Most people call us after something has already gone wrong. A parcel disappeared from a porch in Leslieville, someone tried car doors along a Willowdale street at 3am, a till came up short at a café in North York. RATA Security handles security camera installation in Toronto and across the GTA so that the next time, you have footage clear enough to act on.
We’re a small, owner-operated team, and the people who quote your job are the same people who run the Cat6, mount the cameras and set up the app on your phone. If you already know whether you’re protecting a house or a business, our home security camera installation and commercial security camera installation pages go further into each. If you’re still comparing options, start with the packages below. After that we cover camera types, winter performance, real installed costs and the privacy rules Ontario property owners need to follow.
Most homes and small businesses we visit fit one of a handful of layouts, so we built three package lines around them. Every package includes the cameras, recorder, hard drive, wiring, mounting and phone app setup. What still varies is how hard your cable runs are, which is why each one starts with a free on-site quote rather than a checkout button.
Essential is the plain, dependable option. The 4MP outdoor turret cameras give good daytime detail and sharp black-and-white footage at night. Alerts run on motion, so expect the odd notification from a passing car or a branch moving in the wind.
Front door and driveway of a condo or townhome
Front, back and sides of townhomes and semis
All-around coverage for detached homes on a budget
Every Essential package includes infrared night vision, motion alerts to your phone, the iOS and Android app, and no monthly fees. Storage is estimated for continuous recording.
Pro is where most homeowners land. The step from 4MP to 6MP helps at driveway distances, but the bigger change shows up at night: footage stays in colour, so you can tell a grey jacket from a red one. AI detection means your phone only buzzes for people and vehicles.
Townhomes and smaller homes
Detached homes, front to back
Large homes, estates and small businesses
Elite moves to named premium hardware. The two residential packages use Hikvision ColorVu 4K, which records in colour around the clock, with AcuSense filtering out shadows, rain and raccoons. The commercial package uses Axis Communications cameras with Lightfinder sensors for very low light, plus mirrored drives so one failed disk doesn’t take your footage with it. If you’d rather avoid Hikvision, read the note on its status in Canada further down this page.
Townhomes and smaller properties
Detached homes
Estates and commercial properties
Recording times are estimates for continuous recording. Busy street-facing views and 24/7 colour footage use more space, and motion-only recording stretches it. Need three cameras, or eleven? Any package can be resized during the on-site quote.
A store-bought kit is genuinely fine for some people, and we’d rather say that now than after you’ve booked us. This is the comparison we walk through when someone asks whether they need an installer at all.
| Factor | Retail kit, self-installed | Professional PoE install |
|---|---|---|
| Upfront cost | $300 to $900 | $1,200 to $1,800 for four cameras, installed |
| Power and signal | Battery or plug-in, video over Wi-Fi | One Cat6 cable carries power and video to each camera |
| In February | Batteries drain faster in the cold and cameras drop off when the router restarts | Hardwired, so cold and router restarts don’t matter |
| Picture you get | Wide fixed lens, good for “something happened” | Lens matched to distance, good for “who did it” |
| Storage | Cloud plan or a small memory card | Local NVR, weeks of footage, no monthly fee |
| Makes sense for | Renters, one doorway, a move within a year | Owners, four or more cameras, insurance or police evidence |
Renting, covering one door, or moving soon? A decent kit is a fair buy. Own the property, need four or more cameras, or want footage an insurer or a Toronto Police investigator can actually use? That’s when a hardwired system earns its cost.
Camera count follows entry points, not square footage. A narrow semi in Riverdale with a laneway garage can need as many cameras as a wider detached house in Willowdale, because that laneway is effectively a second front door.
During the assessment each position goes on a plan along with its job: spot movement, recognise a face, or read a plate. Those three need very different lenses, and mixing them up is the most common reason footage turns out useless.
Resolution gets the attention, but the camera’s housing and lens decide whether it sees what matters. Here’s how we choose between them.
