When hiring a private investigator (PI), one common concern would be the cost. There are certain fixed ways of charging for private investigation services and costs will be calculated on a case by case basis. It may depend on factors such as the number of investigators needed, hours and frequency of research and/or surveillances required to obtain sufficient and accurate evidence and the amount of information the client is able to provide the PI regarding the person of interest (POI).
It is usually tough to gauge the costs of hiring a PI, since the results are never guaranteed – in some cases, the required evidence can only be obtained through illegal means which is not within the PI’s control. Having said that, the more information you provide to your investigator, the better chance they have of getting the timely evidence that is needed.
How will you be charged for private investigation services?
- Most of the time, investigations are charged hourly based on the PI’s estimation of the amount of time needed and the client’s budget. Rates can range from $40 – $100 per hour depending on the agency hired as well as the type of investigation, i.e. cyber investigation, employee background check, catching a cheating spouse etc. as certain services may require more demanding expertise.In the case whereby you require and/or prefer to engage the PI for a larger number of hours, be sure to check if your agency offers a reduced hourly rate, especially if your investigation requires surveillance. Also, if your budget permits, you may want to pay for more hours to get more accurate evidence that confirms a trend.
- Prior to the start of the investigation, you may be asked to place a down-payment to confirm that you will be going ahead with the engaged service(s). This depends on the service(s) that you require and is mostly calculated as a percentage of the total fee.
- During the course of the investigation, there might be other expenses incurred by the investigators which may contribute to the final cost covered by you. Some examples of such expenses include:
- Drive time or mileage
- Amount of time and distance travelled when the PI was following the POI.
- Tolls
- Any road tolls that the PI had to pay during the investigation, e.g. Electronic Road Pricing (ERP) in Singapore.
- Air tickets
- For investigations that are to be held overseas, you will have to bear the cost of the plane tickets of all the investigators who are involved.
- Accommodation costs
- Should a PI be required to stay at a location overnight to better facilitate the surveillances, you will have to bear the cost of the hotel fees as well.
- Court appearances
- In the case whereby your PI has to testify in court, most of the time, they will charge for their time.
- Miscellaneous costs
- Lastly, your PI may charge for any miscellaneous costs for things like administrative matters.
Hourly
Deposit
Possible extra charges
Why choose Apex Detectives?
One-stop provider for all private investigation services
At Apex Investigations, we provide you with a myriad of private investigation services ranging from finding a mission person to overseas marriage investigations. With our strong familiarity with evidence requirements and witness testimonies in court, we strive to offer our expertise to aid you in this journey.
Right tools
With the many services that Apex Investigations provides, they are coupled with the most advanced and suitable tools to get the job done as efficiently as possible. Other than deploying GPS tracking tools, we also have a certified Cyber Investigations Department to extract any communication data such as SMS messages and photos. On top of that, for cross-border projects, the many global partnerships that we have established will definitely help in the investigation.
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