05/05/2026
BUILDLAB
5 min readWhat Low-Voltage Costs Per Unit: Budgeting Cabling, WiFi & Security for Multifamily
Structured cabling, WiFi, surveillance, access control, and fire and life safety all land in the low-voltage budget. Here is how to ballpark the per-unit cost early — before drawings exist.
Low-voltage is one of the easiest scopes to under-budget, because it gets specified late and bid even later. By the time real numbers arrive, the pro forma is already set — and any surprise comes straight out of the deal. Budgeting it early, even roughly, protects the project.
What lands in the low-voltage budget
“Low-voltage” is really five systems that share pathways, rooms, and labor:
- Structured cabling — Cat6 and fiber, unit drops, and the MDF/IDF backbone everything else rides on.
- Managed WiFi and networks — access points, switching, and the headend for common areas and units.
- Surveillance and CCTV — cameras, NVR or cloud recording, and the network to carry it.
- Door access control — entries, common doors, and the credentials behind them.
- Fire and life safety — alarm and notification, often the single largest line.
Why per-unit, and what moves it
Early budgets are best expressed per dwelling unit, then scaled by count. Building type drives a lot of the variance — a garden-style low-rise costs less per unit than a high-rise — as do unit-count efficiencies, prevailing-wage requirements, redundancy, and what the authority having jurisdiction demands.