Front doors, driveways, under soffits
No dome glare at night; can be knocked out of line if mounted low
Lobbies, store ceilings, interiors
Harder to tamper with; infrared can bounce off a dirty dome
Long driveways, fence lines, parking
Obvious deterrent; easier to push off target
Driveways and yards with some ambient light
Colour after dark; a soft white light may switch on
Side paths, back doors, yards (siren and strobe)
Scares people off; schedule it so neighbours aren’t woken
Front door
Talk to couriers from your phone; narrow view
Big yards, parking lots, warehouse floors
Covers a wide area, but looks one way at a time
Gates, driveways, loading docks
Needs a tight angle and fast shutter, one lane per camera
Open shop floors and offices
A whole room from one spot, less detail at the edges
Industrial perimeters
Sees heat, not faces, so pair it with a standard camera
For new installs this is our default. A single Cat6 cable runs from a PoE switch to each camera and carries both power and video, and everything records to an NVR that stays on your property. We use ONVIF-compatible hardware, so you aren’t locked into one manufacturer if you add or replace cameras later. You watch live and recorded video through Hik-Connect or DMSS on iOS and Android.
If your walls still carry coax from an older analog system, HD-over-coax cameras can deliver 1080p to 4K on that same cable. That usually cuts installation cost by 30 to 50 percent, and it matters most in plaster-walled houses in Roncesvalles, the Annex or Riverdale, where fishing new cable is slow and messy. Moving to IP instead? We check which existing cameras are ONVIF-compatible and can stay.
Cold takes down more cheap camera systems than burglars do. Batteries drain below freezing, Wi-Fi cameras lose signal through a frozen brick wall, and lenses fog when warm air leaks out of the soffit. These are the details we plan for.
Brand decides low-light quality, how many false alerts wake you at 3am, and whether firmware updates still exist five years from now. We keep the professional lines below in stock so installs don’t wait on supply.
HikvisionStrong price to performance. ColorVu keeps night footage in colour, and AcuSense filters people and vehicles from wind and shadows.
DahuaGood analytics at mid-range prices. WizSense handles perimeter and line-crossing detection well, which suits shops and warehouses.
UniviewCost-effective IP hardware for homes and small businesses, with a clean app.
Hanwha VisionNDAA-compliantExcellent wide dynamic range at glass entrances and bright lobbies.
AxisNDAA-compliantTop-tier firmware security and low-light performance. Our pick when a corporate IT team reviews the system.
Yes, for homes and private businesses. In June 2025 the federal government ordered Hikvision’s Canadian subsidiary to shut down under the Investment Canada Act and barred federal departments, agencies and Crown corporations from buying or using its products. The order doesn’t prohibit private owners from using Hikvision cameras, and Hikvision has asked the Federal Court to review it. Where it can matter is local distributor support. So if you’d rather avoid the brand, or your insurer, landlord or IT department asks for NDAA-compliant equipment, we build the same system on Axis or Hanwha Vision.
Both start with the same free assessment. After that, the priorities split: homes are mostly about hiding cable in finished space, businesses about retention, accountability and tying cameras into other systems.
Homes usually need four to eight cameras at the front entry, driveway, back door and side path. We route cable through attics, basement joists and soffits so nothing shows outside. No attic? We run exterior conduit painted to match the trim. Inside a condo unit you can install freely, but cameras covering hallways, the lobby or parking need board approval, and we prepare that paperwork with you.
Businesses need longer retention, clear views of cash and POS areas, and structured cabling labelled to TIA-568 so the system passes inspection and grows cleanly. Cameras can also link to access control and an alarm system, so a door event or alarm jumps straight to the matching video.
A two-camera condo and a 32-camera yard in Vaughan go through the same four stages. Only the time each one takes changes.
We walk the property, check existing cable, measure the distances where faces or plates need to be readable, and note the lighting in each zone. You get a written fixed-price quote the same day or the next.
We agree cable routes with you before drilling. Cat6 or coax goes through walls, attics or conduit, every hole is patched and painted, and commercial runs are labelled.
Recording schedules, motion zones and retention are set to your needs. The app goes on your phone and any device you name, with new passwords on every camera and the NVR.
Before we leave you can run live view, playback and clip export yourself. You keep a reference card with your logins and our direct number.
An NVR is a small computer on your network, and so is every IP camera. We set them up the way an IT team would, not the way the box ships.
