What size surveillance system does my jobsite need?
August 13, 2026 · updated August 29, 2026 · SiteFortress360
Direct answer: Size to sight lines, not acreage: a compact site with one approach fits a 10–12 ft tower (SiteFortress Mini, $695/mo); a typical construction site or yard wants an 18–20 ft mast with 360° cameras (SiteFortress 360, $995/mo); long sight distances, high asset value or evidence-detail needs justify PTZ (PTZ Pro, $1,695/mo). L-shaped or obstructed sites sometimes need two smaller units instead of one big one.
The four sizing questions
One: how far is the farthest thing you care about from the best placement spot? Under ~100 ft favors the Mini; 100–250 ft favors the 360; beyond that, PTZ zoom starts earning its keep. Two: can one spot see everything, or do buildings and stacks block quadrants? Obstructions argue for height — or a second unit. Three: what is the value density? A lot holding two million dollars of inventory justifies more system than one with scattered materials. Four: do you need to recognize or just detect? Detection needs pixels; identification needs more of them, which means height, resolution and zoom.
Rules of thumb by site type
Patterns we see across DFW deployments:
- Custom home / small roofing project → Mini, placed at the drive gate
- Typical commercial construction site → SiteFortress 360 mid-site or at the gate
- Contractor yard under ~1 acre → Mini in the working corner
- Equipment yard 1–3 acres → 360, add LPR at the gate
- Distribution/trailer yard → PTZ Pro along the main rows
- Dealership lot → PTZ Pro + LPR, mast over inventory rows
- L-shaped or multi-pad site → two Minis often beat one big unit
When in doubt, survey
This is what the site survey is for: we walk placement options, check sight lines and sun exposure, and commit to an agreed coverage map — backed by the Deployment Promise (if we can’t verify the agreed coverage at deployment, the deployment fee is waived). Oversizing wastes budget; undersizing wastes the whole exercise. Ten minutes on site settles it.
Sizing errors cost more than they look like they do
Both directions of sizing error have a bill attached. Oversizing burns budget quietly — a PTZ Pro on a half-acre lot spends seven hundred dollars a month on zoom nobody uses. Undersizing is worse because it fails silently: a Mini asked to cover 300-foot sight lines produces detections without identifications and blind quadrants behind every stack, and the gap is discovered the morning after it mattered. The survey exists to catch both before the contract does, and the two-unit answer on awkward sites is not upselling — it is geometry.
The tie-breaker, when two configurations genuinely both work, is the site’s trajectory: a project that grows favors the larger unit now, a stable yard favors the smaller one plus the option to add. Sizing is cheap to get right on a survey walk and expensive to discover wrong from an incident report.
Frequently asked questions
Do add-ons like LPR or monitoring change which unit size I need?
Mostly no — add-ons attach to whichever unit the sight lines already chose. LPR is its own purpose-mounted camera at the gate regardless of mast size; monitoring is a service layer on any unit; Starlink is a connectivity question, not a coverage one. The one interaction worth knowing: if identification-grade detail is why you wanted the PTZ Pro, check whether LPR at the gate plus a 360 mid-site answers the actual question for less — sometimes the detail you needed was always the plate.
Does the sizing change if the site will grow during the project?
Plan for the site’s largest and most obstructed shape, not its current one. A dirt-work site that will grow stacked materials and vertical structure by month three should be sized and placed for month three — or explicitly planned for a unit swap and reposition when the shape changes, which the rental model makes routine. The expensive version of this mistake is sizing to the empty pad, then discovering at steel-up that the placement sees walls where the laydown used to be.
How do I know what size security unit my site needs?
Size to sight lines, not acreage, with four questions: how far is the farthest thing you care about from the best placement spot; can one spot see everything or do obstructions block quadrants; what is the value density; and do you need to recognize people or just detect them? Under ~100 feet favors the Mini; 100–250 feet favors the 360; beyond that, PTZ zoom starts earning its cost.
What does each SiteFortress unit cost?
SiteFortress Mini — $695/month with a 10–12 ft mast, right for compact sites with one approach. SiteFortress 360 — $995/month with an 18–20 ft mast and 360° fixed cameras, the standard for typical construction sites and yards. SiteFortress PTZ Pro — $1,695/month adding pan-tilt-zoom on top of fixed coverage for long sight lines and identification-grade detail. Setup fees are $299–$699, waived on 6-month agreements.
When does a site need two units instead of one bigger one?
When geometry beats height: L-shaped sites, multi-pad projects, and yards where a building or permanent stack splits the space into scenes no single placement can see. Two Minis positioned per scene frequently out-cover one premium unit trying to see around a corner — at similar or lower cost. If the survey walk keeps finding quadrants the candidate spot cannot see, that is the two-unit signal.
Can I upgrade the unit if the site changes mid-project?
Yes — sites evolve and the fleet is built for it. A project that starts as dirt work with a Mini at the gate can step up to a 360 when the laydown fills, and repositioning as the build rises is normal and included. The zones and schedules move with the unit. Committing to today’s site shape is exactly the mistake permanent installations make; rental sizing gets to follow the project.
What is the Deployment Promise?
The survey commits to an agreed coverage map before anything ships, and at deployment that coverage is verified on camera. If we cannot verify the agreed coverage, the deployment fee is waived. It exists because sizing and placement claims are cheap to make and checkable in an afternoon — putting the fee behind the promise keeps the survey honest and the recommendation right-sized rather than upsized.