Access Control Cost Per Door: The Honest Pricing Breakdown
By the DC Fire & Security engineering team — installing and maintaining fire and security systems since 2010. Updated June 2026.
Quick answer
UK access control pricing in 2026: first wired door £695+VAT (Paxton-class benchmark), additional wired doors £500–£900, wireless escutcheon doors (Salto-class) £400–£700, gates/barriers £1,500–£6,000+ with automation hardware. Per-door variance is mostly lock hardware (£80–£400) and cabling reality. Whole-life: add credentials, maintenance (£150–£400/yr) and any platform licences.
Decomposing a wired door's price
Sum: £550–£1,300 raw range — settling at the £500–£900 quoted band for typical doors once shared components dilute. Glass doors, gates and heritage fabric blow the band deliberately; quotes should say why (the Net2 guide's inclusion list is the cross-check).
| Component | Range | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Controller share | £100–£250 | Controllers serve 1-4 doors; share dilutes |
| Reader | £80–£250 | Prox basic → DESFire/keypad/Bluetooth tiers |
| Lock hardware | £80–£400 | Strike £80-150; maglock £100-200; motorised £250-400+ |
| Exit device | £30–£120 | RTE button/touchless; break-glass alongside |
| PSU + battery | £60–£150 | Often shared across doors |
| Cabling + labour | £150–£400 | The variance engine: routes, heights, making good |
| Commissioning share | £50–£150 | Programming, testing incl. fire release, training |
The cost levers buyers actually control
- Door count batching: mobilisation and shared PSUs/controllers mean 4 doors quoted together beat 4 sequential single-door projects by 15–25%
- Lock pragmatism: strikes where doors suit them undercut maglock-everything habits (the maglock/strike guide's fit logic is also a price tool)
- Wireless where it wins: interior-door estates flip to escutcheon economics (Salto logic) past ~6 doors — cabling deleted is money banked
- Fit-out timing: first-fix during works converts £300 retrofit cabling lines to £80 ones — the eternal advice
- Credential discipline upfront: DESFire from day one (pennies/fob extra) versus estate-wide migration later (the cloning tax)
- Scope honesty: fire-release interfacing, training and making-good in writing — absent lines return as extras (the quote-comparison method from our CCTV checklist transfers whole)
Whole-life costs nobody quotes (but we'll state)
Beyond installation: credentials (£3–£8/fob churn — budget by staff turnover), maintenance (£150–£400/yr small systems: locks wear, PSU batteries ~4-yearly, release interfaces need annual proving — the contract logic mirrors CCTV's), platform costs where chosen (cloud licences £50–£150/door/yr — the 5-year modelling discipline from the platforms guide), and lifecycle replacements (readers weather ~8–12 years exposed; controllers 10–15; locks per traffic — high-cycle doors eat strikes). A 5-door wired estate honestly totals: ~£3,500–£5,500 installed + ~£1,500–£2,500 across five years' running — against which keyed-lock alternatives' rekeying, lockouts and zero audit decay invisibly but realy. Our quotes carry the whole-life table by default; demand it from anyone pricing your doors.
Frequently Asked Questions
Why was I quoted £1,400 for 'one door'?
Cheapest acceptable single secure door?
Do cloud licences make wired doors cheaper upfront?
What's the maintenance visit actually checking?
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