No call-out fee — what it means

How standard call-out fees work

Standard UK locksmith pricing usually has three components:

• Call-out fee (£30–£60): charged just for arriving.
• Labour (£60–£120/hour): for the work itself.
• Parts: any locks, cylinders, or components fitted.

The call-out fee is charged whether or not the job is completed. If you change your mind, or the lock turns out to be more complex than expected and you'd rather get a second opinion, you still pay the call-out fee.

How we work

We charge only for the labour when the job is complete.

• If we complete the job, you pay labour + parts. No separate call-out fee.
• If we attend and discover something we can't handle, you pay nothing.
• If you cancel before we're dispatched, you pay nothing.
• If you cancel after we're dispatched, a £50 cancellation fee applies.

Why the £50 cancellation fee

The cancellation fee exists for one reason: respect for the technician's time. When we dispatch someone to your address, they've stopped doing other work, driven to your location, used fuel, and committed time that could have served another customer.

If you call us in panic at 2am, we drop everything and head to you. If you find your spare keys five minutes later and cancel, we've already spent 20–40 minutes on your job. £50 is the minimum fair compensation — we'd rather collect it than pad every other customer's bill to cover cancelled jobs.

When the fee doesn't apply

• You cancel before we're dispatched (i.e. you call back within ~5 minutes of the initial call).
• Our technician arrives and can't complete the job through our fault (wrong tools, missing parts, etc.).
• The job turns out to be something we can't handle and we recommend another specialist.

The fee only applies when you cancel after dispatch. We don't apply it to our own failures.