CCTV installation cost in Sydney

By Brendan Byrne · Published 15 September 2026 · 6 min read

Typical CCTV installation costs in Sydney in 2026 run roughly $450 to $700 per camera supplied and installed for a straightforward home setup, with a full system - cameras, recorder, cabling and labour - for a 4-camera home usually landing between $1,800 and $3,500. These are hedged, real-world ranges, not fixed prices, because cabling difficulty and brand choice move the number more than almost anything else.

Typical cost by system size

A 4-camera home system, enough for a front door, driveway, back yard and one side access point, typically costs $1,800 to $3,500 supplied and installed with a mid-range brand like Hikvision or Dahua, or somewhat more with Ubiquiti UniFi Protect gear. An 8-camera system, suited to a larger home or a small business with more entry points to cover, generally runs $3,500 to $6,500, and a 16-camera system - more typical of a larger commercial site, a multi-tenant building or a bigger acreage property - often sits between $7,000 and $13,000 once you factor in a higher-capacity recorder and more extensive cabling.

These figures assume reasonably straightforward cable access. A property with a low, walkable roof space and single-storey construction will sit at the lower end of any of these ranges; a multi-storey or double-brick property will push toward the top, sometimes beyond it.

Ubiquiti vs Hikvision and Dahua cost differences

Ubiquiti's UniFi Protect cameras (the G5 and G6 range) and their UNVR or Dream Machine recorders generally cost more per camera than equivalent Hikvision or Dahua hardware - often 30 to 60 percent more for a comparable resolution and feature set. The trade-off buyers weigh up is that UniFi Protect has no ongoing licence fee for the core system and a phone app that many people find simpler to manage themselves, while Hikvision (including its ColorVu and AcuSense ranges) and Dahua's WizSense line tend to offer more camera and lens options at each price point and are usually the more affordable choice for larger camera counts where the per-camera saving adds up quickly.

Neither is objectively better across the board - it depends on budget, how many cameras you need, and how comfortable you are managing the system yourself versus wanting the installer to handle updates and support. Our comparison of Ubiquiti UniFi Protect, Hikvision and Dahua goes into the feature differences in more depth.

What actually drives the cost up

Camera count is only one input. Cable routing usually matters more: a single-storey weatherboard or brick veneer home with an accessible roof space is straightforward to cable, while a double-brick home with no roof access for large sections often means cable has to be run externally in conduit or, in some cases, wireless bridges have to be considered for a single hard-to-reach camera, both of which add labour time. Multi-storey properties add cost too, both for the extra cable length from the recorder location and for the access equipment needed to mount cameras safely at height.

Commercial premises typically cost more per camera than a home job of the same size, partly because commercial cameras and recorders are often specified with longer retention or higher resolution for evidentiary purposes, and partly because commercial cable runs - through partition walls, suspended ceilings or across a larger floor plate - take longer than a typical home. A café fitting out four internal cameras and one external one, for instance, will usually cost somewhat more than a home with the same camera count, simply because of where the cable has to travel and the need to work around trading hours.

Ongoing costs after installation

For a system with local storage - footage recorded to a hard drive in the NVR rather than the cloud - ongoing costs are minor: the small amount of extra power draw on your electricity bill, and eventually replacing the hard drive, typically every three to five years of continuous recording. There's usually no subscription required to keep viewing footage on your phone.

If you choose cloud storage instead of or alongside local storage - useful if you want footage protected even if the recorder itself is stolen or damaged - expect a monthly fee that scales with camera count and how many days you keep in the cloud, typically anywhere from $10 to $60 a month for a home system. A monitored back-to-base service, where an operator is alerted to trigger events and can call police, adds a further ongoing cost, usually charged monthly per site, and is more common on commercial installations than residential ones.

How to compare quotes properly

Because so much of the cost sits in cabling and recorder specification rather than the cameras themselves, comparing quotes purely on the bottom-line number can be misleading. Ask each installer to itemise camera model and resolution, recorder model and storage capacity in days, and cable routing, so you're comparing genuinely equivalent proposals rather than a thorough quote against a stripped-down one. AVsion in Maroubra, for example, quotes CCTV jobs itemised by camera, recorder and cabling rather than as a single bundled figure, which makes it easier to see exactly what you're paying for and to compare against another quote line by line.

It's also worth asking what happens if the cable run turns out to be more difficult than expected once work starts - a fixed quote that accounts for a proper site inspection beforehand is generally more reliable than a phone quote that gets revised upward once the installer is on site.

For more on vetting the installer themselves rather than just the price, see our guide on how to choose a CCTV installer in Sydney, and for a broader look at what you're actually paying for in a quality job, see what makes a good CCTV installation. The Top 5 CCTV installers in Sydney page and installer directory are good starting points for getting quotes to compare.

Frequently asked questions

How much does a 4-camera CCTV system cost in Sydney?

A typical 4-camera system supplied and installed usually runs from around $1,800 to $3,500, depending on the brand, resolution and how far cable needs to run. Double-brick homes or multi-storey properties usually sit toward the higher end.

Is Ubiquiti more expensive than Hikvision or Dahua?

Generally yes, per camera. Ubiquiti's UniFi Protect cameras and recorders typically cost more upfront than equivalent Hikvision or Dahua hardware, but many buyers feel the simpler app and no ongoing subscription fee make up the difference over a few years.

Are there ongoing costs after CCTV is installed?

Usually minimal for a local-storage system - power for the recorder and occasional hard drive replacement. If you choose cloud storage or a monitored back-to-base service instead of or alongside local storage, expect an ongoing monthly fee on top of the installation cost.

Why do two quotes for the same number of cameras differ so much?

The camera count is only part of the cost. Cable routing, recorder size and storage days, brand, and whether the property has easy roof access versus double brick walls all affect price, so two quotes for "4 cameras" can genuinely differ by $1,000 or more.

Does a commercial CCTV installation cost more than a home system?

Yes, typically, because commercial jobs often need more cameras for coverage, higher-spec recorders for longer retention, and sometimes compliance-driven features like audit logging, on top of potentially more complex cabling in a larger building.

Keep reading