Storage comes down to bitrate. A 4MP camera on H.265 averaging 2 Mbps fills about 21.6 GB a day, so four of them use around 86 GB, and a 2TB drive holds a little over three weeks. Street-facing cameras, higher frame rates and colour night recording push the bitrate up, which is why we size the drive to your retention target rather than the other way round.
A new build with an open basement and a 1920s semi with plaster walls can carry the same camera list and very different labour. These ranges come from completed jobs across the GTA, and every quote we issue is fixed before work starts.
| Property | Installed cost (CAD, plus HST) |
|---|---|
| Home, 4 cameras | $1,200 to $1,800 including NVR and Cat6 |
| Home, 8 cameras | $2,000 to $2,800 including 2TB NVR |
| Small shop or office, 8 cameras | $2,500 to $3,500 including 4K NVR |
| Restaurant, 10 to 12 cameras | $3,000 to $4,500 with kitchen and POS coverage |
| Warehouse, 16 to 24 cameras | $5,000 to $12,000 depending on cabling |
| 32+ cameras, multi-floor | Quoted after a site survey |
The biggest swings in price come from cabling difficulty, drive size and whether existing cable can be reused, which typically saves $300 to $800. Since there’s no monthly fee to view your own footage, the gap with a cloud-camera subscription narrows every year the system runs.
The real test of an installer comes six months later, when a camera drops offline or a drive starts failing. This is what you get once the invoice is paid.
On workmanship, equipment and cable integrity, with manufacturer warranties passed through to you.
If your system goes fully offline, we respond the same day anywhere in Metro Toronto, weekends included.
Answers your call, not a call centre.
For app, password and playback questions, usually fixed without a visit.
Drive health, firmware, lens cleaning and camera realignment.
Extra cameras plug into the same NVR and cabling standard.
Where a camera points is a legal question as well as a practical one. Get it wrong and you take on liability that outlasts the break-in you were worried about. We build these rules into the camera plan.
We install across Toronto, from downtown, Midtown and East York to Leslieville and Riverdale, and throughout the surrounding cities. The emergency line covers all of Metro Toronto seven days a week.
These are the questions we hear most on site visits and calls. If yours isn’t here, call (647) 594-1360.
A four-camera home system usually runs $1,200 to $1,800 installed, and an eight-camera commercial system with a 4K NVR runs $2,500 to $3,500. Prices include equipment, labour, cabling, setup and training.
Four cameras take 4 to 6 hours, eight cameras a full day, and 16 or more one to three days. We don't leave until everything is tested and you know how to use it.
If you mainly want to know that something happened, Essential is enough. If you want to see faces and colours at night without constant false alerts, go Pro. Elite is for properties that need 4K detail, longer storage or Axis-grade cybersecurity.
For a permanent system, yes. Wired PoE cameras don't depend on batteries in the cold or on Wi-Fi getting through brick and plaster. Wireless still has a place where running cable is impossible.
The outdoor models we install are rated for it, and PoE power keeps them running without batteries. Placement under soffits helps with snow and ice on the lens.
No. Recording happens on the NVR at your property. Internet is only needed for viewing on your phone and for alerts.
Footage already recorded stays safe on the hard drive. To keep recording through short outages, add a UPS sized to your system, which we can supply.
Often, yes. Existing coax can carry HD-over-coax cameras, and ONVIF-compatible IP cameras can usually join a new NVR. We check during the assessment.
Most homes and small businesses keep about 30 days. Keep it as long as you realistically need to discover and report an incident, and no longer than that.
No. We install systems you monitor yourself through the app, which is why there's no monthly fee. What we do offer is a 7-day emergency line if the system itself stops working.
Yes, for homes and private businesses. The 2025 federal order closed Hikvision's Canadian subsidiary and stopped federal government purchases. If you prefer to avoid the brand, we install Axis or Hanwha Vision instead.
Inside your unit, yes. Cameras covering hallways, lobbies or parking need condo board approval, and we help with the documentation.
Two years on workmanship, equipment and cable integrity. Manufacturer warranties on cameras and recorders pass through to you.
Tell us about the property: house or business, number of floors, the areas you want covered and any cable already in the walls. We reply within 24 hours to book the assessment, and you get a written fixed-price quote after the visit.
