Ten questions to ask before signing a monitoring contract
Most of what goes wrong with a monitoring contract is visible before signing, if you ask. Here is the list, including the answers we would give.
- Ask whether a person is watching or software is sending clips. Both are sold as "monitoring" and they are not the same product.
- Get the total first-year cost, not the monthly figure. Set-up, hardware, storage and per-alert fees live outside the headline.
- The auto-renewal clause matters more than the price. Some require written notice inside a narrow window months before the anniversary.
- Ask what happens when they miss something. The answer is usually "very little", and it is better to know now.
- Ask where the operators are and who else can see your footage.
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1. Is a person watching, or is software sending me clips?
This is the question that separates two completely different products sold under one word. Analytics-only services detect motion and email you a clip; a human never looks at it unless you do. Staffed monitoring means somebody is watching, and decides whether what they see is worth waking you for.
Both are legitimate. The difference shows up at 2 am when a fox, a carrier bag and a person all generate the same motion event. Ask directly: is there a person on shift, and what do they do when the alert fires?
2. What exactly am I paying for — cameras, hours, or events?
Get the unit straight. Most providers charge a flat monthly fee per camera regardless of how many hours they watch, which means an overnight-only site subsidises the daytime hours nobody is watching. Some charge per event. Some charge per site with a camera cap.
Then ask the follow-up that catches people out: what happens when I add a camera, and what happens when I remove one?
3. What is the total first-year cost?
The monthly figure is rarely the whole figure. Ask for the first twelve months in one number, and make them itemise it. The line items that commonly appear after signing are these.
4. How does the contract renew, and how do I stop it?
Get the cancellation method and the deadline in writing before you sign. "Just give us a call" is not a cancellation clause.
This is the clause that generates more complaints than price ever does. An evergreen or auto-renewal clause rolls the contract into another full term unless you cancel inside a specific window — and that window often closes months before the anniversary you are thinking of.
The pattern that traps people: notice must be in writing, sometimes by certified post, at least thirty or sixty days before the end of a term that renews for another year. Miss it by a week and you have bought twelve more months. Some states have stepped in — California requires separate written acknowledgement of an auto-renewal longer than a month, and the clause is invalid without it — but most places do not.
Ask three things in writing: does it auto-renew, for how long, and exactly how and when do I stop it.
5. What happens when you miss something?
Ask for the liability cap as a number, then read it next to what one bad night would actually cost you.
Ask it plainly, because the answer tells you what the service really is. Almost every monitoring contract limits liability to something near the monthly fee, and most exclude consequential loss entirely — meaning if a break-in costs you sixty thousand and they were asleep at the desk, your remedy is roughly one month back.
That is not necessarily unreasonable; no monitoring company can underwrite your inventory for $400 a month. But you should know it before signing rather than after an incident, and you should not be sold monitoring as though it were insurance. Check what your insurer actually requires, separately.
6. What is the alert time, and is it a target or a promise?
Everyone quotes a number. Ask which kind of number it is: a target they report against, or a contractual commitment with a remedy attached. Almost always it is the former, and a provider who implies otherwise is worth a second look at the small print.
Then ask what it is measured from. "Two minutes" from the moment an operator confirms an event is a very different claim from two minutes from the moment the event began.
7. Who is actually watching, and from where?
Ask whether operators work from a staffed floor or from home, how many sites one operator covers at once, and whether you get the same people each week. An operator carrying forty sites is doing something different from one carrying six.
Ask where they are, geographically. If they are in another country — ours are in Lahore — that is not disqualifying, but it changes your data-protection position and you should be told rather than left to work it out.
8. What happens to my footage?
Who can see it, how long is it kept, where is it stored, and who else is in the chain. Ask whether any of it is used to train analytics, and get the answer in writing if it matters to you.
If you are in the UK or EU and the provider operates outside it, ask what transfer paperwork they have and whether they will sign yours. A provider who has not thought about this is telling you something.
9. Can I try it before committing?
A short paid pilot tells you more than any reference. You find out whether the alerts are useful or noise, whether anyone actually calls, and whether the logs are worth reading — on your own site, with your own cameras and your own contact list.
Ask whether the pilot obliges you to continue, and whether it rolls into a term automatically if you do nothing. That second question matters more than the first.
10. How do I leave, and what do I take with me?
Ask what happens to your clips and logs when you cancel, how quickly you can get a copy, and whether any equipment stays yours. If they installed hardware, establish who owns it and what removal costs.
A provider comfortable with the leaving conversation is usually a provider comfortable with the whole relationship.
Questions we get asked
What is the single most important question on this list?
How the contract renews and how you stop it. Price you can compare in an afternoon; an auto-renewal clause you find out about a year later.
Should I be suspicious of a long contract?
Not automatically — a longer term can buy a better rate. Be suspicious of a long term you cannot exit, or one that renews itself into another long term by default.
Is a cheap monthly price usually hiding something?
Sometimes. Check whether it is analytics rather than a person, whether set-up and storage are extra, and whether the rate is promotional for the first year.
Do you have a minimum contract?
One month, paid in advance, or seven days for a pilot. There is no notice period, no cancellation fee and no auto-renewal into a longer term.
Will you answer all of these about your own service?
Yes, and most of the answers are already published on this site rather than waiting behind a sales call. Where the answer is a limit, the terms say so.
What should I get in writing before signing?
The total first-year cost itemised, the renewal and cancellation mechanics, what the alert time is measured from, and the liability cap. Those four cover most of what people later wish they had asked.
Ask us these ten
Most of the answers are already published rather than waiting behind a sales call. The rest we will put in writing.