Vivint is an American-based company that offers home security services such as security systems, smart home technology products, and home automation. Their systems incur monthly fees for monitoring services, including professional monitoring, as well as features such as the ability to use a smartphone and interact with a smart home. Well, before we get to that, let’s briefly recap what Vivint offers and what kind of customers it is most suitable for.

The cost of the Vivint service that you get to enjoy every month is between $40 and $60 every month. However, the exact amount that you will be billed every month depends on the kind of equipment that you want to incorporate into your system, whether you want to buy or lease your equipment, the kind of monitoring plan that you want, and whether you have included any other additional features or have opted for any upgrades.

Base Monitoring Plan Fees

The minimum monthly fees at Vivint include the professional monitoring of your home security system together with the Vivint Sky mobile app to provide a level of control over your system from your mobile device. The baseline plan that you will be paying depends on whether you are to buy your Vivint equipment or rent from their Lease program.

If you buy equipment outright, then you will be paying $39. 99 per month for monitoring under Vivint’s Basic plan. The lease program includes the usual monitoring fees starting from $49. 99 a month. The lease also makes the equipment costs more of a distribution over your lease, typically 48 months. All the gear, you own at the end of the Lease, as seen in the equation:

The following is a list of some of the factors in your monthly cost.

The basic monthly fees are as little as $40, but they increase when you consider equipment lease/loan costs, additional or optional monitoring features, and home automation options. Here are some of the biggest contributors to higher monthly Vivint bills: 

Equipment Rental Fees: Vivint’s Lease program adds $10 to $30 per month to make payment for the hardware over the life of your contract. Purchasing eliminates these fees.

Cellular Back-Up Monitoring: Vivint offers this starting at $10 more per month for LTE cellular, which means that the system continues being monitored even if the internet is down.

Smart Home Device Fees: Smart thermostats cost on average $10 – $15 monthly. Other smart home devices such as doorbell cameras and smart door locks also contribute to a higher bill.

Professional Installation: The cheapest plan of Vivint Smart Home costs $49. 99 per month and the basic installation is free. They offer a $59. 99 plan for bespoke smart home configuration and management.

Extra Monitoring Features: With an average of $10 to $15 more per month, optional services such as video monitoring by the employees in its monitoring centers can be included.

There are additional charges related to the equipment rental and monitoring and with every addition, the bill easily crosses a hundred dollars per month. However, you can also keep costs on the lower side if you decide to buy equipment outright and eliminate the fancies of monitoring.

Things That Other Students Pay For That You Should Consider

When reviewing your Vivint contract and monthly fees, keep the following costs in mind as they may or may not apply: 

Activation Fee: The $99 or $199 is a one-off fee that you make to set up an account. Sometimes it is excluded during promotional campaigns and deals.

Professional Installation: The basic setups are from $49 up to the more complex installations which cost $199 and above. DIY is not available.

Cancellation Fees: Early termination fees cost between $400 to $600 if you decide to cancel your service, before the due time.

Late Fees: Vivint also operates a late payment fee, which costs $10 for every monthly bill delivered after the due date.

Equipment Repair/Replacement: It is important to note that you may be expected to pay for repair costs if your leased equipment is damaged or does not work at all.

Things That Have Influence on Your Monthly Charges

When getting quotes and evaluating your financing options with Vivint, consider the following four factors that significantly determine what you'll pay monthly: 

  1. Equipment Packages For instance, smart home packages that can be started with such as the Smart Home Secure that comes with a control panel, two door/window sensors, a motion detector, and basic smart home equipment are sold at $599 as a one-time fee. Everyone will instantly understand that more cameras, sensors, thermostats, door locks, and controllers raise prices higher but usually translate to greater monthly financing fees as well.
  2. Financing Options Since acquiring equipment can mean paying cash for equipment or getting 0% interest financing erases the monthly cost of renting equipment. But what it does is it will cost you more at the initial stage. Leasing disperses costs but adds $20 to $40 monthly to your monitoring until the equipment is fully settled.
  3. Monitoring Services The baseline plans only provide for such essentials such as security system monitoring and ‘on-the-go’ remote access. Purchasing an improved video surveillance system, electricity usage monitoring, various smart home connections, and cellular backup all result in increased monthly monitoring fees.
  4. Contract Length Vivint also requires customers to sign a standard contract for a term of 48 months. The length of contracts varies from 36 months and up to 60 months in most cases. In most cases, it is seen that costs tend to be spread out and the more duration the contract has, the less the amount of money paid per month is. However, early cancellation fees are higher for a longer-term agreement.

Vivint Monthly Cost Summary

The average monthly cost for customers after the inclusion of all the equipment, basic monitoring, and other smart home services, which may be added by a customer to their monitored Vivint service is between $60 and $100. Still, one can maintain Vivint monthly fees to range between $40 to $50 per month with basic equipment and a shorter contract period provided you do not opt for leased equipment and other forms of monitoring.

Just make sure that you know what features can be the most important for your house and the price that you are willing to pay so that you end up with the most suitable package for your house and your pocket. By not overspending on financing, properly tailoring monitoring to the base, and implementing eradicating unneeded fees, Vivint could be a cost-efficient method to receive home security and some smart home automated features.

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