Over five years, seasonal Christmas lights cost more than a permanent system on the two-storey we price in every article, and the crossover lands in the fourth season. On that house's 170 lit feet, GlowBid's default rate card prices five seasons of installed C9 at $8,241, a five-season declining lease at $6,758, and a permanent track install at $5,687. The table shows every year, then what fails, what bylaws say, and which option we recommend to whom.
The five-year table#
Same house, same 170 lit feet (122 ft of roofline, 48 ft of peaks, three jumps), three ways to pay for it. Prices are US dollars before tax.
| Year |
Seasonal, installed each year |
Seasonal lease, 5 seasons, declining 10% |
Permanent, track |
| 1 |
$1,684.20 |
$1,684.20 |
$5,687.00 |
| 2 |
$1,639.20 |
$1,475.28 |
$0.00 |
| 3 |
$1,639.20 |
$1,327.75 |
$0.00 |
| 4 |
$1,639.20 |
$1,194.98 |
$0.00 |
| 5 |
$1,639.20 |
$1,075.48 |
$0.00 |
| Five-year total |
$8,241.00 |
$6,757.69 |
$5,687.00 |
| Running total passes the permanent price |
Season 4 ($6,601.80) |
Season 5 ($6,757.69) |
n/a |
| Nights lit in five years |
about 225 |
about 225 |
1,825 |
| Who owns the lights after year 5 |
Us |
Us, unless you buy them out |
You |
Every rate in that table is a GlowBid default that installers replace with their own numbers on day one, so treat it as the shape of the answer, not a quote. The nights-lit row assumes seasonal lights go up around November 20 and come down in early January, which is how we schedule it in Ottawa.
How is each column priced?#
Seasonal, installed each year. Our C9 line supplies the lights, hangs them, takes them down in January and stores them. Roofline is $8 per foot, peaks $9 plus a 15 percent pitch premium, jumps $4 per unlit foot, and the upper-storey runs carry 10 percent. That is $1,639.20 for the roof, plus a $45 timer in year one. The lines are worked one by one in how we price seasonal lights per foot. Takedown is inside the per-foot rate; HomeGuide lists it at $100 to $400 on its own when a company bills it separately.
Seasonal lease, five seasons, declining. Same lights, same crew, but you sign once for five seasons. Season one is the whole quote. Each later season repeats only what recurs (the runs and their premiums) and drops 10 percent under the declining rent-to-own schedule, which is the GlowBid default percentage. The flat schedule prices every season at $1,639.20 after the first, so a flat lease costs the same $8,241 as booking each year; what it buys is a locked rate, a guaranteed slot in November, and maintenance and storage in the contract. The declining schedule is where the money moves, and it usually ends with a buyout. The clauses are in our multi-year lease agreement template.
Permanent, track. Aluminum channel along the roofline, nodes inside it, a Wi-Fi controller, done once. Roofline $25 per foot, peaks $28 plus 15 percent, jumps $12 per unlit foot, 10 percent on the second storey, a $250 controller. The $5,687 total also includes three settings of our own that default to zero: $25 per jump, $40 per peak and a $95 transformer, marked as ours in how we price permanent lights per foot. On pure defaults the same house is $5,357.
A fourth path exists and is not in the table: you buy the C9 lights in year one and pay labour only after that. On our seasonal service line ($3 per foot of roofline, $3.50 on peaks, $1.50 per foot of jump) the re-hang prices at $622.20 a season, and the default $1,500 minimum job lifts it to $1,500 because a truck and two people in November cost that before the first clip goes on. Installers who run a lot of re-hangs set a lower minimum. Either way you own the bulbs that fail.
What do the manufacturers say permanent lights cost?#
The published per-foot ranges put our $5,687 inside the pack for 170 lit feet:
| Source |
Per lit foot |
170 ft at that range |
| Trimlight pricing page |
$18 to $35 |
$3,060 to $5,950 |
| HomeGuide, permanent |
$20 to $40 |
$3,400 to $6,800 |
| JellyFish pricing page, corporate locations |
$25 to $35 plus a $650 to $850 controller |
$4,900 to $6,800 |
| GlowBid default track line, this house |
$33.45 all in |
$5,687 |
Trimlight's own front-only examples run $2,500 to $6,800, and its 10-year post (August 28, 2026) puts break-even "between year three and year five" against a seasonal service it prices at $430 to $450 a year. That seasonal number is a national average across every job size, which is why its break-even lands later than ours: our seasonal column is a real two-storey with four peaks, not an average bungalow. Newage Lights, 5280 Lights and a DFW installer all publish five-year tables too; none of the three cites a source for its seasonal figure, and 5280's permanent column uses a $19 per foot channel install plus a homeowner-bought Govee kit, which is a different product than a dealer-installed track system. Read those pages for the shape and use your own installer's quote for the numbers.
