Price an EICR by estimating the hours it will take and multiplying by a rate that covers your costs, not by matching the lowest figure on a comparison site. The hours come from the circuit count: roughly 50 to 85 minutes of fixed time per board, 8 to 17 minutes per circuit and 20 to 45 minutes for the inspection walk-round, so a labelled ten-circuit house is about three and a half hours on site before the report is written. Quote one figure per property with a stated circuit allowance, keep remedial work separate, and put the scope in writing. Published UK price guides in 2026 differ by almost two to one for the same house, which is exactly why you need your own method rather than a market rate.
- Estimate the hours first (boards, circuits, walk-round, report, travel), then multiply by an hourly rate built from your real costs and the billable hours you actually achieve.
- Quote per property with a circuit allowance and a stated add-on rate for extra circuits and boards, rather than a raw per-circuit price.
- Keep the report and the remedials separate. Include only trivial on-the-day repairs, record them, and certificate them where they qualify.
- A low lead-generation price is recovered on remedial work or by cutting the inspection short. The liability stays with the person who signs the report.
- Agent and social-landlord volume deals work when the discount is traded for grouped bookings, guaranteed access and prompt payment, and the autumn 2026 social-housing deadline is a real source of grouped work.
What drives the time an EICR takes?
An EICR under Chapter 65 of BS 7671:2018+A4:2026 has to include a detailed inspection of the installation and enough testing from Chapter 64 to establish its condition, and the report must record the extent and limitations of what was done. The pricing question is therefore how long that will take, and five things decide it.
| Factor | Effect on time | What to ask before quoting |
|---|---|---|
| Number of circuits | The largest single driver. Each circuit needs continuity, insulation resistance, polarity, Zs and (where fitted) the RCD test from Regulation 643.8, plus its inspection items | How many ways on the board? Ask for a photo of the consumer unit |
| Number of distribution boards | Each board adds Ze or Zdb, prospective fault current, a schedule page and a sub-main to trace | How many boards, and where are they? |
| Age of the installation | Older boards have no circuit chart, rewireable fuses, mixed cable colours and undocumented alterations; every circuit has to be identified from scratch | Roughly when was it wired or last rewired? |
| Access | Occupied property, furniture over sockets, locked rooms, loft hatches, tenants who need notice | Is it occupied? Who gives access? Can furniture be moved? |
| Type of premises | Commercial and HMO work adds three-phase boards, fire alarm and emergency lighting supplies, and sampling decisions that must be recorded | Domestic, HMO, shop, office, industrial? |
The stage times that add up in practice are set out in How Long Does an EICR Take: 50 to 85 minutes of fixed time per installation (arrival, supply characteristics, Ze, PFC, board inspection, main bonding), 8 to 17 minutes per circuit for the dead and live tests and the schedule entry, and 20 to 45 minutes walking the property for the schedule of inspections. A labelled ten-circuit house comes out at around three and a half hours on site, with a realistic floor of two and a half hours; a typical three-bed is two and a half to four hours. An unlabelled 1970s board with rewireable fuses and an uncertificated loft conversion can double that, because every circuit has to be identified before it can be tested. The full sequence is in How to Do an EICR Step by Step.
What do people forget to price?
Site time is only one part of the job. Add travel in both directions. Add report writing and checking, which on a poor installation takes longer than the testing: fifteen observations with regulation references, photographs and a coded outcome is an hour or two at the desk, and the wording has to stand up if a council or a scheme assessor reads it (see How to Write EICR Observations). Add customer communication: the explanation of the outcome, the chase for access, and for a private landlord in England the written report they must supply to the tenant within 28 days and to the council within 7 days of a request under the Electrical Safety Standards in the Private Rented Sector and Social Rented Sector (England) Regulations 2020.
Then add the overheads that are spread across every report you issue: scheme registration, calibration, public liability and professional indemnity insurance, the vehicle, software and your own training. A quote that only covers the hours on site is a quote for a loss.
