Christmas Light Installation Pricing: What to Charge Per Linear Foot
What should you charge for Christmas light installation?
Most installers charge $2 to $5 per linear foot for labor, with a minimum job fee of $150 to $300. The average professional install lands at $444, with most homeowners paying between $220 and $684 (HomeGuide, Angi).
| What you're pricing | Rate | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Labor, per linear foot | $2–$5 | Up to $7 for steep or high-access roofs |
| Lights, if you supply them | $0.50–$2 per linear foot | Materials only, on top of labor |
| Minimum job fee | $150–$300 | Non-negotiable — drive time and setup |
| Hourly alternative | $60–$100/hr | For odd jobs that don't measure cleanly |
| Basic roofline package | $250–$1,500 | Typical whole-job range |
| Large or multi-feature home | $750–$5,000 | Trees, columns, multiple rooflines |
| Permanent lighting | $20–$40 per linear foot | $2,000–$8,000 installed |
The minimum is the number new installers skip and regret. A small single-story roofline that takes ninety minutes with a ladder still costs you the drive, the setup, and a slot in a season that's only eight weeks long.
Price the season, not the job
Christmas lighting is the most compressed trade in home services. Demand climbs through October, peaks in November, and is effectively over by mid-December. You are not selling a service — you are selling a fixed number of installation days, and once they're gone there is no more inventory.
That changes the pricing logic in ways that catch people out:
- Discounting in season is strictly a loss. Every discounted job occupies a slot a full-price job would have filled. When your constraint is days rather than customers, a discount doesn't win incremental work — it just lowers the price of work you were going to do anyway.
- Early-booking discounts are the exception, and they're worth it. A September deposit is a booked slot before you know whether the season is busy, and it smooths the cash flow that this trade is otherwise terrible for.
- Raise prices when you sell out. If you finish the season fully booked and turning people away, your prices were too low. That's not a hypothesis — it's the definition.
The seasonality also explains why marketing has to happen in the off-season. Rankings take four to eight weeks to move, so the crews taking calls in October were visible in August. That's the entire reason a holiday lighting Jobsite is worth building in summer rather than autumn.
Takedown and storage are revenue you're giving away
Most installers bundle takedown into the install price or treat it as an obligation. Both are mistakes.
Takedown in January is genuinely separate work: separate trip, separate labor, separate ladder time, in worse weather. Charged properly it's typically 20 to 40% of the install fee — and it's the easiest sale you'll ever make, because the customer already has your lights on their house and no interest in getting on a roof in January.
Storage is the quieter one. If you supply the lights, offering to store them between seasons does three things at once: it adds a line item, it saves the customer a garage shelf, and it makes switching installers next year genuinely inconvenient. That last part is the real value. A customer whose lights are in your warehouse is a customer who calls you in September without shopping.
So the full-season package is install, takedown, and storage priced together, quoted as one annual number. It's better revenue per customer, it's better retention, and it turns a one-off transaction into something closer to a subscription.
Permanent lighting is a different business on the same truck
Permanent holiday lighting — track-mounted programmable LEDs that stay on the roofline year-round — runs $20 to $40 per linear foot, or $2,000 to $8,000 installed. That is roughly five to ten times a seasonal install on the same house.
It also breaks the two structural problems with this trade at once. The revenue isn't seasonal, because you're selling an installation that happens any month of the year. And nothing comes down in January, so there's no takedown labor and no storage.
The trade-off is honest: you're no longer selling a service, you're selling a product install, which means a real quote, a real warranty conversation, and a customer who will compare you against other installers rather than against doing nothing. It's a longer sale.
It's also the fastest-growing search in the category, and most seasonal installers have no page for it at all — they mention it in a sentence on a services page. If you offer it, it deserves its own page and its own pricing, not a footnote under the seasonal work.
If you run other exterior work through the year, the rates for the neighbouring trades are here: pressure washing pricing and gutter cleaning pricing.
Frequently Asked Questions
How much should I charge for Christmas light installation?
$2 to $5 per linear foot for labor is the standard basis, up to $7 for steep or difficult roofs, with a minimum job fee of $150 to $300. If you supply the lights, add $0.50 to $2 per linear foot for materials. The average completed job runs about $444.
Should I charge separately for takedown?
Yes. Takedown is a separate January trip in worse weather, and it typically prices at 20 to 40 percent of the install fee. It is also the easiest upsell in the trade, because the alternative is the customer climbing onto a winter roof themselves.
Should I discount to fill the calendar?
Almost never in season. The season is about eight weeks long, so your constraint is available days rather than customers — a discounted job takes a slot a full-price job would have filled. Early-booking discounts in September are the sensible exception, because they convert an unknown into a booked slot.
Is permanent holiday lighting worth offering?
It runs $20 to $40 per linear foot, or $2,000 to $8,000 installed — five to ten times a seasonal job on the same house — and it removes both the seasonality and the takedown labor. It is a longer, more considered sale, and it deserves its own page rather than a mention on your seasonal one.
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