How Much Do Permanent Christmas Lights Cost? Price Per Foot
Permanent Christmas lights cost $18 to $40 per foot installed, $2,500 to $6,800 for a front elevation. Brand table, a $5,687 worked quote, installer cost.
Permanent Christmas lights cost $18 to $40 per linear foot installed on the manufacturer and dealer pages we checked on September 7, 2026: Trimlight publishes $18 to $35, JellyFish $25 to $35 plus a $650 to $850 controller, and a Gemstone dealer $22.50. A front elevation of 100 to 200 feet lands between $2,500 and $6,800 on Trimlight's own examples. Below: every brand's number, a two-storey quote line by line, and the installer's cost to deliver.
I run a permanent lighting company in Ottawa. This page is written for the homeowner who wants to know if the quote on the kitchen table is fair, and for the installer who wants to know what the rest of the market is charging. Every outside number is linked at the bottom with the date I checked it.
Two notes on that table. Oelo's own site would not load for us, so the Oelo figures come from two competitors' comparison pages, not from Oelo or an Oelo dealer, and I would treat them as a ceiling rather than a quote. Gemstone's corporate page says only that price depends on "the number of linear feet needed and the local market rate for installation," which is the honest version of every brand's answer.
Interactive
Price this house
Move the sliders. The total comes from the same pricing engine GlowBid quotes with, on the default rate card.
Footage first, then everything that makes a foot slower to install. Trimlight's pricing page lists seven regional drivers (licensing, tax, construction type, weather, wages, insurance and shipping); its August 2026 blog adds roofline complexity, pitch, node spacing and extra zones. From the ladder, the ones that matter are:
Storeys. A second-storey eave is a longer ladder, a second person on the ground and more time per foot. HomeGuide says plainly that "multiple stories, porches, and peaks" cost more.
Peaks. The two sloped edges of a gable need mitred channel at the apex and two extra ladder moves. Most installers charge more per foot on peaks, and some add a flat amount per peak.
Jumps. The unlit cable between lit runs. Cheaper per foot than lit track, but not free.
Product line. A track system with an aluminum channel costs more in material and hours than a no-track line clipped to the fascia. Colour-changing nodes cost more than white. Brightly's four packages run $16 to $38 per foot for that reason alone.
Controller and power. JellyFish prices its controller at $650 to $850 on top of the per-foot rate. Brightly puts controller and power supply near 10 percent of a job. A long house needs a second controller or transformer.
Region. A Calgary installer publishes $20 to $26 CAD per foot; Dallas comparisons run $22 to $40 USD. Same product, different labour and shipping.
Trimlight's three sample homes run $2,500 to $3,500, $3,400 to $5,200 and $4,400 to $6,800 for the front, and $5,400 to $14,500 for all sides. JellyFish's average street-facing install is about $4,600. A Gemstone installer in New York publishes $3,500 for a 1,500 square foot home's front, $4,250 for 2,500 square feet and $5,850 for 3,500 square feet. HomeGuide's table is the simplest: $1,000 to $2,000 for 50 feet, $2,000 to $4,000 for 100, $3,000 to $6,000 for 150, $4,000 to $8,000 for 200.
The footage is the number you can check yourself. Measure the eaves, ridges and peaks you want lit, add the unlit jumps, and multiply by the per-foot rate on the quote. If you do not know your footage, measure your roofline from a photo with a door or a garage door as the reference, or use our free roofline measuring tool and read the feet by run type. Photo measurements are estimates; a good installer confirms them on site before ordering channel.
Which lines should be on a permanent lighting quote?#
A quote that shows one number per foot and a total is hiding the parts that vary. The quote I would want to see, and the one GlowBid produces, has these lines:
Line
What it covers
GlowBid default (track)
GlowBid default (no-track)
Roofline, per lit foot
Horizontal eaves and returns
$25.00
$20.00
Ridge line, per lit foot
Top edge of a gable, lit
$25.00
$20.00
Peak, per lit foot
Sloped gable edges, plus a 15% pitch premium
$28.00
$23.00
Jump, per unlit foot
Cable between lit runs
$12.00
$10.00
Flat per jump and per peak
Connectors, drip loops, apex mitres
$0 default (we use $25 and $40)
same
Storey premium
On each run above the first storey
10%
10%
Controller
Wi-Fi controller, one per zone
$250 add-on
$250 add-on
Transformer or power supply
Second circuit on a long house
Add-on you set (we use $95)
same
Minimum job
Smallest ticket the crew rolls for
$1,500
$1,500
Deposit
Due at signing
30%
30%
Those are GlowBid's default rate card numbers and every installer replaces them with their own. The method behind each line, including kits versus per foot, is in how to price permanent Christmas lights per foot. The three lines that surprise homeowners most, ridge lines, peaks and jumps, get their own page on ridge line, peak and jump pricing.
