Ask a locksmith what a job costs and you will usually get a version of the same answer: it depends, we would need to see it, call us and we will take a look. Sometimes that is honest. Often it is the first move in a negotiation you did not know you had entered, and the number arrives later, in your driveway, when you have already been waiting an hour and are in no position to argue.
So here is ours, in public, with the arithmetic shown. Every figure below is on our pricing page and none of it changes depending on how stuck you sound on the phone.
Every price has two parts
The first is the service call: $85. That covers coming to you anywhere in San Luis Obispo County, at any hour, weekends and holidays included. It is one charge, not a meter, and it does not go up because it is two in the morning in Shandon rather than two in the afternoon in town.
The second is the work itself, and it varies enormously. Opening a locked car is minutes. Generating a key for a vehicle with no working key left is a different order of job. Charging one flat number for both would mean overcharging half our customers to subsidise the other half.
What matters is that both parts are quoted together, on the phone, before anyone drives anywhere.
What the common jobs run
These are starting prices, service call included, for the straightforward version of each job:
- Car lockout — from $85. Here the trip is the job. Nothing is added on top.
- Spare car key, cut and programmed — from $135.
- All keys lost — from $205. The expensive one, and the one people assume means a dealership.
- Key fob programming — from $120.
- Motorcycle key — from $97.
- Home lockout — from $110.
- Rekeying — from $110 for the first cylinder, then $25 for each one after.
That last line is worth pausing on, because it is the one people misread. The service call is paid once for the visit. Five doors rekeyed in one trip is the $85 call plus five times the per-cylinder rate — not five call-outs. It is why doing the whole house at once costs meaningfully less than doing it a door at a time, and why we would rather you booked it that way.
Why a floor is a floor
A starting price is the simplest version of a job in the easiest conditions, and plenty of calls are exactly that. But we would be doing the thing we are complaining about if we let those numbers imply that every job lands there.
On a vehicle, what moves the price is the vehicle. A basic transponder key and a proximity smart key are different pieces of hardware with different programming behind them, and the make and model decide which one you have. On a home, it is the door as much as the lock — a smart lock going onto a door whose strike plate is out of alignment is two jobs, not one, and the second one is not optional if you want the thing to latch.
The honest version is that we can tell you which end of the range you are at in about a minute on the phone, provided you can tell us the year, make and model, or which door and which lock. That conversation is free and it happens before dispatch, not after arrival.
The bit that is cheaper than you think, and the bit that is not
Car keys are the standout. We cut and program keys for 95% of vehicles at your location, well below dealership cost, and you skip both the tow and the wait for an appointment. People brace for a dealership number on an automotive job and are routinely surprised.
Going the other way: if you can bring the item to us, do. Keys, fobs, padlocks and lockboxes usually travel. Work done at the shop carries no service call at all — you pay for the work and nothing else. We would rather tell you that than take $85 to drive to a job you could have handled with a five-minute errand.
Why almost nobody else publishes this
Two reasons, and only one of them is good.
The good one is genuine variation. Some work really cannot be priced from a description, which is why a master key system on our page says quoted per site rather than carrying a number that would be technically true and practically useless.
The other reason is that a published price is a commitment, and a business model built on quoting low over the phone and revising upward on arrival cannot survive one. If a company will not give you any number before dispatch, that is worth noticing. So is a number that seems impossibly low: a two-figure service call that becomes several hundred dollars once someone is standing at your door is the oldest trick in this trade, and that quote is the hook, not a discount.
The test is not really the price. It is whether the price you were told is the price you are charged.
Before you call anyone
Have ready where you are and what is locked. For a vehicle: the year, make and model, and whether any working key still exists — that single fact separates a duplicate from an all-keys-lost job and roughly doubles the number. For a home or business: which door, what kind of lock, and whether you need in now or need it rekeyed.
Then ask for the total, not the service call. Ask whether anything gets added on arrival. Ask for the California licence number — ours is LCO7813, and a locksmith who cannot give you theirs is telling you something.
Our full price list is on the pricing page, and the phone quote is free whether or not you book.