Intercom installation cost: audio, video and GSM

Supplied and installed, from published South African cost guides and Gauteng installers' price lists:

The ranges are wide because the same intercom can be a short job or a long one. An audio intercom on a short driveway with the old cable still in place sits at the bottom; a large-screen video system with a new cable trenched up a long driveway sits at the top.

For comparison, this is what the equipment alone sells for:

A "1-to-1" kit is one gate station and one handset or screen. The gap between a kit and an installed price is the work: mounting the gate station, running or reusing the cable, fitting the handset where you'll answer it, and wiring the gate release into the gate motor so the intercom can open the gate.

Audio is the cheaper way to answer the gate: a buzzer, a voice and a button to open it. Video adds a camera at the gate and a screen inside, so you see who's there before you open, and on most kits a bigger screen or better picture is what separates the cheaper video kits from the dearer ones.

The extra cost of video is mostly in the equipment. If a cable already runs from the gate to the house, a video kit can often use it, which keeps the installation itself close to an audio job. Whether an old cable is suitable depends on how many cores it has and its condition, which we check before quoting.

The biggest swing in an installation price is the link between the gate and the house:

• An existing cable in good condition costs least: the new system reuses it.
• A new cable means a trench or conduit up the driveway, which costs more the longer and harder the ground. Paving and tar have to be lifted and relaid.
• A wireless intercom talks over radio, so no cable needs laying. It suits a house where the old cable has failed and digging isn't wanted; range depends on the distance and the walls in between.
• A GSM intercom or module calls your cellphone instead of a handset. The module itself is inexpensive, about R470 in a shop, but it needs a SIM card with airtime or a contract, which is a running cost the other kinds don't have.

Adding an intercom while a gate motor is being installed usually costs less, because the gate-release wiring and the cable to the pillar go in with the motor: see gate motor installation.

• Answering points. A second handset or screen upstairs or in a cottage adds equipment and cabling.
• The gate station. Vandal-resistant stations and stainless pedestals cost more than a plastic unit on the pillar.
• The pillar. A gate station needs to sit at driver's-window height; where the pillar is in the wrong place, a pedestal is added.
• The gate release. The intercom is wired into the gate motor's trigger input; an old motor may need a small change to accept it.
• Complexes and offices. A multi-unit system, with a button or code for each unit, is priced per site. We don't have a published going rate for these, so they're quoted after a site visit.

There's no published going rate for intercom repairs in our sources, because the jobs are so different. Reconnecting a cable chewed by a rodent, replacing a gate station damaged by rain, and replacing a dead video screen are different jobs at different prices. As a guide, compare the repair with the shop price of a new kit of the same type: when the two get close, replacing the system is usually the better buy.

Before booking, check the simple things on intercom not working: power at the plug, and whether the gate opens from a remote. If it does and the intercom doesn't, the fault is in the intercom.

Two intercom quotes can only be weighed against each other if they include the same work. Look for each of these on every quote:

• the make and model of the gate station and every handset or screen
• whether the existing cable is reused, or a new one laid (and how far)
• the gate-release connection to the motor, and testing it
• the power supply, and where it goes
• for GSM, whose SIM card it uses and what it costs to run
• what happens if something fails afterwards

Our intercom work is on intercoms, with the makes we repair.

These are typical market prices from a published South African cost guide, published price lists of Gauteng installers and a South African shop, checked October 2026. They are the market's prices, not ours.

• Kandua: Driveway gate 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.