|9 min read
Why We Publish Our Prices When Nobody Else Does
Call five holiday lighting companies in San Diego and ask what they charge. You'll get five versions of the same answer. Every home is different. We'd need to come see it. Let's get you on the calendar for a free estimate.
Some of that is fair. A 3,200 square foot two-story in Del Mar is not the same job as a single-story bungalow in Point Loma. But most of it is a sales tactic. Hiding the number gets you on the phone, and getting you on the phone is how a lot of companies sell.
We'd rather you know before you call. So here are our actual rates, the same ones we quote standing in your driveway. If the range doesn't fit your budget, you just saved yourself an appointment and a week of follow-up texts. If it does fit, you'll walk into the design consult already knowing roughly where you'll land.
One thing up front. We have a $800 job minimum. It costs us the same to send a crew, a truck, and a rack of ladders to a small job as a big one, so below $800 the math stops working. Better you hear that now than after a site visit.
Our San Diego Holiday Lighting Rates
Here's the full list. Every price below includes the lights themselves, because we own them. There is no separate product invoice and no materials upsell at the end.
- Roofline lighting, C9 commercial bulbs: $8 per linear foot
- Roofline icicle lighting: $10 per linear foot
- Pathway, fence, and garage outlines: $8 per linear foot
- Palm tree wrapping: from $105 per tree, priced per strand
- Branch tree wrapping: from $225 per tree
- Bush and shrub wrapping: from $60 per bush
- Columns, beams, and railings: from $60
- Pre-lit wreaths, 24 inch to 60 inch: $300 to $1,950
- Garland and bows: from $85
- Smart timer and power setup: included at no charge, a $150 value
- Job minimum: $800
How to Read the Tree and Wreath Numbers
Tree pricing starts at those figures and climbs with size. A 12 foot queen palm and a 30 foot Washingtonia are not the same climb, and a mature branch tree with real structure can take an hour by itself. We give you a firm per-tree number at the consult, not a range you find out about later.
Wreaths cover the widest span on the list because the product does too. A 24 inch pre-lit wreath over a front door is $300. A 60 inch wreath that anchors a two-story entry, lit, bowed, and rigged so it hangs straight in wind, is at the top of that $300 to $1,950 range. Most homes pick something in the middle and put one over the entry.
The smart timer is genuinely included. It's a $150 value we don't bill, because a display you have to remember to plug in is a display that's dark half the season.
One Price, Whether It Clips or Tucks
Some companies quote gutter mounting at one rate and shingle mounting at another. We don't.
The cost difference to us is pennies per foot. Charging two prices for that would be nickel-and-diming, and it turns a five-minute conversation about how your roof is built into a line-item negotiation. Your roofline is $8 a foot for C9 whether the clip grabs the gutter edge or slides under a shingle tab. We use whichever one holds better on your house, and that decision belongs to the installer, not the invoice.
Same answer on which direction your house faces, what color you pick, and whether you want warm white or multi-color. None of that changes the per-foot rate.
What a Whole Home Actually Costs
Per-foot rates are good for checking our math. They're not much use for planning a budget. Here's what real San Diego homes come out to.
- Roofline only, single story: $800 to $1,600
- Roofline plus a few trees: $1,800 to $2,500
- Full front-of-home display: $3,000 to $4,500
- Estate and large custom work: $7,000 and up
Where Most People Land
Most first-season clients come out between $1,800 and $4,000. That's usually a clean roofline, two or three wrapped trees, a wreath over the entry, and garland on the columns or the porch rail. It's the version that makes the house look finished instead of decorated.
If you're not sure which row you're in, walk out front and pace off your roofline in rough feet, then multiply by eight. That gets you close enough to decide whether to keep reading. Add $105 to $225 for each tree you want lit and you're within a few hundred dollars of a real quote.
The estate tier is a different animal. Long rooflines, multiple elevations, gated entries, mature trees, and usually a second story with limited ladder access. Those quotes get built from scratch.
