Business owners tend to guess in one of two directions: either “a camera in each corner” or “one over the till should do it”. Both usually miss. The right number comes from listing what you need to see, then working out how many views it takes to see it clearly. Here’s how we do that on a site visit, and what it typically adds up to.

Start With the Views, Not the Count

Write down the things a camera has to capture. For most small businesses that list looks like: every entrance and exit at face height, the point of sale, the cash office or safe, the stock room or receiving door, the customer floor, the parking area, and any spot where cash, keys or high-value inventory sits. Each of those is at least one view. A single wide camera can sometimes cover two, but only if both are close and you don’t need faces from either.

Identification vs. Overview

This is the concept that changes the count. An overview camera shows you what happened: someone walked in, went to aisle three, left. An identification camera shows you who: a face clear enough to hand to police. Entrances need identification shots, mounted at roughly head height and facing the door. The sales floor can be overview. If you try to do both with one camera up in a corner, you’ll get neither. We explain this further in where to place security cameras.

Typical Counts by Business Type

From Ottawa jobs, these are common ranges. A small retail store or convenience store: 6 to 10 cameras (entrances, till, aisles, back door, stock room, exterior). A restaurant or café: 6 to 12 (front door, till, dining room, kitchen entry, back door, patio, staff area at the door only). A small office: 4 to 8 (reception, entrances, server or file room, parking). A warehouse or contractor’s yard: 8 to 16, mostly exterior and loading areas, often with one licence-plate camera at the gate. A dental or medical clinic: 4 to 8, focused on entrances, reception and after-hours access, never treatment rooms.

The Spots People Forget

The back door is the most common gap; it’s where deliveries, staff and, unfortunately, most internal losses happen. The second is the exterior view of the front door from outside, which catches faces before they’re hidden by a hood or a mask. Third is the parking lot or plate at the entrance, which is what actually helps after a break-in or a hit-and-run. If the budget forces cuts, cut interior overview cameras before you cut any of those three.

Plan for Growth

NVRs come in 4, 8, 16 and 32-channel sizes. If you’re at 7 cameras today, an 8-channel recorder leaves you exactly one spare. We’ll usually recommend the next size up so adding a camera later is a cable run, not a new recorder. The same goes for the PoE switch and the hard drive; sizing those right the first time is far cheaper than replacing them.

Want a camera count for your business without the guesswork? Call 613-691-1091 or request a free site assessment. If you also need background music, a boardroom display or a full AV system, our recommended partner avgeeks.ca is who we send people to.