The short answer: Securitas is one of the largest security firms in the world, and for some buyers that scale is exactly right. But many businesses look for an alternative because of long contracts, slow onboarding, opaque pricing, high guard turnover at the site level, or difficulty getting coverage on short notice. The realistic alternatives fall into three buckets: other large national firms (Allied Universal, GardaWorld, Trackforce-adjacent operators), strong regional and local agencies, and on-demand marketplaces like Calvis that let you compare multiple licensed agencies, see flat published rates, and book without a long-term contract. The right choice depends on how much volume you have, how predictable your schedule is, and how much you value flexibility versus a single national vendor relationship.
See what guards actually cost per hour →
Why buyers look for a Securitas alternative
Securitas does a lot of things well, especially for very large, multi-site national accounts that want one contract and one point of contact across many states. The friction tends to show up for everyone else. The most common reasons businesses start shopping for an alternative are consistent across industries.
Contract length and lock-in. Traditional national firms usually sell annual or multi-year contracts with minimum monthly hours. That works if your coverage is stable and predictable. It works poorly if your needs flex, if you only need overnight coverage seasonally, or if you want to test a vendor before committing.
Pricing that is hard to compare. Quotes from large firms are often bundled, with the bill rate, overhead, supervision, and equipment folded together. Two quotes for "an unarmed guard" can differ by a wide margin with no clear explanation. Buyers increasingly want a transparent, published hourly rate they can sanity-check before signing.
Guard consistency at the post. A national brand on the contract does not guarantee the same officer at your gate every week. High turnover at the site level is a frequent complaint across the entire large-firm category, not just one company. When the assigned guard changes constantly, your post orders and your relationships reset every time.
Speed to coverage. When you need a guard tomorrow night because a nearby business was just hit, or you have a one-off event, the enterprise sales cycle is not built for that. Onboarding a new national vendor can take weeks.
Local fit. A locally owned agency often knows the neighborhood, the local police precinct, and the specific risks of a corridor better than a guard rotated in from a regional pool. For single-site businesses, that local knowledge can matter more than national scale.
If any of those describe you, the good news is that the alternatives are real and easy to evaluate.
The main categories of Securitas alternatives
1. Other large national firms
The most direct competitors to Securitas are the other global and national guard companies, primarily Allied Universal and GardaWorld, along with the broader field of national and super-regional operators (some of which run on workforce-management platforms in the Trackforce family). These firms compete head to head for the same large, multi-site contracts.
The trade-off is straightforward: you are largely swapping one national vendor model for another. You typically still get annual contracts, minimum-hour commitments, and bundled pricing. The relationship, account management quality, and local branch performance vary by market and by the specific branch serving you, so a firm that is excellent in one metro can be mediocre in another. If your main complaint about Securitas was the firm itself rather than the national-contract model, a lateral move to another big firm can help. If your complaint was the model, it usually will not.
If your main complaint is cost rather than the firm, it helps to know what guards actually cost before you compare proposals.
2. Regional and local agencies
Independent regional and local agencies are the second category. These are licensed firms that operate in one metro or one state and live or die on local reputation. The best ones offer lower overhead, more personal account management, better guard consistency at a single site, and genuine local knowledge.
The trade-off is reach and bench depth. A local agency may not be able to cover you across multiple states, and a small agency can struggle to backfill quickly if a guard calls out and they do not have deep staffing. Quality also varies widely between agencies, so the burden of vetting (license status, insurance, training, references) falls on you. Doing that vetting well is the single highest-leverage thing a buyer can do; our guide on how to vet a security guard company walks through it.
3. On-demand marketplaces
The third category is newer: marketplaces that connect you with multiple licensed local agencies at once. Calvis sits here. Instead of signing with a single firm, you post your coverage need, receive bids or matches from pre-vetted licensed agencies, and book by the shift at a transparent published rate.
The advantage is that you get the local fit and competitive pricing of independent agencies, plus the bench depth and consistency tooling of a larger operation, without the long-term contract. The vetting that normally lands on the buyer is handled up front: agency licenses and individual guard credentials are verified against state databases before they appear, and re-verified on an ongoing basis. You see each guard's license status, training record, and GPS-verified patrol log in a dashboard. The trade-off is that a marketplace is best for businesses that value flexibility and want to compare options, rather than buyers who specifically want a single nationwide master services agreement and nothing else.