How do I build an hourly rate?
Your hourly rate is your annual costs plus the pay you need, divided by the hours you can actually bill. Most sole traders bill far fewer hours than they work; quoting, travel, admin and chasing payment are unpaid.
| Line | Illustrative sole trader | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Scheme registration | £575 | NICEIC Domestic Installer renewal, single payment, 2026/27 ex VAT |
| Calibration, test leads, consumables | Your figure | Annual calibration of the instrument plus leads and probes |
| Insurance | Your figure | Public liability; professional indemnity if you do periodic inspection as an Approved Contractor |
| Vehicle | Your figure | Finance or depreciation, fuel, insurance, maintenance |
| Software, phone, accountancy | Your figure | Certification software is a small line: Certio Starter is £4.99 a month, Pro £9.99 |
| Target pay | Your figure | What you need to take home, plus pension and holiday |
| Billable hours | 1,100–1,300 | A 46-week year at 40 hours is 1,840 hours; most sole traders bill 60–70% of them |
Worked example, purely to show the arithmetic: £18,000 of overheads plus £45,000 of target pay is £63,000; over 1,200 billable hours that is £52.50 an hour before any margin. That is consistent with the £45 to £60 an hour Checkatrade reported for UK electricians in its May 2026 cost guide, and with Logic4training's 2026 survey average of £38 an hour, which includes employed and part-time rates at the low end. Use your own numbers. A firm with an office and a van fleet will land higher; a semi-retired inspector with no vehicle costs may land lower and still be profitable.
Should I price per circuit or per property?
| Structure | How it works | Advantages | Drawbacks |
|---|---|---|---|
| Per circuit | A base fee for the visit and the origin tests, plus a rate for each circuit | Transparent; scales with the work; easy for commercial customers to compare | Customers argue about what counts (a spur? a disconnected circuit?); hard to quote without seeing the board |
| Per property with a circuit allowance | One figure for a standard one-board property up to, say, twelve circuits; extra circuits and boards priced as add-ons | Simple to sell; landlords and agents like a single number; you control the scope | Needs a clear cap and a stated add-on rate, or a big property swallows your margin |
| Per bedroom | A price list by bedrooms, as the consumer sites publish | Matches what customers expect to see | Bedrooms are a poor proxy for circuits; a four-bed 1980s house may have six circuits and a two-bed refurbished flat sixteen |
The method that works for most small contractors is to estimate by time, then present a per-property figure with a stated allowance: "based on one consumer unit and up to twelve circuits; additional circuits and boards charged at [your rate]". You then have a written basis for adjusting it when the "twelve circuits" turns out to be two boards and twenty-two ways. The national booking platforms work the same way behind their bedroom tables: one 2026 price list charges £35 per additional circuit and £55 per additional consumer unit on top of its headline figures.
A worked pricing method
- Get the facts: a photo of the consumer unit, the approximate age, the property type and whether it is occupied.
- Estimate site hours: fixed time per board, per-circuit time, walk-round. Lower end for a labelled twelve-way board with the owner present, upper end for an unlabelled board in a tenanted flat.
- Add report and admin time: under an hour on a sound installation, two on one with fifteen observations.
- Add travel.
- Multiply the total hours by your hourly rate from the table above.
- Add a margin for the risk you carry: an EICR is a professional opinion you sign, and a missed C1 is your liability.
- Round to a figure that is easy to say, with the allowance stated.
Put numbers on it for a labelled ten-circuit three-bed with the owner at home: 3.5 hours on site, 0.75 hours on the report, 0.5 hours travel is 4.75 hours. At £52.50 an hour that is about £250, and with a modest margin a quote of £275 to £300 ex VAT. Do the calculation once and you have a rate card. Do not look up "the going rate" and copy it: regional variation is real, overheads differ enormously between a sole trader and a firm with an office, and a figure that lets someone else break even may not let you.
What are customers being told an EICR costs in 2026?
