What Flock Really Costs Cities Across the Country

WIRED reviewed contracts with more than a dozen cities and towns, shedding light on how Flock prices its products, its business model, and how it compares with its rivals.

In 2022, that cost will rise to $81,250. Fifteen of the new Falcon cameras, which Flack says have more sophisticated license plate reading technology, cost $37,500. Another $3,750 went toward installing new cameras, and the rest went toward maintaining the initial fleet.

Then, in 2024, the division paid Flock $113,225. Of that amount, $87,500 was to maintain its 35 existing cameras, a rate it agreed to pay for the next five years, and the rest went to the Falcon's eight new cameras. The following year, Covington paid Flock $159,000 for a combination of maintaining the camera and enrolling in the Drone as First Responder program, which uses drones to fly to emergency scenes and broadcast footage to police stations.

It's unclear how much Covington will pay Flock in 2026, but as of August, it had paid $201,000 — $100,000 to maintain existing cameras, $800 to replace one, and another $100,200 for new software products. The Covington Police Department did not respond to a request for comment.

Overall, Flock is a small part of the Covington Police Department's $12,488,733 budget for June 2025 through July 2026. But amid a backlash over Flock's regulatory actions, contracts with the company are now being reviewed in cities across the country. Flock did not comment for this story.

WIRED obtained documents through a public records request from dozens of Flock customers across the country and compared them to publicly available information. More than a dozen more documents show how much Flock can actually cost communities, the structure of many of these deals, and how the deals can stretch out over several years — leaving taxpayers on the hook year after year, with no end in sight.

"Once you let police officers try a tool, it's really hard to get the political will and motivation to take that tool away from them," said Matthew Guariglia, senior policy analyst at the Electronic Frontier Foundation.

When Flock was founded in 2017, it initially sold its license plate readers to homeowner associations (HOAs). When the company decided to sell to police departments in 2019, it had this feature: Instead of setting up a camera network from scratch, police could start with access to cameras that HOAs already use.

A version of this story ran in Alpharetta, Georgia. In 2020, the city's police department paid Flock $17,680 for five Falcon cameras and a login for Flock's software, Wing, which can extract vehicle and license plate information from off-brand camera footage. The following year, when Alpharetta purchased several more Flock cameras, a payment justification noted that "several" local private property owners' associations had already purchased Flock and given them access to the cameras.

"We are looking to add more urban cameras to the Flock system," the justification reads. According to the city, "other vendors" "do not integrate with our existing Flock system."

Over the next several years, Alpharetta expanded its work with the company significantly. By 2025, the city's annual herd bill would reach $381,000.

As in other industries, companies that sell technology to police often use financial incentives to attract customers. Clearview AI, Ring and Taser have all made attractive offers to agencies across the country.

"Many of these police surveillance vendors have learned the lessons of old general sales," Guariglia tells WIRED. In other words, deals and discounts work.

In some cases, these products appear to be new and increasingly widespread. For example, in 2025, Alpharetta paid for an upgrade to the Elite FlockOS package, which Flock describes as a real-time crime-centric platform. Other products come with a free trial first. Alpharetta used a 90-day window last year and tried a new product called Nova.

Flock also extends its contracts by offering discounts if departments sign multi-year contracts. In 2024, Alpharetta signed a 5-year contract with Flock worth $254,250 in the first year and $238,000 for each subsequent year. The contract was $232,500 less than five one-year contracts that could have been subject to higher rates.

The Alpharetta Police Department declined to comment.

Five-year contracts are common among Flock customers, which the company sometimes markets as "price lock promotions." In a November 2023 email, Flock's director of customer success, Gwen Saltalaz, used the framework to pitch a five-year contract to the Albany County Sheriff's Office in New York.

"As you know, on April 1st, the cost of new Falcons went from $2,500 to $3,000, which will apply to future renewal terms on existing cameras," Saltall wrote. "If you want to lock in your current camera rates, Flock offers a 5-year contract to keep that price." The Albany County Sheriff's Office did not respond to a request for comment.

In other cities, Flock won long-term contracts because it offered a suitable product package. (This is far from exclusive to Flock; for example, Motorola recently signed a $54 million deal with Louisiana for a list of police technology.)

Guillermo Mixer, the police chief for the city of Greenfield, California, reported at a city council meeting in January that the annual cost of the city's surveillance system is $112,900, divided among five contracts with three companies: Flock, surveillance camera company SurveillanceGrid, and drone company Paladin.