Securitas vs. on-demand: a side-by-side
The clearest way to see the difference is to line up the traditional national-firm model against the on-demand marketplace model on the factors buyers actually feel.
| Factor | Traditional national firm | On-demand marketplace (Calvis) |
|---|---|---|
| Contract | Annual or multi-year, minimum hours | Book by shift, no long-term commitment to start |
| Pricing | Bundled, quote-based, hard to compare | Flat published hourly rate, visible before you book |
| Time to first guard | Weeks (enterprise onboarding) | Same-day to next-day in covered metros |
| Agency choice | One firm | Multiple pre-vetted licensed agencies compete |
| Guard credentials | Provided on request | License, training, background check visible in dashboard |
| Coverage verification | Reports on request | GPS-verified patrol log per shift |
| Best fit | Large, stable, multi-state accounts | Single-site, flexible, seasonal, or short-notice needs |
A few notes on reading this fairly. The national-firm column is not a knock; for a national retailer that needs the same coverage model in 40 states under one contract, that structure is a feature, not a bug. The marketplace column is strongest when your schedule flexes, when you want to compare real prices, or when you need coverage faster than an enterprise sales cycle allows.
Compare published guard rates by city →
What an alternative actually costs
One of the biggest sources of frustration with traditional quotes is that the bill rate is invisible until you are deep in a sales process. On a published-rate marketplace, the numbers are out in the open before you commit.
On Calvis, unarmed static guards average around $29.60/hr, armed static guards around $38.21/hr, and armed officers with mobile patrol vehicle access around $59.68/hr. Those are flat, pay-for-hours-worked rates, not a starting point for a bundled quote. You can model a real budget before you talk to anyone.
That transparency is the practical difference. With a traditional firm you compare proposals; with a marketplace you compare prices. Neither is automatically better, but for buyers who have been burned by surprise line items, seeing the rate first removes a lot of risk. Our full breakdown lives on the security guard cost page, and you can see how rates move market to market in our cost-by-city guide.
It is worth being explicit on positioning: Calvis is a marketplace, not a security agency. It vets and matches independently licensed local agencies so you can compare qualified options in one place. The licensing always belongs to the agency and is verified against the state regulator. Calvis does not employ the guards; it connects you with agencies that do.
How to choose the right alternative for your business
The decision usually comes down to four questions.
How many sites and states do you cover? If the answer is dozens of sites across many states and you want one master contract, a large national firm (Securitas, Allied Universal, GardaWorld, or a comparable operator) is a legitimate fit. If you are one site, or a handful in one or two metros, a local agency or a marketplace will almost always serve you better and cost less.
How predictable is your schedule? Stable, year-round, identical-every-week coverage rewards a traditional contract with negotiated volume rates. Coverage that flexes (seasonal retail, event-driven, construction phases, periodic high-risk windows) is much cheaper and easier to manage on a book-by-shift model where you are not paying minimums during quiet stretches.
How fast do you need coverage? If you can plan weeks ahead, the enterprise route is workable. If you need a guard tomorrow, an on-demand marketplace or a responsive local agency is the realistic path. See our guide to same-day and emergency security for that scenario.
How much do you want to verify yourself? With a local agency, vetting is on you. With a marketplace, the license and credential checks are handled up front and visible in your dashboard. With a national firm, you trust the brand and the contract.
There is no single winner. A 200-store national chain and a single neighborhood dispensary should make different choices. The point of comparing alternatives is to match the model to your actual situation rather than defaulting to the biggest name.
When to skip the big firms entirely
For a large share of businesses (single-site retail, a bar or nightclub, a dispensary, a car dealership, a church, a construction site, a one-off event), the national-firm model is simply more vendor than the situation needs. You do not need a multi-state master services agreement to cover one lot overnight.
In those cases the fastest path is to compare a few pre-vetted licensed agencies on price and credentials and book the shift you need. That is exactly what an on-demand marketplace is built for, and it sidesteps the long contract, the bundled quote, and the multi-week onboarding entirely. You can hire security guards for a single shift, a weekend, a season, or an ongoing schedule, and scale up or down as your needs change.
If you are weighing specific competitors, our other comparisons go deeper: Calvis vs Allied Universal, Calvis vs Trackforce Valiant, and our buyer's guide to hiring security guards overall.