What Starlink Installation Actually Costs
Hardware, monthly service and install labor are three different numbers. Here is what each one runs, and when self install is genuinely fine.
Most people asking about Starlink installation cost are really asking about three separate numbers that get quoted as one: the hardware kit, the monthly service, and the labor to mount the dish and get the cable into the building. The first two are published by the vendor and change often. The third one, which is what this page is about, usually lands between $250 and $500 for a straightforward ground or short pole mount with a clear view of the sky, and between $600 and $1,500 once a roof, a mast tall enough to clear a tree line, or a long cable run through finished walls is involved. Typical range, not a quote. Your price comes from the free estimate.
Why the three numbers should stay separate
The hardware. Starlink sells the kit directly and lists the price on its own site. That price has moved repeatedly and varies by region and by whatever promotion is running. Do not plan around a hardware figure you read in an article, including this one. Read it off the vendor's page on the day you buy.
The monthly service. Same story. Residential, roaming and business plans are priced differently, all of them have been repriced since launch, and in some areas residential service costs less because local capacity is less loaded. Go read the published number.
The installation labor. Nobody publishes this, because it is not a product. It is a few hours of work on a specific building, and the building sets the price. That is why installers give ranges instead of a figure.
What are the Starlink installation requirements?
There is one hard requirement, and everything else follows from it: the dish needs an unobstructed view of a wide slice of sky, and it needs to keep that view while satellites move across it.
That second half is what people miss. The dish is not aimed at a single fixed point like an older satellite TV antenna. It tracks a constellation moving overhead, so the whole cone of sky above it has to be clear, not just the patch where the signal looks strongest this afternoon. One branch clipping the edge of that cone will not take the service down. It will drop it for a few seconds at a time, several times an hour, which is a more annoying failure than being down outright.
Everything after the sky is ordinary building trade work: something structurally sound to mount to, a cable path to a power outlet inside, a sealed penetration where the cable crosses the building envelope, and a bond to the grounding system when the mount is high or metallic.
Can I do a Starlink self install?
For a lot of properties, yes, genuinely. We will say that plainly even though it is not in our commercial interest. If all of these are true, buy the kit and do it yourself:
- Single story, or a mount spot you can reach safely from the ground
- Wide open sky with no tree line, neighboring roofline or chimney in the way
- A ground mount, a simple pole, or a mount on a low existing structure
- A short cable run into the building, ideally through an existing opening
- The connection is a convenience, not something your income depends on
That is an afternoon's work with the parts in the box, and paying somebody to supervise it would be paying for nothing.
Is Starlink easy to install, or should someone else do it?
The mounting is easy. The judgment about where to mount is not, and the parts that go wrong are the parts that are hard to undo.
Bring somebody in for a steep roof, a slate or tile roof, or any roof you would not otherwise walk on. Bring somebody in when the dish needs a mast to clear a tree line, because a mast is a lever: wind load multiplies with height, and a mast that is fine in September comes down in a February storm and takes roof with it. Same for a long cable run through insulation and finished walls, an entry point above living space, or any install that will be a business's working connection, because there an install that mostly works is not an install.
Our satellite internet installation service exists for that second list. If you describe your property and it belongs on the first list, we will tell you so.
What actually drives the price
Where the dish can go. Settled by an obstruction survey across the whole cone of sky from each candidate position, not a glance upward from the driveway. It decides whether this is a two hour job or a two day one.
Roof access and roof type. Walking a low-pitch asphalt roof is routine. Slate, tile, metal and anything steep need different anchoring, different safety equipment and more time.
Mast height. Every foot adds material, bracing and wind load, and eventually turns a mount into something that has to be engineered rather than bolted on.
Cable run and route. A run along an exterior wall into a basement is cheap. A run from a third-story roof down through finished walls to the office is carpentry.
The penetration. Flashing, sealant and a drip loop are a small part of the bill and the likeliest thing to cause damage when done casually.
Grounding and bonding. Cheap during the install, expensive as a return visit.
Integration. Plugging the supplied equipment into a wall is not the same job as making satellite one path on a network that already carries cameras, a work laptop and a card terminal.
Why trees are the number one reason installs disappoint
More installs underperform because of trees than for every other reason combined, and usually not the tree anyone worried about. A survey done in January sees bare branches, and bare branches pass a surprising amount of signal. The same tree in July is a wall of wet leaves sitting in the path.
Surveying in winter therefore means surveying for summer: treat the bare canopy as though it were full and pick the mount accordingly. Trees also grow, so a mount that clears the line by a foot today is a service call in three years.
Is Starlink installation permanent?
It can be either, and that is worth deciding on purpose.
A ground mount, a pole in a base, or a clamp onto an existing structure is fully reversible. Nothing goes through the roof, and the whole thing can move to a better corner of the property in an hour.
A roof mount is a permanent modification: fasteners through the roof covering, sealant and flashing that become part of the roof, and a cable crossing the envelope. Done properly it lasts as long as the roof. Done casually it is a slow leak you find two winters later as a stain on a ceiling. If the roof is due for replacement soon, say so before anyone starts, because the sequencing is cheaper to plan around than to redo.
Can Starlink be my backup rather than my main line?
Often that is its best use, particularly for a small business with a fast wired line that is occasionally absent. Satellite fails for entirely different reasons than a buried cable does, and that independence is the whole point of a backup: a contractor cutting a trench two streets over takes out the wired line and does nothing to the sky. For that to help, the switchover has to be automatic and tested, which is a network design question rather than a dish question. We cover it under backup internet and automatic failover.
The logic runs the other way too. If satellite is your only real option because no wired provider serves the address, it is your main line and deserves to be installed like one.
What should I ask a Starlink installer near me?
Four questions separate people who do this properly from people who own a ladder. Ask whether they survey obstructions from more than one candidate position, and what they do about seasonal foliage. Ask how they seal and flash the cable entry, and whether they warranty that penetration. Ask what happens to the mount in a winter storm at the height they are proposing. And ask what they hand you at the end, because a mount location, a cable route and measured results on paper are the difference between an install you can maintain and one nobody can explain.
For a specific address in DC, Northern Virginia or Maryland, our satellite internet page explains how we survey a property, and the estimate is free.
Still stuck?
This is the part you can work out on your own. When the answer turns out to need measuring, we do that on site across DC, Northern Virginia and Maryland, and the estimate is free.