Priced the way Locksmith work is billed
A lockout service and a key duplication don't get quoted the same way, so why would every trade? SideWRK prices Locksmith the way the work is really billed: off a flat service-call menu — a $75 trip/service fee, then priced work (e.g. $95 a lockout). Tap the work, put in the numbers, and the line prices itself — no napkin math, no undercharging a job because you rushed the quote.
What Locksmith jobs actually run
These are the starting numbers SideWRK loads for common Locksmith work — researched to be realistic, so you can send an estimate that isn't a guess. Adjust any of them to your market in a tap.
Typical starting prices in the app — your area, your materials, and your reputation move them. You set your own; these just keep you from undercharging on the first quote.
Smart-lock install, priced out
Numbers only mean something on a real job, so here's how SideWRK builds the ticket on a common one:
SideWRK puts the parts on at what you actually paid — so the $196 of labor is what you clear, not a marked-up parts total dressed up as profit.
What moves a Locksmith price
Two Locksmith jobs that look the same on paper can be a hundred dollars apart once you're on site. Here's what actually changes the number — the things to size up before you quote:
- Trip vs work — the service fee covers showing up; the lockout, rekey, or install is priced on top of it.
- Lock and key type — a smart lock or a high-security cylinder is a different job than a basic deadbolt.
- Time and access — a 2am lockout or a commercial panic bar isn't a daytime house rekey.
What a Locksmith job puts on the record
Every trade documents something different, and Locksmith is no exception. SideWRK captures the work type — rekey, lockout, automotive, safe, access control and the rest of what your work needs on the record — the details that protect you and make the invoice stand up:
- the work type — rekey, lockout, automotive, safe, access control
- that ownership and authority were verified with photo ID
- which ID type you checked
- the authorization on the record (except an imminent-threat entry)
Example note on a job: "ID verified — service authorized by person in possession of the property."
How to price a Locksmith job in SideWRK
- 1
Start the job and add your work
Open a Locksmith job and tap a suggestion like "Lockout service" or "Rekey locks" — the common work is already loaded, so you tap instead of type.
- 2
Price it off a flat service-call menu
Enter the numbers and the line prices itself, off a flat service-call menu — a $75 trip/service fee, then priced work (e.g. $95 a lockout). Put parts on at your cost so what you clear is real profit, not just the Locksmith ticket total.
- 3
Note the details
Add a plain-English note — for example, "ID verified — service authorized by person in possession of the property." — and a photo of the work.
- 4
Log what the job needs
Capture the Locksmith-specific records: the work type — rekey, lockout, automotive, safe, access control, and that ownership and authority were verified with photo ID.
- 5
Send it and get paid
Send the Locksmith estimate for approval. Your customer approves from their phone, the invoice goes out, and you get paid — card or Apple Pay, on the spot.
Staying on the right side of the rules
SideWRK documents your Locksmith work — it doesn't make you licensed, and it says so plainly. What to know: a separate occupational locksmith license in many states (California BSIS, Texas DPS, a North Carolina board), often bonded — not a contractor license — and verifying ownership before you open anything. The app flags the permit and license triggers so they never surprise you mid-job.
Locksmith pricing — common questions
How do I price a Locksmith job in SideWRK?
You bill off a flat service-call menu — a $75 trip/service fee, then priced work (e.g. $95 a lockout). Add the work — Lockout service, Rekey locks, Lock install / replace — enter the numbers, and each line prices itself. Parts go on at your cost, so you see real profit and not just the total.
What does a typical Locksmith job cost?
It depends on the work, but as a realistic starting point a common job like smart-lock install runs about $280 in the app — roughly $196 of that is your labor and about $84 is parts at your cost. Common Locksmith work ranges from about $25 to $280. Those are defaults you can change — you always set your own prices.
What does SideWRK document on a Locksmith job?
The records Locksmith work actually needs: the work type — rekey, lockout, automotive, safe, access control; that ownership and authority were verified with photo ID; which ID type you checked. They stay on the job as you work, so the paper trail is built instead of reconstructed later, and the disclosures this trade needs print on the estimate and invoice themselves.
Do I need a license to do Locksmith work?
That depends on your state and the job, but here's the shape of it: a separate occupational locksmith license in many states (California BSIS, Texas DPS, a North Carolina board), often bonded — not a contractor license — and verifying ownership before you open anything. SideWRK documents the work; it doesn't certify you, and it flags the permit and license triggers so nothing sneaks up on you.
Does SideWRK work for trades other than Locksmith?
Yes — it runs all 42 trades, each priced and documented its own way. If you run more than one, the Multi-Trade plan unlocks them all and switches between them in a tap.
Your first jobs
Locksmithing has a problem no other trade on this site has: a lot of the competition doesn't exist. Search "locksmith near me" in most cities and some of the results are call centers behind spoofed addresses — the $19 phone quote that turns into $350 once a guy shows up with a drill. Your first jobs come from being the one on the page who's visibly real:
- Publish your prices. Most locksmiths guard the rate card like a trade secret, and that secrecy is the scam's oxygen — the $19 bait only works on a customer with no idea what a lockout should cost. Put numbers on your website and your Google profile; the list above is a starting point. A call center quoting $19 can't publish anything it intends to honor.
- Quote out loud before a tool comes out. Name the trip fee and the lockout price on the phone. Repeat it on the porch. Then start. It's the opposite of the drill-first bill, and a customer who's read a scam warning or two can feel the difference.