Worked example: a two-storey front elevation at $5,687#
A two-storey front elevation of the kind on every street in Barrhaven, Ottawa, measured from the installer's own photo with the 16 foot garage door as the reference, priced on the GlowBid default track card. Two storeys, a single-storey garage bump-out, two front gables, front elevation only, 170 lit feet.
Cost stackLine total
Total before tax8 lines
$5,687
1Roofline, garage and porch (storey 1)$1,20021%
2Roofline, upper (storey 2, plus 10%)$2,03536%
3Peaks, 4 runs (storey 2, plus 15% pitch and 10% storey)$1,68030%
Peaks, 4 runs (storey 2, plus 15% pitch and 10% storey)
48 ft
$28.00
$1,680.00
Jumps, 3 runs (unlit)
16 ft
$12.00
$192.00
Flat per jump (our setting)
3
$25.00
$75.00
Flat per peak (our setting)
4
$40.00
$160.00
Wi-Fi controller
1
$250.00
$250.00
Transformer (our setting)
1
$95.00
$95.00
Total before tax
$5,687.00
Deposit at signing (30%)
$1,706.10
That is $33.45 per lit foot all in, inside HomeGuide's $20 to $40, at the top of Trimlight's $18 to $35, and inside JellyFish's $25 to $35 once their controller is added. It sits in the upper half of Trimlight's front-only examples because 48 of the 170 feet are peaks on the second storey, which is exactly where a cheap quote goes wrong. Want your own house priced this way? Draw it in the free tool, and the footage by run type is ready to price against any rate card.
No manufacturer publishes dealer cost, so here is the model I would build from the public numbers, applied to the $5,687 house. Brightly's breakdown of an installed job is about 40 percent LEDs and wiring, 20 percent channel and mounting, 10 percent controller and power supply, and 30 percent labour. The retail material prices are the ceiling on what a dealer pays: HomeGuide lists DIY kits at $8 to $20 per foot, EverLights sells 100 feet of colour-changing product for $1,600 ($16 a foot) and classic white for $750 ($7.50 a foot), and a Dallas comparison lists a 50 foot Oelo DIY kit at $1,340 ($26.80 a foot).
Cost line, 170 lit ft at $33.45 per foot
Brightly's share
Model dollars
Per lit foot
Your number
LEDs and wiring
40%
$2,275
$13.38
___
Channel and mounting
20%
$1,137
$6.69
___
Controller and power supply
10%
$569
$3.35
___
Labour (two installers, ladders, drive)
30%
$1,706
$10.04
___
Total cost to deliver at Brightly's split
100%
$5,687
$33.45
___
Read that table the right way: Brightly's split describes where the customer's dollar goes, not the installer's margin. The gap between retail material at $8 to $27 per foot and $25 to $40 per foot installed is where labour, overhead and margin live; that is the whole business. Put your real cost per foot, your controller cost and your feet per crew hour in the last column and you have your own margin per house. GlowBid's rate card stores the same fields so the margin shows on every quote before it goes out, and an optional 10 percent materials buffer, the installer's choice, covers the channel order without touching the price.
The honest answer is "after about three seasons of paying someone to hang lights," and it depends on your house. Trimlight's blog claims break-even in two to four years; the Gemstone dealer in Utah says four to five against a $600 to $1,000 seasonal service; JellyFish says seasonal installers cost "$1,000+ per year." HomeGuide's seasonal number is $2.50 to $5 per foot, or $240 to $650 a year on average.
On the worked house, the same runs in C9 seasonal on GlowBid's default seasonal card ($8 roofline, $9 peaks, $4 jumps, the same premiums, plus a $45 timer) price at $1,684.20 a season. Three seasons is $5,052.60; four is $6,736.80. The crossover against $5,687 permanent lands between the third and fourth season, before counting the seasonal product you would replace. If you plan to stay in the house five winters, permanent wins on money and on never seeing a ladder. If you might move in two, a seasonal install or a multi-year seasonal lease is the cheaper path, and the permanent versus seasonal comparison works the five-year table both ways.
