Written By:
Peter Platten
Chief Revenue Officer, Protos Security
Peter brings nearly two decades of leadership experience in the global security industry. He has a proven track record in enterprise sales, process optimization and building high-performing teams.
Security is often labeled a cost center. But what if it didn’t have to be? At Protos Security, we believe every dollar you spend on security should yield measurable results, whether that’s improved compliance, faster incident response or lower overall risk exposure. Businesses often achieve significant cost savings, typically between 15% and 30%, through outsourcing various business functions.
What Is the True Cost of Contract Security?
Billing as a Service: Where Security ROI Is Won or Lost
Protos treats billing as a core service with down-to-the-minute billing. We don’t bill by the expectation, we bill by delivery, backed up by 24/7 monitoring and real-time response to handle any issue.
Every hour invoiced is tied directly to verified activity and is GPS-confirmed presence. That means clients don’t pay for schedules; they pay for hours actually worked.
More Value in Every Dollar You Spend with Protos
It’s Not Just the Hourly Rate
When evaluating security guarding services, hourly rates are often the first metric considered. But a small difference in the hourly rate won’t matter if you’re routinely overbilled for hours not worked or hit with surprise overtime charges. For example, if an officer punches out early and their replacement arrives late, there’s a gap in time worked. Oftentimes, security companies will still bill you for the gap, but Protos won’t. Our platform tracks coverage minute by minute, allowing us to identify and eliminate any unworked time from your invoice.
When vendors mismanage scheduling and personnel exceed standard working hours, the client ultimately bears the financial burden. While the vendor is responsible for paying security staffing overtime wages, those increased labor costs are often passed directly to the client, including markup. This means that every overtime hour worked doesn’t just reflect a higher base wage; it also includes the vendor’s overhead and profit margin. As a result, the client ends up paying a premium on top of a premium, for overtime that may have been avoidable with more effective workforce planning. Without centralized oversight or real-time scheduling intelligence, clients are left footing the bill for inefficiencies they didn’t cause.
Unlike traditional security providers with little to no tech enablement, who rely on just-in-time recruiting practices, we leverage a robust nationwide vendor network and preferential security officer sourcing for fulfillment. This allows us to dynamically rotate security officers or adjust schedules when demands change, avoiding overtime and ensuring continuity of service. This approach enables us to proactively manage staffing before it becomes a liability. The results are no overtime hours, cost certainty for the client and higher operational efficiency without compromising coverage.
The true cost of security also includes:
- Administrative Overhead: For example, human resources and operations time spent on staffing, onboarding or managing vendors. Every manual process adds complexity and payroll cost. Without centralized oversight, inefficiencies quickly multiply and your team spends more time managing your contract security company than running your core business.
- Solution: Protos solves this by offering centralized, tech-enabled vendor management, eliminating the need for your team to chase down schedules, fill coverage gaps or manage contacts.
- Training and Supervision: Hiring personnel is just the beginning of the process. Ensuring they’re properly trained, licensed and consistently performing to standard is where many providers fall short. Without dedicated oversight, security officers may lack the preparation needed to handle emergencies, enforce post orders or de-escalate situations.
- Solution: At Protos, we offer built-in quality assurance through a deeply vetted vendor network and automated reporting tools, ensuring that each post is staffed by professionals who are held to measurable standards.
- Liability Exposure: Security services can carry serious risk if not properly documented and managed. If a vendor fails to staff a post, comply with local labor laws, underperforms during a critical incident or lacks proper insurance, your business may be held responsible for fines, claims or litigation.
- Solution: With Protos, you gain access to verifiable time tracking, GPS-validated reporting and incident documentation through our dynamic security management platform and modern technology tools. This drastically reduces your exposure by ensuring transparency, audit-readiness and accountability across your security program.
