In 2008, the installed costs of sprinkler systems ranged from US$0.31 – $3.66 per square foot, depending on type and location. Residential systems, installed at the time of initial home construction and utilizing municipal water supplies, average about US$0.35/square foot. 
Systems can be installed during initial construction, or retrofitted. Some communities have laws requiring residential sprinkler systems, especially where large municipal hydrant water supplies ("fire flows") are not available. Nationwide in the United States, one and two-family homes generally do not require fire sprinkler systems, although the overwhelming loss of life due to fires occurs in these spaces. Residential sprinkler systems are inexpensive (about the same per square foot as carpeting or floor tiling), but require larger water supply piping than is normally installed in homes, so retrofitting is usually cost prohibitive.
According to the National Fire Protection Association (NFPA), fires in hotels with sprinklers averaged 78% less damage than fires in hotels without them (1983–1987). The NFPA says the average loss per fire in buildings with sprinklers was $2,300, compared to an average loss of $10,300 in unsprinklered buildings. However, in a purely economic comparison, this is not a complete picture; the total costs of fitting, and the costs arising from non-fire triggered release must be factored.
The NFPA states that it "has no record of a fire killing more than two people in a completely sprinklered building where a sprinkler system was properly operating, except in an explosion or flash fire or where industrial fire brigade members or employees were killed during fire suppression operations." Elsewhere it has stated, "NFPA has no record of a multiple fatality in a fully sprinklered building where the system operated."
The world's largest fire sprinkler manufacturer is the Fire Protection Products division of Tyco International.