Why We Cost More Than the National Average
Published national guides put a typical Christmas light install near $444, with most jobs falling between $219 and $686, and per-foot pricing at $2 to $7. Our numbers are higher. Here's the honest reason.
Those averages mostly describe a different product. At $2 a foot, someone is hanging store-bought strands you paid for, on clips or staples, with no service call if a section dies the second week of December, and often no takedown included. Sometimes it's a guy with a ladder and a free weekend. That is a completely legitimate way to get lights on a house, and plenty of people should choose it.
What we do is a different job. Every strand gets cut to your specific roofline, so there's no doubled-back excess bunched at the corners and no dark gap where a run came up short. The bulbs are commercial-grade C9 LEDs with weather-sealed sockets, which matters more here than it does in Phoenix or Denver, because salt air gets into cheap sockets and eats the contacts.
The price also covers everything after install day. Smart timers so the display comes on by itself at dusk. In-season repairs if wind or a Santa Ana takes out a section. Full takedown in January. Free off-season storage until next November, labeled to your address.
So compare the whole thing, not the per-foot number. A $600 install, plus buying your own lights, plus a Saturday on a ladder in January, plus a bin taking up shelf space in the garage, plus replacing the strands again in three years, is not really a $600 install. It might still be the right call for you. Just do the math with all of it on the table.
What Moves Your Number Up or Down
Four things drive almost every quote we write.
- Linear footage. The biggest factor by far. A long, low ranch roofline can easily cost more than a compact two-story.
- One story or two. Second-story work is slower and takes more equipment, so the same footage burns more crew hours.
- Tree count and type. Palms wrap faster than branch trees. One mature branch tree can move a quote by a few hundred dollars.
- Decor. Wreaths, garland, bows, and column wraps add up quickly, and they're also the easiest place to trim if you're aiming at a number.
Designing to a Budget
Tell us your number at the design consult and we'll design to it. That almost always means spending the first dollars on the roofline, because that's what the street actually sees, then adding trees and decor with whatever is left.
A common move is to light the roofline fully in Year 1 and add trees in Year 2. The roofline is the part that reads from a block away. Trees are the part that makes it feel warm when someone pulls into the driveway. Both are good. One of them can wait a season.
Year 1, Year 2, and Year 3
The first season costs the most, and it should. Year 1 pays for the design and the custom fabrication. We measure your roofline, cut every strand to fit it, set the bulb spacing, and build the display once.
Years 2 and 3 run 10% off your Year 1 price. The lights already exist, they already fit your house, and they're already labeled and boxed in storage. We pull your box, hang what we built, and you're done.
In between seasons the display lives with us. We store it, inspect it, and repair or replace anything that failed. You don't have a bin in the rafters and you don't lose a December to a dead strand you forgot about back in February.
That's also why there's no separate product bill anywhere in this. We own the lights. You're paying for a display on your house, not for a box of inventory you have to look after.
Questions Worth Asking Any Installer
Whether you hire us or somebody else, four questions will tell you most of what you need to know about a quote.
Who owns the lights? If you buy them, you're also storing them, replacing them, and eating the loss when a season's worth of strands comes back looking rough. We own ours, so that isn't your problem.
What bulb spacing is quoted? Twelve inches is the standard on a front roofline. Wider spacing is the quietest way to make a bid look cheaper without changing anything on paper.
Is takedown included, and when? Some quotes stop at install day. Ours includes January takedown and free off-season storage.
What happens if a section goes dark on December 12th? In-season repairs should be part of the price, not a service call you pay for during the one month the display matters.
Book in September, Save 15%
Holiday installs booked in September get 15% off. October drops to 10%. By November and December we usually don't have anything left to sell, because the calendar fills.
On a $2,800 display, September pricing saves you $420. On a $4,000 one it's $600. The discount is real and it exists for a selfish reason: a booked September calendar lets us measure, cut, and schedule without guessing, and that's worth money to us.
Call or text us at (858) 315-1247 and we'll set up the design consult. It takes about 30 minutes at your house, and you'll have a written number before we pull out of the driveway.