Why In-House and Traditional Security Models Often Cost More and Deliver Less
Many companies attempt to manage guarding services internally to save money. But this often backfires. Managing a roster of security officers means taking on:
- Coverage gaps from inconsistent staffing
- Turnover headaches and constant retraining
- Legal responsibility for wages, compliance and workplace claims
The Limits of Traditional Security Providers
While some organizations keep security in-house, many choose to outsource. Among those, traditional security providers are a common choice, but that route often brings hidden costs. Traditional security companies may struggle in non-primary markets due to a limited network of security personnel and outdated management models. Typically, working with security providers can lead to less control and more workload, risk and cost. With traditional security providers, consider the following:
- You pay by the schedule, even when officers don’t show up on time.
- While security is viewed as a cost center, even minor incidents can affect revenue and reputation.
- Vendors often lack the resources to scale quickly.
- Dealing with multiple points of contact slows processes down and creates a frustrating experience.
Outsourcing your security program to Protos avoids these burdens. Clients get access to our national vendor network that delivers coverage and compliance on demand.
Calculating the ROI of Security Investments
Return on investment (ROI) is difficult to define in some service industries. In security, we look at ROI as return on cost (ROC). It’s about what outcomes you get for every dollar spent, not just how low the hourly rate goes.
Key metrics that define your ROC include:
- Number of incidents prevented
- Total verified hours delivered
- Speed of issue resolution
- Vendor performance scores
- Regulatory compliance achieved without disruption
Protos gives clients access to these insights, ensuring your security spend can be defended and optimized with real data.
Example: 168 Hours of Coverage, Zero Waste
Let’s say you need 24/7 coverage totaling 168 hours per week. If your vendor bills you for that time at $25 per hour, you expect to pay $4,200. But what if the security officers only showed up for 160 of those scheduled hours? As discussed earlier, many contract security companies may fail to adjust the billing statement and pocket the difference.
At Protos, our GPS-enabled, minute-by-minute tracking system confirms when officers are on-site and when they aren’t. If a shift runs short or coverage lapses, you’re not billed for it. We only charge for time worked, not time scheduled. Our vendor network is strictly compensated via the Protos punch system, no punch, no pay. Furthermore, our proprietary performance algorithm monitors each vendor for staffing quality and compliance. Our relentless client advocacy team proactively monitors performance and awards business based on that performance.
How Protos Delivers More Value per Dollar
1. Transparent Billing, No Surprises
Our clients frequently come to us after experiencing budget overruns with traditional guarding firms. The reasons? Inaccurate invoices, padded hours and overtime surcharges. Protos’ billing system is integrated with our operational data, meaning every hour billed is backed by real-time, verifiable data. Transparency isn’t just a principle, it’s our platform.
2. Vendor Network Built for Speed and Scale
With over 2,800 vendors in our national network, we can provide localized service almost anywhere in the U.S. If a client needs officers in a new market, we can typically establish a local presence quickly. This agility is critical for companies with rapidly changing site needs or those undergoing mergers, acquisitions or new construction projects. Every vendor in the Protos network is performance-scored using real operational data, including fill rates, response times, incident quality and client feedback. Assignments are earned, not guaranteed, and continued performance determines future volume. Vendors are consistently motivated to deliver 5-star service during every shift.
3. Customizable Solutions for Any Environment
Our Integrated Protection Solution spans the full breadth of labor deployment, from standard guarding and off-duty law enforcement to mobile patrols, remote monitoring and specialized services. Because we manage your entire security program, not a single labor pool, clients can scale their security programs without any disruption.
Security needs aren’t one-size-fits-all, and neither are the solutions that support them. That’s why Protos delivers a fully integrated protection model designed to adapt across environments, risk profiles and operational demands.
Guarding Services
By managing and coordinating relationships with thousands of local owner/operator security vendors, Protos can quickly assemble expert teams to adapt to any situation, at any location. With always-accountable customer service and intuitive dashboards, you work with one point of contact and have full visibility, no matter how many officers are deployed on your behalf. We also offer integrated solutions for companies needing off-duty police, mobile patrols, or investigative services.
Off-Duty Services
When you need trained law enforcement, Protos offers second-to-none coverage through the nation’s largest off-duty law enforcement network. Partnerships with 60,000 off-duty personnel and more than 1,400 law enforcement agencies provides Protos and ultimately our clients with the expertise when and where they need it. And with our always-accountable Customer Success Team, you have one point of contact, 24/7 dispatch and ongoing management oversight.
