HOA Cost Per Unit Pricing Models

The math is straightforward. Take the annual security contract value. Divide by 12 to get monthly cost. Divide by the number of units. That number is what each homeowner pays per month for security.

Example: a 180-unit gated community in north Orange County signs Americal Patrol for nightly mobile patrol, 10 PM to 4 AM, seven nights a week. At $31 per hour unarmed plus the mobile vehicle surcharge, that runs roughly $7,100 per month. Spread across 180 units, that is about $39 per unit per month. For most boards that is in the same range as landscaping ($35 to $60 per unit) and well below insurance ($60 to $120 per unit).

Smaller communities pay more per unit because the patrol cost does not scale down proportionally. A 40-unit HOA on the same coverage schedule pays about $7,100 divided across 40 units, or $178 per unit per month. That is why very small HOAs often opt for three-nights-per-week patrol or a mobile drive-by instead of nightly coverage. The per-unit math forces the conversation that the board often avoids.

Month-to-month

Either party can cancel with 30 days written notice. This is the standard Americal Patrol offers for new HOA contracts because the first 90 days are when the board figures out whether the patrol is actually solving the problem. Month-to-month protects the board from being stuck if the relationship is not working.

Annual

The board commits to 12 months in exchange for a small rate reduction (typically 3 to 5 percent). Good fit once the patrol has been on site for six months and the board is happy with the work. Annual contracts also help on the patrol side with scheduling and officer assignments, which translates back to better service.

Auto-renewal

Read the renewal clause carefully. Some vendors auto-renew annually unless the board cancels 60 or 90 days in advance. Americal Patrol uses 30-day cancellation in both directions and does not auto-renew without an explicit board vote. If the contract you are reviewing has a 90-day auto-renewal clause, that is a renegotiation point.

If your community has not had patrol before and is adding it for the first time, the per-unit cost is a new line item that will likely require a vote. The most common path is to either include it in the next regular assessment increase (often timed to align with the insurance renewal) or to fund the first year from reserves and roll it into the next year's budget.

If your community already has patrol and is renegotiating, you are usually not adding cost. You are reallocating it. A move from a $35-per-hour vendor to Americal Patrol's $31 hourly drops the monthly cost by about 11 percent without changing the coverage schedule. That is the simplest budget improvement a board can deliver in any given year.

The hardest conversation is reducing security coverage to lower assessments. Boards facing pressure to keep assessments flat sometimes consider cutting patrol from seven nights to five, or from nightly to weekend-only. Before doing that, the board should document the reason in the minutes and notify the insurance carrier, because a reduction in coverage that contributes to a future claim is the kind of decision that comes back at trial.