Security Robot Cost per Hour vs. Security Guards in 2026

Our analysts collected the security robot prices in public city contracts and news reports, Knightscope's published estimate for indoor robots, 2025 and 2026 contract guard rates from three public agencies, and federal wage data, to compare what a security robot and a security guard cost per hour as of Q4 2026.¹

Security robots are wheeled machines with cameras, sensors, and a speaker that patrol a set route and send alerts to people watching remotely. Companies such as Knightscope and Cobalt AI rent them by the year, with the hardware, software, and support included.^13,14 Cobalt AI does not post a price for its annual contracts, but city councils approve robot and guard contracts in public, which puts real numbers on both sides of the comparison.

We used city agenda documents, council and news reports on robot leases, a Knightscope sales brief, one city's guard bid tabulation, two public agencies' guard contract rates, and Bureau of Labor Statistics wage and benefit data. We divided yearly and monthly robot prices by the hours in a year or month, and multiplied guard rates by the same hours to price a post staffed around the clock.

In the following sections, we compare what security robots cost, hourly robot and guard cost, the yearly cost of a 24/7 post, and how recent robot programs ended.

What Security Robots Cost in Public Contracts

Every security robot in these public contracts was rented by subscription, so a buyer judging the price needs to know what a year of service costs and what one robot covers.

Source: Robotics Reviewed analysis of a Huntington Park city agreement, CBS New York, the New York Post, KSAT, and a Knightscope sales brief. Cost per hour divides yearly prices by 8,760 hours and monthly prices by 730.

Key Findings

• Most public contracts cover one robot for one year. Huntington Park's order form lists a $78,000 base price for a K5 outdoor robot plus four add-on packages, before a $27,600 discount that brought the year to $72,000.
• San Antonio's price was the lowest at $21,000 for a year, for a robot that was to answer door alarms in one indoor area, a narrower job than an outdoor patrol.
• Rates per hour assume the robot runs around the clock. New York City used its K5 for six hours a night, so its effective cost per hour of patrol was the full $9.

Security Robot vs. Security Guard Cost per Hour

Guard rates in public contracts include the security company's overhead and profit, which makes them the closest comparison to a robot subscription that bundles everything into one fee.

Source: Robotics Reviewed analysis of U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics wage data, May 2025, City of Lubbock, City of Alexandria, and Port of Bellingham contract documents.

Source: Huntington Park, CBS New York, KSAT, Knightscope, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Lubbock, Alexandria, and Port of Bellingham. Chart: Robotics Reviewed.

Key Findings

• Every robot hourly cost we calculated came in below $11.50, and every recent unarmed guard contract rate we found came in above $26 an hour.
• Knightscope's own sales brief puts guard costs at roughly $25 to more than $65 an hour depending on market and armed status,⁶ a range that covers all three public agencies' rates.
• An hour of robot patrol does not buy the same work as an hour of a guard. New York City sent two police officers with its robot at all times during the trial, and a robot cannot detain anyone or respond to an emergency in person.

Yearly Cost of a 24/7 Security Post: Robot vs. Guard

Many sites need one post covered every hour of the year, which takes about 4.2 full-time guards working 2,080 hours each. A single robot subscription covers the same hours, so the yearly totals show the size of the gap a buyer is weighing.

Source: Robotics Reviewed analysis of the contracts and rates above, over 8,760 hours a year.

Source: Huntington Park, KSAT, CBS New York, Knightscope, Lubbock, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, and Port of Bellingham. Chart: Robotics Reviewed.

Key Findings

• At the Lubbock median bid, a guard post costs $239,498 a year, 3.3 times Huntington Park's discounted robot contract and 2.4 times its list price.
• A 24/7 post at the Lubbock median costs 5.6 times the $42,470 mean yearly wage of one U.S. security guard, because round-the-clock coverage takes more than four full-time guards plus the security company's overhead.
• Buyers rarely face an all-robot or all-guard choice. A robot can cover routine rounds on overnight hours while guards handle response, which is how Knightscope now sells its service.

How Recent Security Robot Programs Ended

A low hourly price matters only if the robot stays in service, so the record of public robot programs is part of the cost.

Source: Proof News, “The Roboguard Revolution is Short-Circuiting,” August 10, 2026¹²

Key Findings

• Proof News found that Knightscope held the most security robot contracts of any company and accounted for the bulk of the cancellations.
• Dublin, Ohio, said its robot identified no criminal incidents and led to no tickets or arrests during its time in a downtown park.
• Knightscope has since bought Event Risk, a national security guard company, and now sells robots and guards together. CEO William Santana Li told Proof News that “Technology cannot do everything” and that the combination of robots and people “can be very powerful.”

What Security Robot Costs Mean for Property and Facility Managers

The hourly numbers favor robots by a wide margin, and the program record shows why buyers have been cautious anyway. Of the at least 21 deployments Proof News found since 2015, at least 13 had ended, including the pilots in New York City, Dublin, and Salem,¹² while Huntington Park's 2020 order form renewed a subscription for a robot the city was already leasing.

Pricing is also moving toward bundles. Cobalt AI includes round-the-clock monitoring by its own staff in every annual contract,¹⁴ and Knightscope now sells guards alongside its robots. Our report on robots-as-a-service pricing compares security robot rates with subscription prices for warehouse and cleaning robots.

So if you are weighing a security robot against a guard post, price the robot for the specific rounds it would take over, and ask who responds, and at what cost, when the robot raises an alarm.