Three cost structures, not three prices
Asking 'what does lone worker protection cost?' is like asking what transport costs — the useful answer is not a number but a shape. A smartphone app, a fleet of dedicated devices and an ARC-monitored service each put their costs in different places: some upfront, some monthly, some hidden in staff time. Two options with the same year-one total can have wildly different year-three totals.
This guide deliberately avoids quoting specific competitor prices — they change, they're negotiated, and a price without its contract terms is misleading. Instead it maps where the money goes in each model, so you can read any quote and see what's missing from it. Where we cite exact figures, they're Vygard's own published prices, used as a worked example of the app cost shape.
The app model: subscription-heavy, hardware-light
A lone worker app's cost is almost entirely a per-user monthly subscription. There's no hardware to buy because staff carry the phone already; deployment is an install link, so rollout cost is measured in minutes of staff time per person rather than in procurement. Across the UK market, app subscriptions typically run from a few pounds to a few tens of pounds per user per month, with the price largely tracking what sits behind the app — self-monitored escalation at the lower end, 24/7 ARC monitoring and richer compliance features toward the upper.
The details that move the real total: whether you pay for every licence or only active workers (a big difference for seasonal, bank and part-time staff); whether supervisors and admins are billed as users; whether alert channels like SMS and voice calls are included or metered; and the contract term. As a concrete example of the shape, Vygard's published tiers run from £9 per active worker per month (Starter) to £19 (Pro), with enterprise plans from £49 — workers count only when they clock on, admins are free, and messaging is bundled with published top-up and overage rates rather than surprise line items. The residual costs of the app model are the honest ones to budget: a slice of admin time to manage users and respond to alerts, and the operational discipline of keeping phones charged and carried.
The device model: capex, connectivity and a drawer full of chargers
Dedicated devices — fobs, pendants, badge-holders, rugged handsets — add a hardware layer to everything. The visible costs are the unit price per device (ranging from tens of pounds for simple fobs to several hundred for rugged or intrinsically-safe units, as a general industry shape) plus a monthly service and connectivity charge per device, since most carry their own SIM.
The less visible costs decide the true total. Devices get lost, dropped, left in vans and retired — fleets typically need a replacement allowance and an eventual refresh cycle, so the capex repeats rather than being one-off. Someone has to manage charging, allocation, returns from leavers and firmware — that's real admin time. And spares: a device fleet with no float means an uncovered worker every time a unit fails. None of this makes devices the wrong answer — for high-risk roles a physical SOS button and days-long battery are worth every line of it — but a device quote that shows only unit price and monthly fee is showing you perhaps half the cost.
The monitored-service model: paying for the response, not the alarm
ARC monitoring adds a per-user (or per-device) monitoring fee on top of whichever hardware or app raises the alarm. What you're buying is a staffed, 24/7 alarm receiving centre operating to agreed procedures — and, through a BS 8484-certified service chain, access to a graded police response for verified alarms. As a general industry shape, monitored services price per user per month at a premium over self-monitored equivalents, are commonly sold on annual contracts, and sometimes carry setup or training fees.
The comparison to run is not 'ARC fee versus no fee' but 'ARC fee versus the true cost of self-monitoring done properly'. Self-monitoring looks free until you cost it honestly: someone credible must be reachable and willing to act 24/7 for every hour anyone works alone, the rota must survive holidays and sickness, and the response must be drilled and documented. For some organisations that's genuinely absorbed in existing on-call structures; for others the hidden staffing cost exceeds the ARC fee it was avoiding. Your risk assessment and your actual out-of-hours capability — not the invoice — should make this call.
The hidden lines on every quote
Four costs apply to every model and rarely appear in a proposal. Training and adoption: a system people don't use is 100% waste, so budget induction time, refreshers and the campaign to make check-ins habitual. False alarm handling: every accidental SOS and forgotten check-in consumes responder minutes; systems with pre-alarm countdowns and sensible defaults cost less to live with than their price suggests. Administration: user management, reports, audit exports, device fleet care — hours that land on someone's job. And integration or exit costs: getting data out for audits, and what happens to your history if you switch providers.
The fair comparison is a three-year total cost of ownership per protected worker: subscriptions plus hardware plus refresh plus monitoring plus a realistic estimate of the staff hours each model consumes. Run that once and the cheapest-looking option frequently isn't — and occasionally the premium option isn't either.
Matching spend to risk — the only rule that matters
The HSE's expectation is proportionality, and it's also the best budgeting principle: spend where the risk is. Most organisations overspend by buying one uniform tier for everyone — rugged devices for office-based staff who'd be well served by an app, or ARC monitoring for roles whose risk assessment doesn't call for it — while underspending on the two or three genuinely high-risk roles that justify dedicated hardware and monitored response.
A blended deployment usually beats a uniform one: apps for the moderate-risk majority, devices where a physical button and long battery are operationally necessary, monitored response where risk or contracts demand it — ideally all feeding one escalation process and one audit trail so the evidence stays in one place. Vygard is priced and built for that blend, and its 14-day trial exists so you can test the fit against your own shift patterns before any money changes hands. Whatever you choose, let the risk assessment write the shopping list; the budget will follow it more efficiently than the other way round.
Frequently asked questions
- How much does lone worker protection cost per employee in the UK?
- It depends on the model. Apps are typically a per-user monthly subscription — from single figures to a few tens of pounds depending on monitoring and features (Vygard's published pricing starts at £9 per active worker per month). Dedicated devices add hardware purchase, connectivity and replacement costs on top of a service fee. ARC-monitored services add a monitoring premium. The honest comparison is three-year total cost per protected worker, including staff time.
- Are lone worker apps cheaper than dedicated devices?
- Usually, yes — apps avoid hardware purchase, replacement cycles, spare units and separate SIM contracts because they run on phones staff already carry. But cheaper isn't automatically right: high-risk roles can justify a device's physical SOS button, ruggedness and multi-day battery. Most organisations land on a blend, with apps for the majority and devices for the hard cases.
- What hidden costs should I budget for in a lone worker system?
- Four recur in every model: training and adoption time so the system is actually used; responder time spent on false alarms and forgotten check-ins; ongoing administration (user management, reports, device fleets); and the staffing cost of self-monitoring if alerts route to your own team — someone genuinely available 24/7 is not free. Device fleets also need a replacement allowance and a periodic hardware refresh.
- Is ARC monitoring worth the extra cost?
- It depends on risk and on your real out-of-hours capability. ARC monitoring buys a staffed 24/7 response and, via a BS 8484-certified service chain, access to a graded police response for verified alarms — valuable where violence or long undiscovered falls are realistic risks, and often required by contracts. If your internal escalation genuinely operates round the clock and your risk profile is moderate, documented self-monitoring can be a defensible and cheaper choice. Cost the internal rota honestly before deciding.
Last updated 2026-07-29