Specialized Services
As part of our comprehensive security options, Protos offers fully customizable end-to-end solutions, including executive protection, investigations, high-value transport, production security, site assessments and more. Our team leads the industry in delivering tailored security services that meet the highest standards. With one point of contact and our always-accountable customer service, we adapt and integrate Specialized Services to your needs and dynamic situations.
Remote Services
When you need eyes on your property with or without a physical presence, Protos offers remote guarding backed by an experienced team. We deliberately keep the ratio of accounts to staff low, so that each client gets the attention they need. From installation to monitoring and cameras to alerts, we customize each solution, so that every client gets the unique level of support they need.
Ready to Get More Value From Your Security Spend?
Let’s review your current program and show you where Protos can reduce cost, improve performance and deliver full billing transparency.
How We Compare to Traditional Security Providers
Most providers won’t tell you the truth about time. Some companies round up. Others bill by the shift instead of the actual time worked or charge overtime even when it was their own scheduling error. At Protos, our standard is unmatched end-to-end transparency and down-to-the-penny billing accuracy. Our time and activity tracking are backed by GPS and verified through the Client Portal. Our model prevents inaccurate billing, protects your budget and proves performance.
Client Success Teams: Alignment From Day One
Every Protos client is supported by a dedicated Client Success Team (CST). Your CST brings together the full Protos service chain, including dispatch, service and account management, EAG, PMO, billing and more, ensuring every aspect of your program is coordinated, accountable and responsive. From day one, each function operates in sync, reducing handoffs and creating a single, unified experience for clients.
A dedicated billing agent is embedded in your CST at onboarding to ensure invoices are accurate, transparent and aligned with how your program actually runs. This proactive approach eliminates friction early, prevents downstream issues and protects your AP team from avoidable discrepancies.
This team-based structure also powers our Quality Experience Program, enabling a seamless transition from onboarding to steady-state operations, a localized support model tailored to your footprint and an ongoing optimization framework built into our continuous improvement efforts, so your security program doesn’t just launch smoothly, it continuously improves over time.
Looking Ahead: Increasing Value in 2026 and Beyond
As we look ahead, our mission is clear: to continue raising the bar on how outsourced security services deliver measurable value. Security leaders across industries are being asked to do more with tighter budgets, higher expectations and evolving risks. We’re building solutions that help those leaders meet that challenge with clarity, confidence and control.
Smarter Risk Reduction with Predictive Analytics
We’re advancing our analytics tools to identify patterns that help prevent incidents before they happen. By analyzing historical data across locations, industries and incident types, we can surface early warning signs and risk factors, empowering clients to take proactive steps rather than reactive ones.
Enhanced SLA Benchmarking for Performance Visibility
Our clients need clear, objective measures of success to justify security budgets and prove program value. That’s why we’re expanding how we track, report and benchmark SLA (Service Level Agreement) compliance across our entire network. Our goal is to make your security program smarter, leaner and easier to manage while providing more coverage, consistency and confidence than ever before.
The True Measure of Value Is Accountability
Security isn’t just a cost to manage; it’s a capability that should continuously perform and improve while optimizing value. At Protos, we promise you a modern security experience that never settles and dynamically adapts when, where and how it’s needed. We are committed to delivering more value for every dollar because we operate with courageous transparency, intelligent technology and a relentless focus on client success.
If you’re ready to move beyond traditional vendors and partner with a provider who backs every bill with performance data, we’re here to help.
With Protos, every dollar goes further. See how much you could save.
About the Author:
Peter Platten is the Chief Revenue Officer at Protos, bringing extensive experience in enterprise sales and the security industry, including a decade with a global security organization and executive roles in Fortune 500 financial and technology companies. Since joining Protos in December 2020, he has led high-performing sales teams and optimized sales processes, consistently exceeding targets.
Peter Platten
Chief Revenue Officer, Protos Security
