Pricing
Sixteen jobs, the whole list, and the door that decides them.
All sixteen jobs are printed here, fourteen with ranges and two quoted once the doors have been counted on site. What moves a figure inside its range is the door, not the lock: a leaf that still hangs true takes the low end, a leaf that has dropped on its hinges or carries a narrower old bore takes the high one. Describe the door on the call and the range closes to one figure. A range here is the whole spread for that work anywhere in the city, and the table further down this page shows the only thing the clock adds to it: $55 after 8pm and $95 after midnight.
Emergency Locksmith
OverviewResidential Locksmith
OverviewCommercial Locksmith
OverviewAutomotive Locksmith
OverviewThree tiers, and what each one adds
All the clock is allowed to do, on six common jobs
Every figure below is the low end of that job's published range with the hour already inside it, said the way you would hear it on the phone. Between 8pm and midnight a job carries $55, and between midnight and 7am it carries $95. Nothing else on the clock changes a number, and neither a weekend nor a holiday does.
| Job | 7am–8pm | 8pm–12am | 12am–7am |
|---|---|---|---|
| House lockout | $135 | $190 | $230 |
| Car lockout | $109 | $164 | $204 |
| Business lockout | $145 | $200 | $240 |
| Lock replacement | $129 | $184 | $224 |
| Car key replacement | $159 | $214 | $254 |
| Key fob programming | $95 | $150 | $190 |
The $89 visit is inside every figure in this table rather than underneath it. These are low ends, and what lifts a job off them is the door. A leaf that has dropped on its hinges, a bore cut narrower than the modern standard, a strike that has to be moved and its mortise recut: any of those lands the figure higher in the published range, and it is said on the call rather than found on the receipt.
Why a range
A range is wide because of the door, not the lock
Two identical boxes bought on the same afternoon land at opposite ends of one range, and the difference is the two doors they are going onto. Four things settle it, in the order they come up on the call.
The door first, the clock second
What moves a figure inside its range here is the state of the leaf in front of the technician. A door that still hangs true sits near the bottom. A door that has settled on its hinges, or one carrying a bore cut narrower than anything sold today, costs the time it takes to put that right. The clock is allowed one thing only: $55 between 8pm and midnight, $95 between midnight and 7am, folded into the figure before you agree to anything.
Which of the doors it is
A front deadbolt on a 1952 slab, an entry gate standing in front of an Eichler, a garage service door and a glass shop front on Stevens Creek all book under one job name and are four separate pieces of work. Name the one that stopped you and most of the spread is gone before anybody drives out.
What is already on the door
The original knob set on a Rinconada house, with a bore narrower than the modern standard, is not the same job as 1960s Eichler hardware in a narrow stile beside a glass wall, and neither is the same as a keypad bought online for a door nobody measured first. Age on its own is not what costs. Fit is.
Whether the lock can be kept
A key that needs force is often a cylinder due for a strip, a clean and a repin, or a strike that has moved a quarter inch and can be brought back into line. Both sit inside the visit rather than on the bill as parts. Where a lock is genuinely finished it is replaced at $129 to $339, and you hear which of the two yours is, with the reason.
FAQ
What people ask once they hear a figure
I bought a keypad lock and it does not fit my door. Is the lock wrong or is the door wrong?+
Almost always the door, and there is nothing wrong with the door either. Locks are machined to a standard that settled in the mid-seventies: a 2 1/8 inch bore, a backset of 2 3/8 or 2 3/4 inches, and a leaf hanging square. A house from 1951 or 1961 predates all of that. The bore is often narrower, the backset can be off by a quarter inch, and the door has usually dropped on its hinges since it was hung. So the sequence is the bore opened true, the backset corrected, the hinges brought back and the strike moved, and then the lock goes on, on the same visit. That is why the range for a keypad lock is $199 to $495 rather than one price.
Why do two identical locks come out at opposite ends of the range?+
The door, more than the lock. Three things move a figure: the state of the leaf, whether it still hangs true or has settled on its hinges; the bore and the backset already cut into it, since an old narrow bore is work before it is hardware; and the hour, because a van arriving after 8pm carries $55 and after midnight $95. Once those three are settled the number is a single number, and it is the one printed on the receipt.
Does an evening, a weekend or a holiday cost more?+
A Saturday, a Sunday and a public holiday all run at ordinary daytime figures here. What changes the number is the clock: arrival between 8pm and midnight adds $55, and between midnight and 7am adds $95. Both are counted into the figure before you agree to it rather than appearing at the door. A house lockout that is $150 in the afternoon is said as $205 at ten at night and $245 at two in the morning, and that is the figure on the card.
Our house is from 1951 and still has its original knob set. Does it have to come off?+
Usually not, and often it should not. The hardware Stern and Price hung on those 1,562 houses was made to be taken apart, cleaned, re-sprung and repinned, and a repin at $29 to $47 per cylinder leaves you with a lock nobody manufactures any more. What those houses genuinely lack is a deadbolt above the knob, since the knob's own button lock is a convenience rather than a lock. Fitting one is $129 to $339 and it is the only part of this anybody here will mention twice.
The keypad battery died and I have no metal key. What happens now?+
Every keypad deadbolt has an override cylinder underneath the electronics, and it can be picked open without damage in most cases. That is a house lockout at $135 to $245, plus the hour if it is late, which it usually is. The part worth doing afterwards costs almost nothing: the blank that came in the box gets cut to the override cylinder, tried in the door, and put somewhere that is not inside the house. New cells go in at the same time. Doing that in daylight is a few minutes of work; doing it at midnight is the figure above.
Open 24 hours, 7 days
Say the year the house was built, and the rest of the call is short
Cupertino and the west valley, every hour of the day. The age of the door decides the work and the work decides the figure, so the number comes back on the call with the $89 service call and the hour already inside it, and it is the number on the receipt. Ninety days on the labor, in writing.