You will be compared against published figures, so it helps to know what they say and how far apart they are. All of these are consumer-facing guides; none of them is a trade survey of what inspectors actually charge.
| Source (date checked 15 October 2026) | 1-bed flat | 3-bed house | 5-bed house | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Fantastic Services cost guide, updated 24 September 2026 | £120–£170 outside London; £180–£250 London and South East | £180–£280; £250–£350 | £300–£400; £380–£500 | States London and the South East run 15–30% above the North, Wales and Scotland |
| Housekeep cost guide, May 2026 | £70–£120 outside London; £80–£180 London | £100–£160; £100–£220 | £140–£250; £140–£300 | Quoted inclusive of VAT; "based on industry experience" |
| Logic4training day-rate survey, updated June 2026 | — | "from around £250" | — | Trade training provider; also reports a £312 average day rate |
| Fergus commercial EICR guide, 4 May 2026 | Small office or retail unit up to 10 circuits: £250–£450 | Medium premises 10–30 circuits: £400–£800 | Large office 30+ circuits: £800–£2,000+ | London and major cities 20–40% above the national average |
The spread tells its own story. A three-bed at £100 including VAT is £83 ex VAT; at a £50 hourly rate that buys 1 hour 40 minutes for travel, inspection, testing and the report together. A three-bed at £280 buys five and a half hours, which is roughly what the stage times above add up to. When a customer waves the low figure at you, the honest answer is that the two prices are not for the same job, and the written scope is what lets them see it. The same applies to commercial work, where the circuit count and sampling decisions dominate: see EICR for Commercial Premises.
What should the price include and exclude?
Write the scope down. A customer who thinks they bought "an electrical certificate" needs to understand what that does and does not involve.
Include: inspection and testing from the origin to the accessible final circuits following Chapter 65 and IET Guidance Note 3; the completed EICR with schedule of inspections, schedule of test results and numbered observations on the current model form; and a short explanation of the outcome and what needs doing by when. On the BS 7671:2018+A4:2026 model EICR the C3 and FI codes are advisory and the report carries a date by which the installation should be further inspected and tested, so your explanation should cover the next-inspection date as well as the codes.
Exclude, and say so:
- Remedial work. Every C1, C2 and FI item is quoted separately once the report is written. Combining the two invites the accusation that you found defects to sell work, and makes your price impossible to compare fairly.
- Making safe beyond the immediate. A C1 must be made safe or reported in writing on the day, but re-terminating a burnt shower isolator is remedial work.
- Access problems. Areas that cannot be reached are recorded as limitations, and a return visit is chargeable. Agree the limitations before you start, as explained in EICR Sampling and Limitations.
- Certificates for other systems: fire alarm, emergency lighting, portable appliance testing, gas.
Minor repairs on the day
Some jobs take less time to do than to write up: a loose faceplate, a missing blank. Fix them on the day as goodwill or for a token charge, record them on the report as work done at the time of inspection, and issue a Minor Works Certificate where the work qualifies, as set out in Minor Works Certificate: When to Use It. Anything that changes a circuit's protective device, adds a circuit or involves a consumer unit is a separate job with its own certificate and its own price.
Why is cheap lead-generation pricing a trap?
Comparison sites and national booking platforms publish EICR prices below the time cost of a compliant inspection. The model is one of three things: the platform takes a fee and the electrician makes it back on remedial work; the inspection is shortened to a sample of circuits and a look at the board; or the electrician does not yet know what the job costs. The first two produce reports a scheme assessor or council enforcement officer would not accept, and the inspector who signed remains liable for the opinion given.
The IET's EngX forum has a long-running thread on exactly this, in which one contractor describes a London firm doing council flats at around £50 plus VAT each, with results copied from the first flat to the rest and testers getting through ten to fifteen flats a day. Nobody in the thread thought that was an inspection. A full inspection at a price below your hourly cost is paid for by every other customer, or by cutting corners. Decline the lead-gen work, publish your own scope clearly and let the customer compare like with like. A landlord who has had one report rejected by a council for missing test results is a receptive audience.
