Almost nobody publishes locksmith prices, and there is a legitimate reason for that as well as a dishonest one. Here is what actually drives the number, so you can tell which sort of quote you are being given.
The four things every quote is made of
Travel
Somebody has to drive to you, and that time is real. It is also the strongest argument for calling a genuinely local company. From King City we are ten to fifteen minutes from Kettleby, fifteen to twenty-five from Nobleton, Maple and Kleinburg, and twenty-five to forty-five from Aurora, Newmarket, Richmond Hill and Bolton. A company that dispatches from forty minutes away is charging you for that drive whether or not it appears as a line item.
Time of day
Daytime is the base rate. Overnight costs more. Holidays cost more again. This is legitimate — somebody is getting out of bed at three in the morning. What is not legitimate is finding out which rate applied only when the invoice appears.
Parts
A lockout involves no parts at all. A lock replacement does, and the grade of hardware makes a real difference to both price and lifespan. Always ask whether a quote includes parts.
Complexity
Picking a standard residential deadbolt is routine. A high-security cylinder with anti-pick and anti-drill protection is not. Cutting a car key from an existing one is quick; generating keys for a vehicle with none present is a different job entirely. Say what you have on the phone and the quote will be honest from the start.
Why the cheap number you saw is usually not the price
There is an organised business model across the GTA built entirely on the gap between a quoted fee and a final invoice. It works like this: a strikingly low service-call figure, a friendly voice, an unmarked car, and a technician who assesses the job once you are standing outside in the cold and least able to walk away.
The tell is always the same. Ask what the total will be, and the answer is not a number. It is a fee plus an assessment.
A locksmith who works your area can commit to a number because they know the housing, the hardware and the drive. A call centre cannot commit to anything, because it does not yet know which subcontractor will take the job.
A quote is a number. If the answer to “what will this cost in total?” is a fee and a promise, you have been told the price will be decided later, in circumstances that favour them.
Rough shape of the common jobs
Without publishing figures that would be dishonest to pretend are universal, the relative shape is worth knowing.
A daytime residential lockout is the cheapest visit most people ever book. The same job overnight is meaningfully more, and on a holiday more again.
Rekeying is priced per cylinder and the rate drops sharply as the count rises, because the first lock carries the setup and the rest take minutes. A four-door house is a single visit of under an hour, which is why doing all of them at once is far better value than doing two now and two later.
Lock replacement is the hardware plus a modest amount of labour, so the grade you choose drives the price more than the fitting does.
Car keys vary the most, because the vehicle decides the work. A spare cut from a working key is a small job. All-keys-lost on a modern push-button vehicle is a large one. Establish which you are on the phone.
Door and frame repair is quoted after we see it, because a strike relocation and a split jamb are genuinely different work.
How to pay less, legitimately
- Book in daylight whenever it is not urgent. The same job on a Tuesday afternoon costs less than at midnight, every time.
- Do all the doors in one visit. Rekeying four locks at once costs far less than four separate visits.
- Get the spare car key made while the van is already there. The second key is dramatically cheaper as part of the same job.
- Fix the warning, not the failure. A key that needs jiggling and a door that needs shoving are both cheap now and expensive later.
- Ask for the total on the phone. It costs nothing and it eliminates the entire category of bad outcome.
Need a locksmith in King City right now?
Locksmith King City is mobile and available twenty-four hours a day across King Township and York Region. You get a real price on the phone before we drive.