Short answer. On a payroll, the institutional locksmith makes the most. Locksmiths who work for cities, hospitals, the federal government and big universities averaged $63,870 to $75,380 a year in the May 2025 federal wage data. Locksmiths in the shop side of the trade averaged $51,730. If you own the shop, the money is in access control and car keys, because those are the biggest tickets you can sell.
That is the answer for the person thinking about the trade. This post is for you, the locksmith owner. Because the answer tells you exactly which work to chase, and which pages your website is missing.
Key points.
- Institutional locksmiths out earn shop locksmiths by about $12,000 to $24,000 a year on average.
- State matters a lot. Massachusetts averaged $67,510. Texas averaged $42,200.
- For owners, ticket size ranks the work. One Phoenix shop posts access control from about $700 a door, and lockouts from $179.
- The biggest tickets get the fewest searches, and the most expensive clicks. That is where an organic page pays best.
- None of the pages ranking for this question use the federal wage data. Most quote salary sites.
What the Federal Wage Data Actually Says
The Bureau of Labor Statistics counts locksmiths and safe repairers as job code 49-9094. We pulled its May 2025 wage estimates through the BLS public data service on October 18, 2026. These are wages paid by an employer, so they show what a job pays, not what an owner keeps.
- 15,040 people work as locksmiths and safe repairers on a payroll.
- The median wage is $51,320 a year. The mean is $55,470, or $26.67 an hour.
- The bottom 10 percent earn $35,530 or less.
- The top 10 percent earn $79,400 or more.
That is a $43,870 spread between the bottom and the top. Experience explains some of it. The employer explains a lot more.
Who Pays Locksmiths the Most. Average Yearly Wage, May 2025
The Institutional Locksmith Is the Top Earner on a Payroll
Look at the top of that chart. Every high bar is a big building with a lot of doors. A city hall. A hospital. A federal office. A college campus.
Those jobs pay more because the work is constant and the stakes are high. A hospital has drug rooms, records rooms and doors that must open in a fire. A campus has dorms, labs and large master key systems. One locksmith keeps all of it running.
Most locksmiths do not work there, though. Locksmith shops fall under the security services industry group. The NAICS code for locksmiths, 561622, sits inside it. That group employs 9,950 of the 15,040 locksmiths in the BLS count, at a $51,730 average. Colleges are the biggest institutional employer at 1,150 jobs.
So the institutional jobs are few and they pay well. Here is the part that matters to an owner. Those same buildings hire outside shops for the work their own staff cannot cover. Master key systems, access control, rekeys after a move out, high security cylinders. That is contract work, and it is the steadiest money in the trade.
Where You Work Changes the Paycheck
The same job pays very differently by state. Here is what the May 2025 data shows for twelve large states.
| State | Locksmith jobs | Average yearly wage |
|---|---|---|
| Massachusetts | 300 | $67,510 |
| California | 2,060 | $67,180 |
| New York | 960 | $62,420 |
| Washington | 380 | $59,580 |
| New Jersey | 480 | $59,420 |
| Illinois | 430 | $57,810 |
| Florida | 1,440 | $56,110 |
| Georgia | 330 | $52,940 |
| Nevada | 170 | $52,010 |
| Arizona | 260 | $49,170 |
| North Carolina | 480 | $45,950 |
| Texas | 1,420 | $42,200 |
Texas has almost as many locksmith jobs as Florida, and pays $13,910 less on average. If you own a shop in a low wage state, your labor costs less. But your customers also expect lower prices, so your ticket mix matters even more.
For an Owner, Ticket Size Decides It
Salary charts do not help a shop owner much. You do not earn a wage. You earn the gap between what a job brings in and what it costs you. So the real question is which jobs carry the biggest tickets.
National price data for locksmith work is thin, so here is one shop that posts its prices. ACME Locksmith in Phoenix lists these on its own pages.
| Type of work | ACME's posted price | Searches a month, US | Cost per click |
|---|---|---|---|
| Transponder car key | $64 to $199 | 33,100 for "car key replacement" | $12.09 |
| Fob or smart key | $49 to $350 or more | 6,600 for "key fob programming" | $6.21 |
| Safe opening | About $444 national average they cite, up to $1,500 flat for TL rated safes | 5,400 for "safe locksmith" | $8.80 |
| Access control, standalone | From about $700 per commercial door | 590 for "access control installation" | $9.98 |
| Access control, single door wired | About $1,600 to $3,500 | 480 for "access control system installation" | $37.01 |
Prices are from the car key, access control and safe opening pages, opened October 18, 2026. Search numbers are our own pull of Google Ads data through DataForSEO, United States, October 18, 2026. For a baseline, ACME's lockout page starts a home, car or business lockout at $179.