There is also a qualification point that affects who can do this work at all. From 1 October 2026 the Electrotechnical Assessment Specification requires every person carrying out periodic inspection for a registered business, including subcontractors, to hold the Level 3 periodic inspection award (City & Guilds 2391-51 or 2391-52 or equivalent) with two years' experience and current CPD. A firm that subcontracts EICRs to unqualified labour to hit a low price now has an assessment problem as well as a liability one; the detail is in How to Become NICEIC Registered.
How should I price landlord and letting agent volume work?
Agents and portfolio landlords have been the largest buyers of EICRs in England since the 2020 Regulations made the five-yearly report mandatory for private tenancies. They want a rate card, predictable invoices and no surprises.
| What the agent wants | What to offer | What to ask in return |
|---|---|---|
| One price for "a standard EICR" | A base price for one board up to a stated number of circuits | A defined add-on rate for extra circuits and boards |
| A discount for volume | A modest reduction on the base price | Grouped bookings in one area on one day; a minimum number of properties per month |
| Fast turnaround | Report delivered same day or next day | Guaranteed access arranged by the agent with the tenant, and a call-out charge for no access |
| Remedials handled | A separate remedial rate card and a fast quote | Authority to proceed up to an agreed value without a further sign-off |
| 30-day terms | Agreed in writing with a late-payment clause | Statutory interest at 8% over base rate under the Late Payment of Commercial Debts (Interest) Act 1998 for business customers |
A volume discount is worth giving only when the volume reduces your cost. Four flats in one block on one morning save three journeys; four flats spread across a month and forty miles do not. Write the conditions down, including what happens when a tenant does not answer the door.
The social rented sector is the new volume market. The 2025 amending regulations brought social landlords in England into the 2020 Regulations from 1 November 2025: tenancies granted on or after 1 December 2025 need an in-date EICR before they start, and existing tenancies must have their first report by 1 November 2026. Housing associations and councils are tendering blocks of near-identical flats against that date, and the maximum penalty for a landlord in breach is now £40,000 per breach. Grouped, repetitive work on one site is exactly where a per-property rate with a circuit allowance earns its keep; the regulations and dates are in Landlord EICR Regulations England and the intervals in How Often Is an EICR Required. HMOs carry their own frequency and licensing conditions, covered in EICR for HMOs.
When describing the value to an agent, three points land: the report satisfies the regulations, the council and the insurer; it protects the landlord from a penalty of up to £40,000; and a cheap report that codes everything C3 to avoid an unsatisfactory result does not discharge the duty.
VAT, payment terms and getting paid
Periodic inspection is standard-rated at 20%. If you are not VAT registered your price is a fifth lower to a private landlord who cannot reclaim it, which is a real advantage until your taxable turnover passes the £90,000 registration threshold in any rolling twelve months (the threshold has stood at £90,000 since April 2024; the deregistration threshold is £88,000). Consumer price guides mostly quote inclusive figures, so compare like with like when a customer quotes one at you.
State your terms on the quote and the invoice: payment on delivery of the report for private customers, 14 or 30 days for agents and businesses. NICEIC's position is that a certificate or report should not be withheld as a lever for payment once the work is done, so the lever is the terms, not the paperwork; invoicing mechanics, deposits and late-payment interest are in Electrician Invoicing and Quoting Basics.
How Certio helps
Certio produces the EICR, EIC, Minor Works certificate and PAT records on the BS 7671 model forms and turns them into branded PDFs. Photograph the consumer unit and the circuit schedule drafts itself; point the phone camera at a Megger MFT-X1 and the reading goes straight into the schedule of test results, or dictate it while your hands stay on the probes. Suggested observation wording with the regulation reference is there for you to check and confirm. The judgement stays yours; the typing goes. Starter is £4.99 a month, charged when you sign up.