- Say the ID line. "I'll need to see ID before I open anything that's not clearly yours." A scam dispatcher never says that sentence. Said on the first call, it tells a locked-out homeowner exactly which kind of operation is on the way — and it's the sort of detail that shows up in reviews without you asking.
- Pick before you drill. An entry that leaves the lock working is the difference between a $95 lockout and a $275 night that also needed a new lock. Drilling is a last resort; for the outfits running the bait-and-switch, it's the business model. Don't share a move with them.
Repeat business
A lockout looks like a dead-end trade — one emergency, one payment, a customer you never see again. The repeat book is real. It just belongs to the people who hold keys for a living:
- Property managers are the route. Landlords rekeying between renters, agents swapping lockboxes between listings, a manager with a binder of units: the same $140 rekey, on repeat, from one phone number. Before you pack the van, ask the person who hired you for the next unit.
- Write down who sent you. A job note that reads "referred by Dana at Maple Court" costs nothing and pays at the next lease turnover — you know who feeds you work, and who's owed a favor when the schedule fills up.
- The lockout is the audition. The door's open and she's standing there thinking about who else has a key. That's when "want me to rekey both doors while I'm here?" lands — the worked ticket below is exactly that night.
- Ask for the review in the fifteen minutes after you're paid, not the fifteen days after. A verbal ask at the truck, then a text with the direct review link within the hour. The app backs you up: after a job wraps it emails the customer one review request, one reminder a few days later if they don't answer, then stops — a toggle you own. More than that reads like the scam script.
- Earn it the slow way. Never buy a review, never trade a discount for one, never ask anyone to pull an honest complaint — that's the fake listings' playbook, and it works right up until the platform notices. When a bad one lands, answer it calmly, say what the paper shows (price quoted before work started), and offer to make it right off-platform.
How locksmith work bills
A service-call menu, not a meter. Open a locksmith estimate in SideWRK and the form deals this six-line menu — tap a line, it fills in, the price stays editable. The trip fee is what makes the drive worth it; the work goes on top:
The estimate form's tap-to-fill menu, straight from the app — every line is quantity × price, so two cylinders is two taps. The $140 rekey in the starting numbers above is a whole-job starting figure; the menu prices the same work as the trip fee plus $25 a lock, so a two-lock condo and a six-lock house don't get the same quote.
A hypothetical but ordinary night: locked out, and once the door's open she wants both doors rekeyed because a roommate left with a key. Quoted out loud before a pick touched the cylinder, then itemized — four lines she can read. The other version of this ticket is the one the trade is infamous for: $19 on the phone, a drill through a lock that would have picked open, a handwritten bill at the door — plus the $180 install the drill just made necessary. Your $270 on a real estimate is the receipt that proves which kind of locksmith showed up.
Not everything fits a menu line. Safe work, access control, a commercial panic bar at 2am — the odd job goes on as a custom time-based line at your hourly rate (the app starts locksmiths at $90/hr, and that number is used only for lines like these). Parts ride at your cost, so the ticket shows what you cleared — not a hardware markup dressed up as profit.
Multiplying jobs
In a search full of listings that vanish and reappear under new names, the multiplier is proof you're real — plus the follow-ups that fire while you're on the next call:
- A public page a fake can't fake. Your own page at sidewrk.app/p/your-name carries the work gallery, reviews, services, and a quote form — a street-level record a spoofed listing can't produce. Put the link on your Google profile and let the contrast do the arguing.
- Truck stock that warns you first. Stock the real list — KW1 and SC1 blanks, pin kit refills, lock lube, deadbolts and knobs, latches and strike plates — each with its own reorder point in the app. Use one on a job and the count drops, so you find out you're low on pins before the 11pm call instead of during it. That's inventory, and it also scans barcodes.
- Follow-ups that don't need remembering. A quiet estimate gets a nudge at 3 and 7 days. An unpaid invoice gets a reminder at 3, 7, and 14 with a pay link. A finished job asks for the review and reminds once. All by email, and every one is a toggle you own.
See the stock list, the gallery, and the follow-ups running on a sample business in the live locksmith demo — free, no signup.
Price it now
Locksmith work doesn't get a square-footage calculator — the menu above is the pricing engine. What's left to figure is your hour: the rate that decides whether a $95 lockout across town is worth the drive, and what a custom safe or access-control line should bill. The same free rate tool the locksmith page runs, right here:
The paper worth keeping
The records list above says what the app captures on a locksmith job. This is why each line earns its place — and where to check the license question properly:
- The ID record. The job-site record holds the work type, whether ownership and authority were verified, and which ID you checked; the estimate carries the note ("ID verified — service authorized by person in possession of the property"). The operation that never asks can't produce that paper. If a rekey ever gets questioned months later, you read the record instead of reconstructing a midnight from memory.
- The license number, on every document. Shop keeps it in one field — labeled "Locksmith license #", hinted "NOT a contractor #" — and it prints in the header and footer of every estimate and invoice, with the notice under the totals that this is an occupational locksmith license and that SideWRK doesn't verify anyone.
- Whether your state licenses the trade at all is a moving list that stale blog posts get wrong. Does Your State License Locksmiths? Check First is the deep-dive: which states run one, what the paperwork costs line by line, what that stacks up to against a single ordinary ticket, and how to verify against your state board instead of a list. Read it before you print business cards.
- April, already sorted. Numbered invoices, payments, receipts — it all rolls up in Know your numbers: category totals, CSVs, and a printable year-end summary your preparer can actually use.