How Much Does Permanent Outdoor Lighting Cost?

Every figure on this page is published market data from a named third party, linked so you can read it yourself. We quote from a free on-site design and demo; nothing on this page is our price. There is no per-foot rate on this site and no "starting at" number, because a roofline is not a commodity and we will not pretend it is.

What this guide can do is teach you to read a quote. Once you know which parts of a house cost money to light, you can look at any bid, from us or from anyone else, and tell whether the number makes sense.

Here is what an installer is measuring when he walks your house. Almost none of it is square footage.

Linear footage is the starting point, not the answer

Pricing follows the edge of the roof, not the size of the house. But two homes with the same footage can be very different jobs. A hundred and twenty feet in two clean straight runs is one kind of day. The same hundred and twenty feet broken into nine short segments with corners, returns and transitions between them is another. Complexity costs more than distance.

Stories, pitch and access

Everything a crew cannot reach safely from a ladder gets more expensive. Third-story gable peaks, steep pitches, a two-story wall over a screened porch, beds and slopes that keep ladder feet off level ground, or a section that needs a lift to work safely. Access is usually the single biggest swing between two houses of the same size.

Dormers, gables and peaks

Every dormer is a start, a stop, two corners and a decision. Count the dormers and gables on the front of your house and you have a rough read on where your quote will land relative to your neighbor's.

Fascia condition and material

Our track mounts to fascia and under the gutter line, so the fascia has to be sound. Wood, aluminum-wrapped, vinyl and fiber cement all behave differently, and soft or rotted board has to be repaired before anything gets mounted to it. If a stretch of your fascia needs a carpenter first, that is a separate trade and a separate cost, and an honest installer will tell you at the walk rather than after.

Zones and control

How you want to run the lights affects the design. Front elevation only is simple. Front, garage wing, back porch and a landscape group as separate zones on the app means more planning and more runs. It is worth asking for the zones you actually want up front, because adding them later is not free.

Landscape add-ons

Uplights on trees, wall washes on brick or stone, path lighting along a walk. These run on the same low-voltage system and the same app as the roofline, and they are usually the difference between a lit house and a lit property. See landscape and architectural lighting for what those fixtures do.

Power and outlet availability

The system is low-voltage. The controller and power supply go somewhere out of sight, and they need power where they land. Whether your house already has that in the right spot is something we check on the walk rather than guess at from the curb — ask about it at your demo. If another trade has to get involved, you should hear that before you sign, not after, and it is worth confirming when you compare bids, because one quote may account for it and another may not.

To repeat, plainly: these are other people's published numbers, included so you have a reference point. They are not Optic's pricing and they are not an estimate for your home.

• Permanent lighting, national. HomeGuide's permanent Christmas lights cost page (homeguide.com/costs/permanent-christmas-lights-cost) reports roughly $20 to $40 per linear foot installed. Run that against a typical 100 to 200 linear feet of roofline and you get a very wide band, which is the point — read the source for how they break it down.
• Seasonal installation, national. HomeGuide's separate seasonal page (homeguide.com/costs/christmas-light-installation-cost) puts a basic roofline package at $250 to $1,500 a season, about $5 to $12 per linear foot, with fuller packages running higher. Their figures vary by scope, so read the range at the source rather than taking a single number from us.
• Local seasonal pricing. The published local numbers we can find all come from companies that sell the service, so we are not going to launder a competitor's price list into a citation. Use the national sources above as your reference point and get written quotes for your own roofline.

The comparison people usually get wrong is install price against install price. The real comparison is one number against a number that repeats for as long as you own the house.

Do the arithmetic yourself with the cited ranges above. Take the seasonal per-season figure HomeGuide publishes for a house like yours, multiply it by the number of Decembers you expect to be in this house, and set that beside HomeGuide's permanent range. For a large or complex display the two numbers meet sooner than most people expect. For a small simple one the crossover takes considerably longer. Both are true. Which one is your house is the whole question, and it is why we will not print a payback year on a web page.

What a permanent system does not repeat:

• No seasonal install or takedown fee, ever again.
• No rental, no storage, no boxes of tangled strands in the attic.
• No annual replacement of strands that were fine last year and are not this year.
• Energy cost is pennies. The LEDs are low-voltage and commercial-grade, rated for 50,000 hours.
• The lighting hardware is covered by a 15-year product warranty.

And it is not a December purchase. The same system runs warm white dusk to dawn the other eleven months, which is the part that gets left out when people compare a December number to a December number. For the money side of the seasonal decision in more depth, read seasonal vs. permanent Christmas lights.

We install seasonal Christmas lighting too, so we have no reason to push everyone toward permanent. Here is when we would tell you not to.

• You are selling within a couple of years. Buyers like the lights. They do not write you a check for them. If the house is going on the market soon, hire a seasonal hang and keep your cash.
• Your roofline is genuinely simple. One straight front run on a single-story ranch is cheap to have done seasonally and does not have much for a permanent system to show off. Nice house, wrong upgrade.
• The fascia or roof needs work first. If fascia board is soft, or the roof is due for replacement in the next year or two, do that first and call us after. Mounting to wood that is coming off is a waste of your money.
• You rent. This is a permanent modification to someone else's building. Seasonal is the answer.
• You want C9 bulbs and only C9 bulbs. If the classic big-bulb look is the whole point for you, take the classic install. Book seasonal Christmas light installation instead.

Our quote is free and it happens at your house, because a number produced from satellite imagery is a guess. Here is what the visit covers.

Financing is available through third-party lenders. Optic is not a lender and does not set the terms; we present the options with your quote and you decide, or you skip it entirely. Nobody here works on getting you into a payment. Details live on the financing page.

• Price follows the roof edge and its complexity, not the square footage of the house.
• Access is the biggest swing between two similar homes. Stories, pitch and what a ladder can reach.
• Published market ranges are a reference point, not a quote. Read the sources above and treat anyone who quotes your house sight unseen with suspicion.
• The honest comparison is one install against a fee that repeats every December for as long as you stay.
• If you are moving soon, renting, or your fascia needs work, permanent is the wrong buy right now and we will say so.
• The only real number is the one from a free on-site design and demo on your own roofline.

When you want that number, request a free quote and demo or call or text (910) 910-4569. We answer from 8am to 10pm, every day.