Seasonal Christmas light installation in Atlanta runs $7 to $12 per linear foot all in, or $8 a foot in year one on the buy-your-lights model ($4 a foot for the C9 strings plus $4 to hang and take down), across the 6 metro Atlanta company pages I checked on September 7, 2026. Packages start at $499 and $1,100. Georgia does not tax itemized installation labour. I install permanent lighting in Ottawa; these are Atlanta's public numbers, dated and linked.
Atlanta price points, public and dated#
All USD as published. Labour is untaxed in Georgia when itemized, so the labour figures are what the customer pays; product lines carry tax.
| What |
Atlanta price |
Includes |
Source |
| Seasonal, per foot, materials and labour |
$7 to $12 (materials $2 to $3.50; labour $5 to $8) |
Design, install, takedown, warranty on materials |
Firebrand, metro Atlanta |
| C9 LED, per foot, buy once |
$4 |
Custom-cut assembly; homeowner keeps the strings |
Abulous Lighting, Roswell |
| C9 install and takedown, per foot, every year |
$4 ($2.50 install, $1.50 takedown) |
Labour; photocell included |
Abulous Lighting |
| Mini lights, 25 ft strand |
$19 to buy; $14 per strand to install and take down |
3-year warranty |
Abulous Lighting |
| Typical home; larger setups |
$500 to $700; above $2,000 |
|
Firebrand |
| Package, from |
$499 |
Design, install, maintenance, takedown, storage |
Window Genie of Atlanta Metro |
| Package, year one buys the lights, from |
$1,100; year two 45% to 55% |
Custom-cut lights, install, takedown, storage |
Shack Shine Atlanta |
| Quote from photos |
itemized, within one business day; 10% early-bird by November 1 |
Lights, cord, clips, timers, labour, service calls, January takedown |
Christmas Lights North Atlanta |
$7 to $12 with materials and labour, or $4 plus $4 on the buy-once model, and the two companies that publish a rate use different models on the same city.
All-in per foot. Firebrand Christmas Lights, based in Atlanta and covering the metro, publishes $7 to $12 per linear foot, split as $2 to $3.50 in materials and $5 to $8 in labour, with a typical home at $500 to $700 and larger or more elaborate setups above $2,000. LED strands are $6 to $25 each.
Buy the lights, pay labour each year. Abulous Lighting in Roswell, covering Marietta, Alpharetta, Sandy Springs, Johns Creek, Milton and Dunwoody, prices C9 LEDs at $4 a foot to buy, custom-cut at 12-inch spacing, and $4 a foot to install and take down, $2.50 up and $1.50 down. The strings become the homeowner's after year one, so year two is $4 a foot. Mini lights are $19 a 25 ft strand to buy and $14 a strand to hang and take down. Payment is 50 percent at install and 50 percent at takedown, and every system includes a photocell.
Abulous's split is the most useful number on this page for an installer, because it prices the takedown as its own line at $1.50 a foot, which is 37.5 percent of the labour. The per-foot method behind both models is on our seasonal pricing guide, and the year-two number is the whole subject of the rebook and re-install page.
What does a package cost in Atlanta?#
From $499 to $1,100 to start, and most of the market quotes per house. Window Genie of Atlanta Metro in Roswell usually starts from $499 with design, install, maintenance, takedown and storage, asks for four weeks' notice, and runs a 10 percent multi-service discount through December 31, 2026. Shack Shine Atlanta, covering Buckhead, Brookhaven, Roswell, Alpharetta, Dunwoody and Sandy Springs, starts at $1,100 with custom-cut lights the customer keeps, then 45 to 55 percent of that for install and takedown in later years.
Two companies publish the method without the number. Christmas Lights North Atlanta builds every quote from four measured things: linear feet of roofline, home height and roof access, trees and shrubs to wrap, and design density, and returns a free itemized quote within one business day, 10 percent off for booking by November 1. Lights Over Atlanta prices on height and access, footage, display complexity, power and control needs, and timing, without a number. Christmas Lights North Atlanta asks for photos of the front of the house through its contact form. That is the market telling you how it wants to be quoted.
What do permanent lights cost in Atlanta?#
I could not find an Atlanta dealer that publishes a permanent per-foot price on September 7, 2026, so there is no local number here and I will not invent one. Dealers in Dallas, Chicago and Phoenix publish $18 to $38 a foot installed, and Denver's Govee installer $18 to $21 before the lights, which is the bracket; the permanent cost page has the US range and what moves it. The number a permanent quote has to beat in Atlanta is Abulous's: $4 a foot to own C9 strings plus $4 a foot a year to hang them is $24 a foot over five seasons, which is under the low end of the permanent bracket. Permanent sells here on the app and the year-round use, not on the five-year math.
Is Christmas light installation taxable in Georgia?#
Not the labour, if you itemize it, and the state says so. The Georgia Department of Revenue's What Is Subject to Sales and Use Tax? page says most services are exempt and that itemized charges made for repair labour or installation labour are not subject to sales tax. The lights you sell are goods, taxed at Atlanta's combined 8.9 percent: 4 state, 3 Fulton County, 1.5 city and 0.4 TSPLOST. Roswell, Alpharetta and Marietta sit in Fulton and Cobb at their own combined rates.
That makes Abulous's model tax-clean by design: $4 a foot of goods with tax, $4 a foot of labour without. If you keep the lights and lease them, the rental question goes to your accountant. On a GlowBid card, tax is a percent and a label per card, and product and labour are separate lines, so the untaxed labour line stays untaxed. Quote before tax, show it on the goods line.