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Mixer suggested ditching SurveillanceGrid and Paladin and signing a five-year deal with Flock instead. The annual cost would be $136,940, almost $24,000 more than the cost level at that time. He noted, however, that the price includes three new cameras and access to Flock911, which sends 911 call data to responding officers, as well as drones from Aerodrome, a company Flock acquired in 2024.

A proposed order form lists dozens of other Flock products and services included in the deal, though it's unclear how many have been added.

In the end, the Greenfield City Council unanimously approved the Herd Mixer repackaging contract. Mixer and the Greenfield Police Department did not respond to a request for comment.

WIRED reviewed a July 2022 "public sector price sheet" for Flock products for the Fort Lauderdale Police Department in Florida. Although produced for a specific agency, WIRED's approximate price range reflects Flock's purchase orders from around the country at the time.

Historically, Flock has placed agencies in one of 14 pricing "buckets" for its software, depending on their size. Agencies in "Bucket 1" have one to 15 sworn officers and can pay as little as $2,000 or up to $115,500 for Flock software, depending on whether they get the basic package or choose several add-ons. Bucket fees gradually increase until bucket 14 — which is for state and federal agencies, or local forces with more than 3,000 officers — charges "custom" rates, the tab says.

Meanwhile, hardware tends to be sold at a fixed annual rate. According to the pricing sheet, individual license plate readers and CCTV cameras cost between $3,000 and $5,200 per year, not including the initial installation fee — which can be between $150 and $2,750 upfront.

The pricing sheet puts individual Flock bullet detectors at $8,500 to $35,000 per year, depending on their range. Meanwhile, its individual drones cost $50,000 to $150,000 a year, and Flock's two "mobile security trailer" offerings cost $20,000 and $25,000 a year. Fort Lauderdale police did not respond to a request for comment.

Although prices vary from city to city depending on purchase size and individual negotiations, Flock's pricing seems to be comparable to its competitors. Axon recently quoted Denver $150,000 to install 50 cameras across the city and maintain them for a year, while Motorola recently received Manti, Utah, $4,704 for a license plate reader.

Flock also has a pricing plan for replacing damaged or stolen products—a particular concern amid a national wave of vandalism targeting Flock cameras. Under the terms of Flock's contract, the company retains ownership of the products it sells to cities. That means cities are on the hook for costs when people damage or destroy cameras. (It also means that if a city decides to end its Flock contract, it must return the equipment.)

According to Flock's website and invoices reviewed by WIRED, the company has a flat rate for replacing damaged or stolen products: $800 for cameras, $500 for poles and $1,300 for both. (Given its 2021 pricing, that's more than the documentation from Anderson County, South Carolina, when replacement costs were $500 for cameras and $150 for rods.)

Some cities have struggled to draw attention to the financial toll of replacing herd-damaged equipment — sometimes exaggerating the cost in the process.

Police in Winona, Minnesota, and Rutherfordton, North Carolina, said the cost to replace the cameras was $3,000 and $3,500 each, respectively, $2,200 and $2,700 more than the listed cost. And in Derby, Kansas, after a man damaged 10 Flock cameras, local police claimed he caused $26,000 in damage. But depending on whether he damaged the poles, replacing them would likely cost between $8,000 and $13,000. Winona, Rutherfordton and Derby police did not respond to requests for comment.

Flock's pricing ends up being much lower than other department costs — like police helicopters, which can cost tens of millions of dollars a year, or hiring more police officers.

However, compared to other technology-related costs, Flock's costs can stand out.

In Pasadena, Texas, which has a population of about 148,500, the 2026 police budget allocated $427,133 for Flock, $500,842 for body camera software, and $500,000 for "Motorola repairs." These were by far the most expensive tech purchases. Most other purchases had budgets of less than $100,000. The Pasadena Police Department did not respond to a request for comment.

Across the country, cities large and small have chosen to increase their herd funds significantly over several years.

For example, Savannah, Georgia, paid $33,000 for Flock in 2020 and $193,500 in 2025. In 2025, it paid $163,275. This year, as of August, the city has paid Flock $138,934.94. The Savannah and Snellville police departments did not respond to requests for comment.

However, in some cases, Flock's pricing proved prohibitive.

Jack Hall - Sheriff of Lorain County, Ohio - recently announced that the county will be canceling its Flock contract. Flock plans to increase Lorain County's two-year rate for 15 cameras by 17 percent, Hall said. It was too much for him.

Hall and the Lorain County Sheriff's Office did not return calls for comment.