Canadian installers quote in CAD and add GST or HST (13 percent in Ontario). A Calgary installer of Celebright, Gemstone and Trimlight lists $20 to $26 CAD per linear foot, or $2,000 to $5,200 for 100 to 200 feet, as of March 2025, a little under the US ranges in its own currency. The Canadian permanent lighting cost page carries the CAD version of this page with Ottawa quotes.
The controller is hidden in the per-foot rate. Two quotes at $30 a foot are not the same if one includes a $700 controller and one does not. Ask for it as a line.
Peaks priced as roofline. The apex mitres and the extra ladder moves are where the crew loses an hour. A quote that does not price peaks differently either underpriced them or padded everything else.
Jumps counted as lit footage. Channel and nodes get ordered for cable that carries neither. The customer pays for product that never goes on the house.
Footage measured from a satellite view. Gables shrink from above, and the imagery is not yours to measure. A photo of the front with a known reference, confirmed on site, is the honest method.
One controller on a 300 foot house. JellyFish's own limit is 263 feet per controller. Long houses need a second zone, priced as one.
Comparing a Dallas quote with a Calgary one. Labour, shipping and currency move the per-foot number more than the brand does.
No minimum job on a small roofline. A 40 foot porch at $25 a foot is $1,000, and the crew still drives, sets ladders and configures the app. Installers need a floor; homeowners should expect one.
Every line above is a field on one rate card. The installer draws the runs on their own photo of the house, sets the scale from a known length, and the footage, the bill of materials and the price come from the same drawing. Each measurement carries a source tag and a confidence level, the quote says photo footage is confirmed on site, and the customer signs and pays the deposit on their phone. Founding pricing starts at $299 a year on the pricing page; the full product opens November 1, 2026.
FAQ
Questions installers ask
How much does Trimlight cost per foot?
Trimlight's own pricing page says $18 to $35 per linear foot, and its three example homes run $2,500 to $6,800 for the front and $5,400 to $14,500 for all sides. A Dallas competitor's comparison puts Trimlight dealers at $25 to $35. Dealers set their own labour, so ask for the per-foot rate and the controller price on the quote, not just the total.
How much does JellyFish Lighting cost installed?
JellyFish's pricing page lists $25 to $35 per foot at corporate locations plus a $650 to $850 controller, and its September 2026 blog says most street-facing installs land between $3,000 and $6,000 with an average around $4,600. Authorized dealers price independently. One controller runs up to 263 feet, so a long house needs a second one.
Why did I get three permanent lighting quotes that are $2,000 apart?
Because per-foot rates cover feet, and the rest of the price is in how each installer handles peaks, storeys, jumps and the controller. One quote counts the peaks at the roofline rate, one adds a pitch premium, one buries a $700 controller in the per-foot number. Ask each installer for footage by run type and a separate controller line, then compare rate to rate.
Is the controller included in the per-foot price?
Sometimes, and that is the problem. JellyFish lists its controller separately at $650 to $850. Brightly's cost breakdown puts controller and power supply near 10 percent of a job. GlowBid's default card carries a $250 Wi-Fi controller as its own add-on. A quote that shows the controller as a line is easier to compare and easier to trust.
What does it cost an installer to put permanent lights on a house?
No manufacturer publishes dealer cost, so work from the public gaps. HomeGuide lists DIY kits at $8 to $20 per foot against $20 to $40 installed. EverLights sells 100 feet of colour-changing product for $1,600 retail, or $16 a foot. Brightly splits an installed job at roughly 40 percent LEDs and wiring, 20 percent channel, 10 percent controller and 30 percent labour. Your own cost per foot and feet per crew hour decide the margin.
Are permanent Christmas lights worth it compared with paying an installer every year?
It depends on how many seasons you would have paid for. Trimlight claims break-even in two to four years; a Gemstone dealer says four to five. On our worked house, $5,687 permanent against $1,684 a season for the same roofline crosses over between the third and fourth season. If you would only hang lights two winters, seasonal or a lease is cheaper.
How much do permanent lights cost in Canada?
The Canadian pages we checked sit a little under the US ranges in their own currency. A Calgary Celebright, Gemstone and Trimlight installer publishes $20 to $26 CAD per linear foot, or $2,000 to $5,200 for 100 to 200 feet, before GST or HST (13 percent in Ontario). We keep a separate Canadian cost page with Ottawa quotes.
