Re: Monitoring Rates

["Just Looking" <nospam@xxxxxxxxxx>]

There is no industry standard for arriving at pricing for monitoring that I
am aware of. Some dealers wish to serve a certain type customer in a certain
price range. There are companies that offer the bottom rung price points
that just go after volume. Other companies prefer to work only with high end
customers and have high pricing to get exclusivity. Pricing can be
influenced by the features you wish to have. That bill of fare pricing
applies mostly to commercial accounts for fire, supervised opening and
closing, etc. If you have a leased system or have maintenance included with
the monthly that is another influence on pricing. Discounts can be had for
bundling other services. A company called Hawk offered discount monitoring
for its cellular customers. In some cases the number of zones you have
increases the monitoring price, but that is mostly with some national
companies.
Getting a good alarm company interested in monitoring a DIY account could be
a challenge in many markets.
Good luck.

"bit eimer" <bit_eimer.keinewurst@xxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:ZoLwj.8954$ZQ2.2692@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> Hi people,
>
> I'm a newbie, playing with the idea of a DIY system.  I'm a bit confused
> about the monitoring market - just saw a website for a monitoring service
in
> northern CA with various plans (around 8 different ones).
>
> These plans each had an install-price and a monitoring fee.  Not
> surprisingly, as the number of "included sensors" increases, the
> install-price increases.  But what I don't quite get is that the
monitoring
> fee also increases.
>
> Now in one case, I can see that the addition of cell-backup might increase
> the monitor's cost (paid to alarmnet or whoever).  But otherwise, it seems
> like there really is no difference in the service provided.
>
> Is the monitoring cost variation due to:
>
> 1) attempt to recapture some portion of the initial cost the equipment
base
> 2) higher average cost of maintaining that larger equipment base
> 3) assumption that the customer is willing to pay more (monthly) for
> higher-end system
> 4) something else
>
> TIA.
>
> --
> ...The Bit Eimer     NAR 84054      L2
> "My goal in life is to be the kind of person my cat thinks he is"
> [remove keinewurst and reverse letters in domain to email me]
> --------------------------------------------------------------
>
>
>