How to Afford ALPR in Every Patrol Car—Without Breaking the Budget

Bill Shafley
Apr 15
2 min read

Updated: Apr 17

It’s not just about catching plates—it’s about covering your fleet.

Most departments can only afford ALPR for a few patrol cars. That’s not a tech problem—it’s a pricing problem. When legacy systems cost $20,000 to $30,000 per unit, full-fleet coverage becomes impossible without massive grants or miracle budgets.

At Aeye Systems, we flipped the script.

What if every patrol vehicle could have real-time ALPR, for the price of a radar gun?

The Problem with ALPR Pricing

Legacy vendors like Axon, Vigilant, and ELSAG charge so much per system that:

Only specialty or high-priority units get equipped
The rest of the fleet operates blind
Officers must rely on dispatch to run plates manually
Coverage gaps grow—especially during late shifts or large-scale events

That’s not scalable. That’s not smart. That’s not safe.

The ai4 Solution: AiLPR for the Entire Fleet

ai4 is a mobile ALPR system that:

Costs ~$6,000 per unit
Comes with a lifetime warranty
Requires no special servers, storage contracts, or subscriptions
Runs on your existing Windows MDTs or laptops
Takes 1 hour or less to install

At this price, agencies are deploying 5x to 6x more units compared to traditional systems.

The ROI Equation

Let’s break it down:

Metric	Traditional ALPR	ai4
Unit Cost	$25,000	~$6,000
Cost Per Plate Read	High	Up to 10x more efficient
Vehicles Covered	1 for every 5	1 for every 1
Warranty	Limited	Lifetime
Value	Department-limited	Fleet-scalable