Even though there is a higher cost for an emergency locksmith in Los Angeles, there is also a solid methodological reasoning behind the price difference. This is not about exploiting people in need. Instead, it is about meeting the costs of doing business in the city. Put your mind at ease, and read about the rationale behind Los Angeles emergency locksmith prices.

1. Staffed For Speed

In order to get to your location, no matter where you need an emergency locksmith in Los Angeles, there has to be a technician close by. Los Angeles traffic makes it impossible for a locksmith company to effectively send out all their workers from a centralized location. There needs to be a staff spread out throughout the city to get to you as quickly as possible.

It would simply take too long for a technician to get to your location. Even if traffic happened to be clear at that moment, it is too much of a risk to rely on the irregularity of traffic when it often leans towards the severe end of the spectrum. With a mobile locksmith at every corner of the city, it is possible to come to you quickly even with traffic working against the locksmiths.

Needing so many workers means a higher average cost per job because the price of speed is a reserve of locksmiths. The cost of an emergency locksmith in Los Angeles has to cover the price of operating the business, and you have a higher cost per job because of the number of locksmiths staffed to get to your location as fast as possible.

2. Investment In Quality Technicians

An emergency locksmith in Los Angeles needs to have the most versatile and abundant skill set. And due to the nature of the emergency response, this work also needs to be done quickly. This takes practice so that working fast does not mean sacrificing the quality of the locksmithing.

By the very nature of being an emergency locksmith in Los Angeles, everything is about speed, because there is no time to waste. There is a premium associated with getting the best possible locksmith. This is because it takes significant time and resources to train the best emergency locksmith in Los Angeles.

Due to the cost of training, each locksmith is worth more money than the average locksmith technician. They are literally an investment, and in order to pay them what they have been made to be worth, it results in a higher price for emergency locksmith services in Los Angeles.

Although you are getting what you pay for, there is such a high level of excellence needed to compete among other LA locksmiths the price will be greater than it would be in other areas and for non-emergency services.

3. Locksmiths On Call 24/7

In order to have a truly great emergency locksmith in Los Angeles, they need to be able to respond in real time to an emergency. When it comes to LA, people keep strange schedules. Whether it is a graveyard shift at a 24-hour establishment or a long night partying, there is a good chance that you can wind up needing a locksmith during non-standard business hours.

Because you could need an emergency locksmith at any time, there needs to be a locksmith on call at every hour of the day. This has a similar explanation for how it increases the cost of a locksmith as expressed in section 1. A key difference is that a highly trained Los Angeles locksmith can take their skills elsewhere, or make a fine living during standard operating hours, so there needs to be some greater incentive for the locksmith.

In order to deliver customers in Los Angeles emergency locksmith services 24-hours a day, a technician will need to inflate the prices of services rendered during non-standard hours. This is the only way to keep the best locksmiths working around the clock. The cost of an emergency locksmith in Los Angeles will be a little higher as a result, but not due to unfairness or predatory pricing.

Factors That Affect Emergency Locksmith Prices

Independent of other business factors that center around Los Angeles emergency locksmith services, these are some general concerns that will determine key things about the final cost. These are going to be your primary costs for any locksmith services.

Service(s) Needed – Each service has a different cost associated with it. This is because time and labor vary from task to task. Both of time and labor are the biggest expenses for a locksmith. It would only follow that as these factors change, so too would the locksmith price.

Opening a door to a house is not going to be the same cost as opening a commercial grade safe. Rekeying a lock will be cheaper than replacing the lock altogether. There is a starting cost associated with every emergency locksmith service in Los Angeles, and that will be affected further by job complexity and parts, but just the service itself will have a different price.

Complexity of the Job – Even within a given service, the details of the job can differ. Let’s use car key replacement as an example. If you have a spare key and you just need a locksmith to take the existing car key and make a car key duplicate, this is extremely fast and straightforward.

However, say you have broken your car key off in the lock of your car door, now the car key replacement is more complicated. In this second scenario, you will need the broken key removed, and it may not be possible to copy the existing key.

You will then need to open the car, without a key, remove the broken key, and duplicate a key from code. If the key has a transponder chip, that will also need to be programmed.

As you can see a job that seems routine to say can quickly become something that requires more work and different services. So though you might think, I just need INSERT SERVICE, the problem might not be that straightforward.

Then you can factor in the difference between security devices and the time and expertise needed to work through issues. These would be tasks such as opening a deadlocked car or a high security-deadbolt.

Parts Needed – Every part that you need has a cost. The prices will vary depending on what the part is for, and which manufacturer the part pairs with. If you are dealing with an older lock, you might find that the parts you need are exceedingly rare. But your lock could also use a patent that expired at the right time to have the parts you need mass produced and used in modern locks.

The point is that a locksmith has a lot of things to consider when they are getting you the parts you need. Even if a part is widely available, certain manufacturers do their best to keep prices high. This is especially true for auto parts, as luxury car companies love to have high prices associated with every aspect of their vehicles.

The Difference Between An Affordable And A Cheap Locksmith In Los Angeles

In the minds of most customers, the difference between affordable and cheap is the connotation. Cheap denotes cutting corners, where affordable seems to hint towards business acumen, which keeps service prices low without compromising on quality. Cheap also seems to put price as the main focus of the decision of what to charge locksmith customers.

Regardless of whether you personally agree with the distinction, using this linguistic framework, we can agree that an affordable locksmith is better than cheap emergency locksmith in Los Angeles.

Make sure that your locksmith is not keeping their prices low just so they can make up their money with volume. This is a recipe for rushed work, which diminishes the standard locksmith technicians are held to.

Final Thoughts On Emergency Locksmith Prices

With all of these things considered you still have to factor in the Los Angeles aspect of the service. California requires locksmiths to be licensed and bonded, and the city of Los Angeles taxes businesses quite heavily. This increases the price of Los Angeles locksmith services right off the bat. 

These prices are rather standard. It is everything else mentioned in this article that can vary. With each variation, there is another thing to consider about the cost of locksmith services.

With all that said, you don’t want to be paying more than you should for a service. That is why it is important to find a locksmith in Los Angeles who is dedicated to affordable prices. Don’t look for the cheapest fix for your security problem. Invest in a company who is going to treat you fairly.

And what better way to know if a locksmith is dedicated to fair treatment then to see how they treat their employees? The cost of an emergency locksmith in Los Angeles is for the benefit of the technician and the customer.