVR install GBP 1,100+.
- The quiet doubling: smart-camera tiers often sell cheap hardware attached to a GBP 3-10 monthly cloud fee, which doubles the system's cost over five years. A wired kit recording to an SD card or NVR costs more up front and nothing a month, forever.
- The neighbour and law bit: cameras seeing only your own property carry no data-protection duties; any capture beyond the boundary makes you an operator with signage, purpose, retention and footage-request obligations. Privacy-mask zones keep next door's windows out of frame and out of the small-claims court.
- Spending it where it works: one 2K+ camera at door height capturing faces beats four gutter-mounted wide shots of hooded scalps; night performance matters more than daytime megapixels; and lighting, gravel, a visible alarm box and a locked side gate out-prevent any recording.
- Your actual price, fitting and storage media (advanced): override the dropdown with a real quote, add electrician or cabling costs (pro installs commonly charge GBP 80-150 per camera run through lofts and walls) and budget for a surveillance hard drive or microSD replacement over the period.
- Electricity over the period (advanced): cameras x watts x 24 x 365 at your unit rate (default: the current Ofgem price cap). A PoE camera draws 4-8 W and an NVR 10-20 W, so a four-camera system uses roughly 200 kWh and GBP 50-60 a year around the clock.
- All-in cost and per month (advanced): system, fees, fitting, media and electricity, less any home insurance discount (insurers occasionally trim premiums for monitored setups but mostly care about locks), shown as a total and a monthly figure to set against a monitored alarm contract.
- Other route, same period and verdict (advanced): any other route from the ladder with its own subscription over the same years and electricity, with the difference and how quickly a dearer local-storage system repays itself out of avoided cloud fees. Run both numbers before the checkout.