What national brands charge

Installed permanent lighting from the major dealer-network brands typically runs $25–$45 per linear foot in the Denver metro, depending on the brand, your roofline complexity, and the installer. Most also charge separately for the controller — commonly $650–$850 on top of the per-foot price. A typical street-facing install lands between $3,000 and $6,000, with whole-home projects going well beyond that.

What drives the price

• Linear feet of roofline — the biggest factor by far. Walk your home's perimeter for a rough proxy.
• Stories — second- and third-story work adds lift time and safety overhead. We publish ours: +12% for two stories, +22% for three.
• Extras — traced downspouts, soffit accent runs, and landscape spotlights add length or flat fees.
• The controller — ask every bidder whether it's included. It often isn't.

What Shyney charges

Our rates are published: professional installation runs $26–$30 per linear foot ($3,000 minimum) with the weatherproof control box and app setup included — no controller fee. DIY kits, pre-cut and powder-coated to your fascia color, run $16–$20 per foot ($1,200 minimum) with free shipping. 0% financing is available on qualifying installs.

You don't need to talk to anyone to get your number: the instant estimator on this site takes four questions and returns a real dollar range calculated from your roofline. If you'd rather compare us against specific brands first, see our comparison pages — we name the rows where competitors win, too.

The reported numbers

• Installed price: roughly $25–$35 per linear foot in most markets, trending higher ($30–$48) in high-labor-cost regions.
• Controller: commonly quoted at $650–$850 in addition to the per-foot price.
• Typical project: $3,000–$6,000 for street-facing sides; averages around $4,600.
• Payment: dealers commonly ask for half down to schedule, half on completion.

None of that is unreasonable for the category — but you can't verify it for your own home without a sales visit, and the controller line item surprises a lot of buyers.

The transparent alternative

Shyney publishes its rates: $26–$30 per foot professionally installed with the controller and app setup included, or $16–$20 per foot as a DIY kit shipped nationwide — an option JellyFish doesn't offer. Story surcharges and add-on pricing are published too, and the on-site estimator turns your roofline measurements into a dollar range in about a minute.

Price isn't the whole decision: JellyFish has the larger track record and a mature app ecosystem, while Shyney's hardware leads on white-light quality (true RGBW) and sealing (IP68), with double the labor coverage on our own installs (2 years vs 1). We keep an honest line-by-line comparison — including the rows JellyFish wins — on our Shyney vs JellyFish page.

What review boards look at

• Daytime visibility — can you see the hardware from the street? This is the make-or-break item.
• Permanence — some covenants distinguish seasonal decorations from permanent fixtures; permanent lighting typically falls under architectural change requests.
• Light behavior — a few communities add rules about animation or brightness hours, easily satisfied with schedules.

This is where track color-matching does the heavy lifting. Shyney track is powder-coated to your fascia color from an 18-color RAL palette (or custom-matched), so the daytime answer to "what will it look like?" is: like your house. Submitting a photo of an installed color-matched track with your request usually settles the discussion.

How to submit a clean request

• Pull your HOA's architectural change form and the exterior-lighting section of the covenants.
• Attach product photos showing the track color-matched to a fascia, plus your chosen RAL color.
• Note that the system is UL/cUL listed, low-voltage, and fully sealed (IP68).
• Offer a schedule commitment — e.g. accent scenes off at 11pm — if your covenants mention light hours.

We'll happily provide spec sheets and product photos for your submission — just ask when you get your quote. Single-family installs in most Front Range jurisdictions don't require a permit, either.

DIY makes sense when…

• Your roofline is mostly single-story and walkable with a standard ladder.
• You're comfortable driving screws into fascia and routing a low-voltage wire to an outlet.
• You want the lowest cost per foot — $16–$20 versus $26–$30 installed.
• You're outside Colorado: kits ship nationwide; our crews don't.

Shyney kits arrive with track pre-cut to your measurements and powder-coated to your fascia color, with the control box, hardware, and a step-by-step guide. Most single-story homes are a one-weekend job for two people.

Book the crew when…

• You have second- or third-story rooflines, steep pitches, or complex gables.
• You want the 2-year labor coverage on top of the 5-year parts warranty.
• You'd rather it simply be done — pro installs typically finish in a day.
• You want 0% financing, which applies to qualifying professional installs.

Either way the hardware is identical — same RGBW LEDs, same IP68 sealing, same app. Run the estimator with both options toggled and compare your actual numbers; the gap is usually the honest tiebreaker.

What the W changes

RGBW fixtures add a fourth, dedicated white diode with an actual phosphor — the same technology as a quality white bulb. When you ask for warm white, the white diode produces it directly; the color diodes stay out of the way (or blend in for tints). The difference is most visible in the everyday use case: a soft architectural glow that looks like it was designed with the house, not projected onto it.

How the brands stack up

Among the major players, JellyFish Lighting, Trimlight, and most others are RGB systems. Gemstone Lights uses RGBWW (dedicated warm and cool whites) — genuinely good white output. Shyney uses RGBW: a dedicated white diode in every fixture, plus 16 million colors when you want them.

If you're comparison shopping, make every bidder answer one question in writing: does your fixture contain a dedicated white diode? It's the one-letter difference you'll look at every single night for 20 years.