# How much would guards cost responding to an alarm?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-would-guards-cost-responding-to-an-alarm/316585>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [August 11, 2005, 2:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-would-guards-cost-responding-to-an-alarm/316585 "2005-08-11T14:24:46Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Page:** 1

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Mr.Slant](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/c57346/32.png) [@Mr.Slant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Slant)\
**Post date:** [August 11, 2005, 2:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-would-guards-cost-responding-to-an-alarm/316585/1 "2005-08-11T14:24:46Z")

</div>

I’ve read that a couple of cities are refusing to send police response to burglar alarms unless the person/business being burglarized can confirm by a non-alarm means that a building is being burgled.  
One option is remote video surveillance, but another is dispatching private guards to drive to the site and check for signs of forced entry from a “safe” distance.  
Any of you dopers know what it would cost to have a detective/security agency perform manual checks?  
Let’s say I was running a bank with 50 branches and wanted to contract for this service for a year.  
What would it cost? Would I get billed per alarm, annually, or?  
How about if I had a national bank with 500 branches?