Savings calculator / 4-door office
What access control really costs a 4-door office — and how to cut it.
For companies of roughly 25 to 75 people in leased office space. Where the money goes, what a replacement would cost for 4 doors, and what you keep by upgrading the system you already own instead.
What a 4-door office looks like
Four doors is the typical full suite: a main entrance by reception, a second entrance or a stair door, the server or comms room, and one more secured room — storage, records, a lab or a stockroom. Many professional services firms, clinics and regional offices sit here.
At this size someone usually owns access as part of their job — an office manager, HR or an IT generalist — and the monthly invoice from the vendor or integrator is a line people actually notice.
The replacement quote, in numbers
Kisi’s published 2026 cost breakdown gives per-door ranges for a new system. Multiplied out for 4 doors:
Source: Kisi, breakdown of access control system installation costs ($600–$1,500 reader and hardware, $500–$1,500 installation with working locks, $600–$1,600 door licence per year, per door). Your quote may differ; these figures exclude new locks, wiring and per-user fees.
Where a 4-door office overpays today
Per-user fees that rise with every hire
Growing from 30 to 60 people can double per-user or per-mobile-credential charges on the underlying system, without a single door changing.
Onboarding and offboarding time
With steady hiring, issuing and chasing badges becomes a weekly task. A card that is not returned is a gap until someone remembers to disable it.
A rip-and-replace proposal across four doors
Replacing four doors means hardware, labour and new per-door licences every year — a large project to get features you can add as software.
What an upgrade changes
GateStride overlays the access control you already have. It adds a small node at each door, reads your system’s events and calls its own unlock. Your readers, controllers, locks, request-to-exit and fire release stay exactly as they are — so there is no replacement project and no new per-door platform licence.
- Phones instead of badges. Staff open doors with a phone, watch or tablet; nothing to print or hand back.
- No per-user growth. GateStride connects as one integration user and manages your people itself, so hiring stops adding per-user credential fees on the underlying system. Check your vendor’s licence terms with your integrator.
- Know who left. Exits are recorded from the phone people carry, without a swipe, so the last person out and the fire warden both know who is still inside. How exit tracking works.
Some systems charge per user, others per door. See who charges what, then put your own invoice figures into the calculator for 4 doors.
Before you accept a replacement quote
A replacement proposal is often the first number an office sees, and it is easy to accept it as the only route. Five questions to ask the integrator or vendor before you sign:
- What exactly is failing? Ask which components are unsupported, unreliable or out of parts. If the honest answer is “nothing, it just looks dated”, an upgrade may give you what you want.
- What will I pay every year after the install? Get per-door licences, per-user or per-credential fees, cloud subscriptions and support contracts in writing, for at least three years.
- Do the locks and wiring stay? Replacing locks, strikes and cabling is where installation cost climbs. Find out whether the quote assumes your existing door hardware.
- What happens to egress and fire release? Any change to how a door releases may need sign-off from your local fire or building authority. An overlay that leaves the release path alone avoids that question.
- Can you add phone access to what we have? Many integrators can — and if they install the system you already own, they can install GateStride on it too.
Then compare the replacement route with the upgrade route over three years, using the same assumptions. The calculator lays both side by side.
Questions about 4-door offices
- What does replacing a 4-door system cost compared with upgrading it?
- Using Kisi’s published ranges, new readers and hardware plus installation with working locks come to roughly $4,400 to $12,000 for four doors, plus $2,400 to $6,400 a year in door licences. An upgrade keeps your hardware; get a GateStride quote to compare like for like.
- Can different teams have access to different doors?
- Yes. Access rules stay in your existing system; GateStride delivers them to phones and records who came and went.
- Where do these replacement figures come from?
- They multiply Kisi’s published 2026 per-door ranges — $600 to $1,500 for a reader and hardware, $500 to $1,500 for installation with working locks, and $600 to $1,600 a year for a basic door licence — by the number of doors. Your own quote may differ.
- Does GateStride change our locks or fire release?
- No. Locks, request-to-exit, fire release and certifications stay on your existing system. GateStride reads its events and calls its own unlock.
Other office sizes: 2-door office · 8-door office · custom
Check the numbers on your own doors
Tell us which access control you run and how many doors you have. We will show you what changes.