When is the Atlanta season?#
Late October to mid-December for installs and January for takedown, and the weather almost never interrupts. Christmas Lights North Atlanta publishes that window with takedown in January included. Atlanta's average first freeze is November 13, the earliest on record October 11, 1906 and the latest December 18, 1998. The 1991 to 2020 normals run November at a 64 high and 44 low, December 56 and 38, January 54 and 36. Every install is a shirtsleeve day and most takedowns are too.
The calendar pressure is booking, not frost: Window Genie wants four weeks' notice, Christmas Lights North Atlanta pays 10 percent to book by November 1. HOAs in Alpharetta, Johns Creek and Milton set display windows; put yours in the agreement.
What do ice and pine straw do to the price?#
Not much on the rate, a lot on the clauses. Four Atlanta realities for the rate card:
- The January ice day. On January 28, 2014, 1 to 3 inches of snow on roads that flash-froze left thousands stranded for over 20 hours, with more than 1,500 accidents. It happens once every few winters, and it happens in takedown month. A takedown window with "weather permitting" beats a date, even here.
- Two storeys and steep gables. Metro Atlanta stock is two-storey brick and stone with front gables. GlowBid's default is 10 percent per storey on the upper runs and a peak rate plus 15 percent pitch; make both visible so the customer sees why the gable house costs more.
- Trees. A 40 ft crape myrtle wrap and a mature magnolia or live oak are not the same job. Set the tree run type to a flat price per each and size it.
- Takedown as a line. Abulous prices it at $1.50 a foot. Whether you fold it in or show it, know the number; if the customer cancels the takedown, you know what to credit.
- Material waste. Humid summers in storage. A 10 percent materials buffer, shown as the installer's choice.
A worked example: an Alpharetta two-storey on GlowBid's default C9 card#
A two-storey brick house with two front gables, a single-storey garage and porch, a walkway and a crape myrtle in the front bed. Measured from the homeowner's photo with the 16 ft garage door as the reference: 45 ft of roofline on the garage and porch, 70 ft on the upper storey, four peak runs of 12 ft, three jumps totalling 15 ft, 40 ft of walkway and a 40 ft tree wrap. Every rate is the GlowBid default on the Seasonal C9 line; installers set their own.
| Line |
Footage |
Rate |
Base |
Premiums |
Line total |
| Roofline, garage and porch (storey 1) |
45 ft |
$8.00 |
$360.00 |
none |
$360.00 |
| Roofline, upper (storey 2) |
70 ft |
$8.00 |
$560.00 |
storey 10%: $56.00 |
$616.00 |
| Peaks, 4 runs of 12 ft (storey 2) |
48 ft |
$9.00 |
$432.00 |
pitch 15%: $64.80; storey 10%: $43.20 |
$540.00 |
| Jumps, 3 runs (unlit) |
15 ft |
$4.00 |
$60.00 |
flat per jump: $0 |
$60.00 |
| Ground, walkway |
40 ft |
$5.00 |
$200.00 |
none |
$200.00 |
| Tree wrap, crape myrtle |
40 ft |
$6.00 |
$240.00 |
none |
$240.00 |
| Run subtotal |
|
|
|
|
$2,016.00 |
| Timer (add-on) |
1 |
$45.00 |
|
|
$45.00 |
| Minimum job check ($1,500) |
|
|
|
met, no adjustment |
$0.00 |
| Total before tax |
|
|
|
|
$2,061.00 |
| Deposit at signing (30%) |
|
|
|
|
$618.30 |
Lit footage is 243 ft; with the 10 percent buffer the materials list says 267.3 ft of cord. The house-only part (roofline, peaks, jumps: $1,576) is $9.67 per foot of roofline and peak, inside Firebrand's $7 to $12 and above Abulous's $8 year-one rate, which is right for a house with four peaks on the second storey. The whole ticket, $2,061, is about three times Firebrand's $500 to $700 typical home and lands in its "above $2,000" band for larger or more elaborate setups, which is the honest read: the default card prices a four-peak two-storey with a tree and a walkway, not a plain roofline. Tax applies to the goods share only, so split the C9 line into product and labour before you print. Draw your own house in the free roofline tool and the footage is there in two minutes; it is an estimate confirmed on site, and the quote says so.
Setting an Atlanta rate card#
Five settings that make a card metro-Atlanta-ready:
- Product and labour as separate lines. Georgia taxes one and not the other. A C9 product line with the goods price and tax, and a seasonal service line for labour with tax at zero.
- Takedown priced. $1.50 a foot is the published local split. Know yours.
- Year-two on the card. Both Abulous and Shack Shine sell the buy-once model. Hold the year-one and re-install prices on one card.
- Early-bird discount with an end date. The market pays 10 percent for November 1. GlowBid's rate card carries discounts; set one and let it expire.
- Trees per each. Crape myrtle, magnolia, live oak: three sizes, three prices.
GlowBid bills in US dollars; the rate card holds whatever numbers you type. Founding pricing is on the pricing page.
Mistakes to avoid pricing in Atlanta#
- Charging 8.9 percent on the labour line. Georgia does not tax itemized installation labour. On $2,061 that is a $183.43 overcharge and a refund in January.
- Forgetting to tax the goods line. The strings the customer keeps are a sale. Split them out.
- Quoting the buy-once year-one rate every year. Abulous drops to $4 a foot in year two because the customer owns the lights. If your year-two price is the same as year one, the customer will find someone whose is not.
- Pricing a ranch with the gable-house number. $9.67 a foot is a four-peak two-storey. A flat 160 ft roofline at $8 is $1,280.
- A fixed takedown date. Once every few Januaries the roads ice for a day. Window, weather clause.
- Quoting from the customer's photo without saying it is an estimate. Christmas Lights North Atlanta already quotes from photos; the installer that says "confirmed on site" is the one that does not eat the difference.