Read that table from the bottom up. One wired access control door at $1,600 to $3,500 is worth about 9 to 19 lockouts at $179. And a building rarely has one door. A ten door job at about $700 each is $7,000 before any yearly service.
Car keys are the other winner. The ticket is smaller, but the searches are huge. "Car key replacement" alone drew 33,100 searches a month, and "automotive locksmith" drew 27,100 at $11.83 a click. That is a volume engine. Safe work sits in the middle, with good tickets and a small, loyal customer base.
Lockouts pay the bills. They rarely build the business.
The Biggest Tickets Get the Fewest Searches
Here is the pattern most owners miss. The higher the ticket, the fewer people search for it, and the more advertisers pay for each one.
In our October 18 pull, "access control system installation" had only 480 searches a month across the whole country. But the average click cost $37.01, and the top of page bid reached $53.23. Compare that with "master key system" at 1,900 searches and $2.11 a click. The buyers searching for access control are property managers and business owners with a budget, and the ad market knows it.
We audit a lot of locksmith websites. Most of them have one services page with a list of twenty bullet points. Access control is one bullet. So is safe opening. Google has nothing to rank, and the property manager in your city finds an alarm company instead.
That is the opening. A low volume, high value phrase is cheap to rank for and expensive to buy. One good page can carry a lot of revenue.
How To Market the Work That Pays Most
Here is the order we build it in for locksmith clients.
1. Give Each High Ticket Service Its Own Page
Access control, master key systems, safe opening and car key programming each get a real page. Put the city in the title, real photos of your own jobs, the hardware brands you install, and a price range. Our guide to locksmith service pages that rank covers the layout.
2. Lead With Car Keys for Volume
Car keys bring the steady calls. Build a page for each common make in your area and post your key price ranges. We cover that in how to market car key replacement.
3. Write for the Institutional Buyer
Hospitals, schools, churches, apartment groups and city offices buy locksmith work on contract. Make a page that speaks to the facility manager. Talk about key control, master key systems, rekeys between tenants, and response times. Add the trade names they search, like "commercial locksmith" and "master key system."
4. Use Ads Only Where the Ticket Covers the Click
A $37 click makes sense when the job is worth thousands. It does not make sense for a $179 lockout in a crowded market. Our breakdown of Google Ads vs Local Service Ads for locksmiths shows where each one fits.
5. Pick Keywords by Ticket, Not Just Volume
A phrase with 480 searches and a $3,000 ticket can beat one with 30,000 searches and a $90 ticket. Our locksmith keyword list is a good place to start, then sort it by what each job pays you.
What the Top Results Get Wrong
We pulled the live Google results for "what type of locksmith makes the most money" on October 18, 2026. An AI Overview sat on top. The first organic result was a four year old Reddit thread. Next came two field service software blogs from 2024, a Quora thread, two salary site answers, a YouTube video and a 2022 training blog.
The software blogs quote salary sites like Talent.com, Comparably and Indeed. Neither one uses the federal wage data. Neither one mentions the institutional locksmith, even though Google lists it as a related search. And none of the results give one real job price, which is the only number an owner can act on.
The honest answer has two halves. On a payroll, work for a big institution. As an owner, sell the big tickets and build a page for each one.
If you would rather have us build those pages, we take one locksmith per zip code.
Sources
- U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, May 2025, Locksmiths and Safe Repairers (49-9094), national, industry and state figures pulled through the BLS public data API on October 18, 2026
- NAICS 561622, Locksmiths, opened October 18, 2026
- ACME Locksmith, car key replacement prices, opened October 18, 2026
- ACME Locksmith, access control prices, opened October 18, 2026
- ACME Locksmith, lockout service prices, opened October 18, 2026
- ACME Locksmith, what it costs to open a safe, updated September 10, 2026, opened October 18, 2026
- Service Fusion, how much do locksmiths make, May 7, 2024, opened October 18, 2026
- Our own pulls, October 18, 2026: Google Ads search volume and cost per click for ten locksmith specialty keywords, the live Google results for "what type of locksmith makes the most money" in the United States, and referring domain counts for the top results, all through DataForSEO.