CCTV installation cost in South Africa

Supplied and installed, with the cameras, the recorder and its hard drive, the cabling, and phone viewing set up:

Four cameras can cover the gate, the driveway, the front door and one side or the back of a typical suburban home. Eight suit a bigger property, a home with long side passages, or a small business.

If you've already bought the equipment, or want to compare quotes line by line, the labour is priced on its own:

• Installation fee only: R2 500–R6 300 (ProCompare)
• Labour and cable per camera point: R150–R450 (a simple single-storey home; CompareSecurity); R400–R800 (ServiceLink SA)

A camera point is one camera: its cable run back to the recorder, its mounting, its connectors and setting it up. The low end is a simple single-storey home with an easy roof space; double storeys, long runs, brick walls and cable that has to be hidden cost more per point.

Boxed kits put a recorder, cameras and cable in one carton:

• Hikvision or HiLook 4-channel 1080p kits: about R2 000–R3 800 (Takealot)
• Dahua 4-channel kit: about R2 600 (Takealot)
• 8-channel kits: about R5 300–R6 200 (Takealot)

A kit is a good start, but it isn't a finished system. The cable in the box may be too short for your runs, the hard drive may be small or not included, and nothing in the box mounts the cameras, protects the joints from the weather or sets up viewing on your phone.

A basic camera is cheap; what you pay more for is detail when you zoom into a recording, colour at night, and features like audio and smarter detection. The hard drive decides how many days of footage you keep, and surveillance drives are made to record all day, every day, which an ordinary computer drive isn't.

• How many cameras, the biggest single factor.
• Resolution. More pixels cost more, and need a bigger drive to keep the same number of days of recording.
• Night vision. Standard infrared is black and white; full-colour night cameras cost more.
• DVR or NVR. Analogue HD cameras on coaxial cable are the more affordable route; IP cameras on network cable cost more and do more. Existing coaxial runs in good condition can often be reused.
• The building. Double storeys, thick walls, no roof space and long runs to the boundary add labour.
• Recording days. Keeping a month of footage needs a much bigger drive than keeping a week.
• Backup power. A UPS for the recorder, the camera power and the router keeps recording through load shedding.
• Extras: a monitor, alarm or intercom links, and cameras on the gate pillar or boundary walls.

Take a typical home: one camera on the gate and the street, one on the driveway, one on the front door, one on the back or a side passage.

• Built for value, with entry-level HD cameras, a DVR and a drive for a week or two of footage, this is the R6 000–R12 000 bracket in the table above.
• Built for detail, with full-colour or AI cameras that tell people from swaying branches, a bigger drive and a UPS to ride out load shedding, it moves into the R14 000–R28 000 bracket.

A sensible middle way mixes the two: better cameras where faces and number plates matter, at the gate and front door, and basic ones on the back wall.

Recording doesn't: the cameras record to the hard drive in the recorder, at home, with no internet involved. Data is used only when you watch live or play back footage on your phone away from home, and how much depends on how long you watch, how many cameras, and the picture quality.

Most recorders can also send a lighter, lower-quality stream to phones, which keeps data down. If you watch a lot on mobile data, choose that stream, and leave long playback for when you're on Wi-Fi.

Quotes are only comparable when they cover the same things. Check that each one names:

• the make and model of every camera and the recorder, and the number of channels on the recorder
• the hard drive's size, and how many days of footage it will keep
• backup power for the recorder, cameras and router
• the cabling for every camera point, and how it's run and protected outside
• setting up phone viewing for everyone who needs it, with only the access they need
• what happens if something fails afterwards

A low price that leaves out the drive, the backup power or the phone set-up isn't low. After installation, a fault visit or annual service typically costs R500–R1 500 (CompareSecurity); our CCTV repairs page explains what we fix. How we plan an installation is on our CCTV page.

These are typical market prices from published South African cost guides and a South African shop, checked October 2026. They are the market's prices, not ours.

• CompareSecurity: How much does CCTV installation cost
• ServiceLink SA: CCTV installation cost
• ProCompare: CCTV installation prices
• Takealot: Takealot listings

Your exact price is set in a free quote before any work starts. No call-out fee when we do the work. If no work is done, a R650 call-out fee applies.