Warranty is the other number that matters over five years. Trimlight's warranty page covers parts for the manufacturer's estimated lifespan of the components and labour on defective parts for a minimum of one year, and says the components last 20 to 30 years on average. JellyFish's holiday lighting page states three years on parts and one year of labour, while its own blog says five years on parts, so ask which applies. Ask any dealer for both numbers in writing before you compare prices.
What breaks on each system?#
Seasonal C9 fails in small, cheap ways. A bulb goes dark, a clip snaps at minus 25, a cord end corrodes, a squirrel finds the jump behind the gable. On a lease or an annual install that is our problem and it is in the price; GlowBid's lease clause commits us to a 48-hour response and 24 hours in December. When you own the lights, it is your problem and a service call.
Permanent systems fail in fewer, bigger ways. In our experience the order is power supply, then controller, then a run of nodes, and the channel itself almost never. Inside the warranty that costs you a phone call. Outside it, a controller is a $250 line on our default card and a dealer's part can be more; JellyFish's controller is $650 to $850 at its corporate locations. The other permanent risk is colour: the channel is painted to match the fascia on install day, and a house repainted in year four has a channel that no longer matches.
The failure nobody prices is the ladder. A seasonal install puts a crew on your roofline twice a year for as long as you keep it up. A permanent install does it once. Trimlight's blog quotes an emergency-room figure for decorating injuries without a source, so we will not repeat the number, but the direction is not in doubt.
What do HOAs and bylaws say?#
Check before you buy, because the rules are local and we could not find one national figure worth citing. Some homeowner associations and some municipalities set a window for holiday decorations and count seasonal lights left up in March as a violation. Jason Geiman's page on year-round lights argues against leaving seasonal strands up for that reason and for the wear, and he is right about both. A permanent system is a different case: it is an installed fixture, and it is off or plain white outside the season. If you are in an HOA, show them the product sheet and the daytime photo of the channel before the deposit, not after.
Which one do we recommend, and to whom?#
Permanent for the family staying five years or more, on a house with peaks, and for anyone who wants lights for birthdays, Canada Day and the patio in July. The cash crossover is season four on our example, and the nights-lit number is eight times higher.
Seasonal lease for the customer who wants the look, does not want the capital cost, and can commit to three or five seasons. The declining schedule suits people who want to own the lights at the end; the flat schedule suits people who want the price locked and the slot guaranteed. A signed lease in GlowBid creates each season's install job and takedown job on its own, so nobody has to remember to call.
Seasonal each year for the first-year customer who is not sure, the rental property, and the house that is going on the market. It is the most expensive path over five years and the cheapest one this year, and that is a fair trade when the future is uncertain.
Buying your own lights for the handy homeowner who will store and test them. We hang them at the service rate and we say on the quote that we do not warrant strands we did not supply.
Worked example: the three quotes side by side#
The house is a two-storey with a single-storey garage bump-out and two front gables, measured from one photo with the 16 ft garage door as the reference; you can price this house in the free tool in a few minutes. This is what a homeowner who asks for all three numbers sees.
| Option |
What they pay now |
What they pay over five years |
Signed as |
| Seasonal, this year only |
$505.26 deposit (30 percent) on $1,684.20 |
$8,241.00 if they re-book every year |
Seasonal quote, one season |
| Five-season declining lease |
$505.26 deposit on season 1, later seasons billed each season before install |
$6,757.69, then a buyout or return |
Multi-year seasonal lease |
| Permanent track |
$1,706.10 deposit (30 percent) on $5,687.00 |
$5,687.00 |
Permanent install, one-time |
A family planning to move in four or five years who wants to own the lights at the next house picks the declining lease; a family staying put picks permanent; a first-year customer picks the single season. That is the point of putting all three on the table: the customer does the arithmetic, and the number they pick is the number they keep.
Mistakes we have made selling one over the other#
- Selling permanent to a family moving in two years. $5,687 for two Decembers, then the system stays with the house for the buyer. The seasonal column is the right answer for them, and the installer should say so.
- Leaving the timer and controller out of the comparison. A permanent quote without the controller line looks $250 cheaper than it is, and the customer finds out at install.
- Not saying who owns the lights. A lease without a disposition clause turns into an argument in season three. Return, buyout or keep, in writing, with the buyout price on the page.
- A declining schedule with no buyout number. Rent-to-own means a price at the end; if there is none, it is a discount, not a lease.
- Comparing a national average to a real house. Trimlight's $430 seasonal figure is a bungalow with no peaks. Put the customer's own house in every column or the comparison is fiction.
- Forgetting the repaint. Ask what colour the fascia will be in five years before you order channel.
Every quote in this article says the same thing at the bottom: footage was measured from a photo, it is an estimate, and we confirm it on site before the crew shows up. The drawing, the footage and the price are one object in GlowBid, so the three quotes above came from one drawing and three product lines, not three afternoons of spreadsheet work. Founding pricing for installers is on the pricing page.