Design mockup. The business shown here is invented. The number and every price are placeholders.

Cross Key Lock · mobile, Northland

$45

That is the call-out. It is the same figure when the van is in your driveway.

The trade has a reputation and it was earned: a nineteen dollar advert, a stranger who has never seen a lock before, and a bill for two hundred and forty. The number above is what it costs to come out. The work is priced below it, in public, before you ring.

The four questions you will be asked

Not a form. This is the actual call, in order, and each answer moves the price in a direction you can see before you pick up the phone.

  1. Where are you, and are you safe standing there?

    Asked first, every time. If it is a car park at one in the morning, or a child is inside the vehicle, that changes what happens next and it is not a pricing question.

    A child or an animal locked in a car is not billed at all, and we do not wait for a card number before we leave.

  2. Is it a house, a car, or a business?

    Three different vans' worth of tools. Cars need the year, make and whether the key has a chip in it. Houses need to know if the door is standard or a storm door in front of it.

    House and business openings are the flat rate below. Cars with a transponder key add the programming line, which is the only line that ever surprises anybody.

  3. Do you have proof you belong there?

    A licence with the address, a lease, a utility bill, a registration in the glovebox. This one is not negotiable and it is asked before the drive, not after.

    No charge either way, but if the answer is no we do not come out, and we would rather tell you that on the phone than on your doorstep.

  4. Do you want it opened, or opened and re-keyed?

    Different jobs. Getting you back inside takes minutes. Making the old key stop working, after a break-up or a tenant leaving, is a separate piece of work on every lock you own.

    Re-keying is charged per cylinder, not per house, so a front and back door is two, and the price falls after the fourth.

Posted rates

Call-out, any hour
$45
House or business opening
$45
Car opening, no chip
$55
Transponder key cut and programmed
$110 to $180
Key fob programmed, you supply the fob
$65
Re-key, first four cylinders
$22 each
Re-key, fifth cylinder onward
$16 each
New deadbolt fitted, hardware included
$140
Broken key extracted
$40
Between 10pm and 6am
Add $35

Card, cash or tap, taken at the kerb, receipted by text. Nothing above changes because of the neighbourhood you live in.

Jobs we turn down

  • Safes. We do not open them, drill them or crack them, and anyone who says they will over the phone has not seen the safe.
  • Anything where the person asking cannot show the address is theirs.
  • Repossessions and evictions. That is a different licence and a different conscience.
  • High-security commercial systems on a restricted keyway. Those belong with the company that holds the key card, and we will tell you which one that is.

One van, one person, insured, and it is the same person who answers the phone as arrives at the door.

Call (816) 555-0157