How to Price Christmas Light Installation Jobs: A 2026 Guide

Every fall, the same thing happens in landscaping and handyman group chats: someone asks what to charge for hanging Christmas lights, and the answers are all over the map. $200. $800. "Whatever feels right." That's not a pricing strategy, it's a coin flip, and it's why so many installers either scare off good clients with a number pulled from nowhere or work a 100-foot roofline for less than minimum wage once you count the ladder time.

Holiday lighting is a strange little niche. The season is maybe eight weeks long, the margins can be excellent, and almost nobody treats it like a real line of business with real costs. If you already run a landscaping, handyman, electrical, or exterior-cleaning operation, lights are often the easiest add-on revenue you'll ever pick up — but only if you price the job instead of guessing it.

Here's how installers who do this well actually build a number, the going rates for 2026, and the add-ons that quietly separate a profitable season from a break-even one.

Price per linear foot, not per house

The fastest way to underprice a holiday lighting job is to eyeball the house and name a round number. Professionals quote by the linear foot of roofline, because a 2,800 sq ft ranch with a simple roof takes a fraction of the time a 2,800 sq ft house with three gables and a steep pitch does.

2026 market rates break out roughly like this:

Translate that into real numbers and a typical single-story home lands around $375–$444 for a straightforward display, a two-story runs $800–$1,200, and a three-story or architecturally busy house can climb to $1,500–$5,000. Those aren't made-up anchors — they track with what homeowners nationally report paying, and they're a reasonable starting point for your own market.

Lease or sell — pick a model before you quote

Before you can price a job well, decide which business you're actually running, because the two models carry different costs and different numbers.

Lease-model installers charge more per job because they're carrying inventory risk and storage cost between seasons, but they also get the same client back every November without re-selling the job. Sell-model installers move faster and need less capital tied up, but they're starting from zero every single fall. Most successful seasonal operators land on lease — it's closer to a subscription than a one-off job, and that recurring revenue is the whole point of doing this twice.

The add-ons that quietly disappear from quotes

This is where margin actually gets made or lost. A roofline price is the headline number, but the real job almost always includes extras that get bundled in for free if you're not careful.

1. Tree wrapping runs $50–$200 per tree depending on height and trunk circumference.
2. Bush and shrub lighting runs $25–$75 per shrub.
3. Window and doorway outlines run $20–$50 per opening.
4. Timers and smart controllers add $25–$75 per zone, plus setup time.
5. Mid-season repair visits should be capped — bundle a set number into the contract, then charge a service call fee past that, the same logic you'd use the rest of the year.
6. Takedown and storage get charged at the time of the install quote, not as a surprise invoice in January. Clients forget lights come down. You shouldn't.

Quote all six separately. A homeowner who sees "$450 roofline + $150 for the two maples out front + $90 takedown" trusts the number more than one flat $690, because they can see what they're paying for.

Build your actual cost floor

Here's where holiday lighting starts to look like any other trade. You still need a floor number below which you're losing money, and it's built the same way you'd build your overhead rate for any other job: labor, materials, and a cut for the business itself.

Take a 150-linear-foot single-story roofline, lease model, commercial-grade C9 lights:

That's a hard cost of $555 before you've made a dime. Add 20–50% markup — the same range you'd use on any materials markup — and you're quoting somewhere between $665 and $830 for that job. Notice that's well above the "typical single-story" range quoted earlier. That gap is exactly why so many installers lose money on this work: they're pricing off what competitors charge instead of what the job actually costs them.

Permanent lighting is the upsell nobody's selling hard enough

Permanent LED light tracks — installed once along the roofline and controlled by an app year-round — have gone from a niche product to a real line item, typically running $2,000–$6,000 per home depending on linear footage and the control system. They cost more up front, but they kill your seasonal labor problem: no ladder trip in November, no takedown in January, just a service call if something fails.

If you're already on a roof quoting string lights, mentioning permanent lighting as the premium tier of a good-better-best structure costs you nothing and occasionally lands a five-figure install instead of a $700 seasonal job.

Commercial jobs run on a different number entirely

Office parks, retail strips, and restaurants don't buy a roofline wrap — they buy a statement, and they pay for it. Commercial holiday lighting typically runs $2,000–$15,000+ per property, scaling with square footage, tree count, and whether the property manager wants synchronized displays or timed zones. If you're already doing commercial landscaping or exterior maintenance for a property, this is close to a free lead — you already have the relationship and the access.

Common questions about holiday lighting pricing

How much should I charge per linear foot for Christmas lights?

$2–$5 per foot if the client supplies lights and you're billing labor only, $5–$8 for full service with commercial-grade lights included, and $7–$12 for premium or multi-story work. Most single-story homes end up in the $375–$444 range for a complete, straightforward install.

Should I lease lights to clients or sell them outright?

Lease if you want recurring clients and don't mind storing inventory between seasons — it's the stronger long-term model. Sell if you want to move fast, avoid storage costs, and don't need the client back every year.

What's a reasonable markup on holiday lighting materials?

20–50% over your material cost, same range contractors use on markup for any trade. Lean toward the top of that range for custom colors or specialty bulbs that you can't easily resell if a client cancels.

Do I need to charge separately for takedown?

Yes, and build it into the original quote rather than invoicing it later. A client who agreed to $450 for install doesn't expect a surprise $150 bill in January — tell them up front it's $600 total, split across two visits.

Is permanent LED lighting worth offering?

If you've got clients who already spend $800+ a season on temporary lights, yes. You're trading a one-time higher-margin install for the loss of a recurring seasonal client, so weigh that against how much repeat business matters to your model.

How do I quote a job I haven't seen in person?

Ask for linear footage of roofline (most clients can get this from a quick walk-around or an aerial measurement tool), count of trees and shrubs they want wrapped, and photos of the roofline from the ground. You can give a real range from that — just flag that the final number depends on roof pitch and accessibility once you're on site.

The bottom line

Holiday lighting rewards the installers who treat it like a real trade instead of a side hustle. Price by the linear foot, decide upfront whether you're leasing or selling, charge separately for the add-ons that actually take time, and build a cost floor before you ever quote a number out loud. The installers charging $700 and losing money on a job are using the same market rates as the ones charging $700 and clearing 40% margin — the difference is entirely in whether they did the math first.

If you're already quoting lighting jobs by text message and typing numbers from memory, that's exactly the kind of fast, specific quote PRISM is built for — paste the details from a client conversation and get a priced, branded quote back in minutes. Check the plans if you want to see what that looks like for your season.