What Does Electrical Certification Software Cost?

Certification software is sold in several ways in the UK, and the price on a website tells you little about what you’ll pay over a year. Two products advertised at similar figures can cost you hundreds apart depending on how many certificates you produce and how many people need access.

This covers the pricing models you’ll come across, what each one costs you over a year, and how to work out which suits the way you work.

Per certificate

You pay for each certificate you produce. Some scheme tools work this way, often bundled with your registration so there’s no separate software purchase.

The appeal is that a quiet month costs almost nothing. There’s nothing to pay upfront and no fixed cost when work is thin.

The thing to work out is your busy months. Per-certificate pricing follows your workload, so the cost rises in the weeks you’re already stretched. A contractor producing thirty certificates in March pays six times what they paid in a quiet January.

One of our customers, Alan Smith of Alan Smith & Sons in Coventry, said:

“I pay a yearly fee, whereas some companies charge per certificate. With those companies, if you’re doing 200 certificates a year, you’re paying 200 separate charges.”

If your volume is low and steady, per certificate can be the cheapest option on this list. Work out your annual number before deciding.

Monthly subscription

A fixed fee per month, usually with unlimited certificates. Cancel and you stop paying, though you may also stop having access to the certificates you produced.

It suits businesses that want a small regular outgoing rather than a lump sum, and teams that change size through the year.

Two things to check. How additional users are charged, because the structures vary a lot. Some products charge full price per person, some add a smaller monthly fee for each extra engineer, some include office staff at no cost, and some offer a flat rate covering unlimited engineers. A small per-user fee adds up once you multiply it across the team and the year. Seven pounds a month across four extra engineers is over three hundred pounds a year.

The second is what happens to your certificate history if you stop paying. That matters more than it sounds when you need to produce a report from three years ago.

AI credits and usage-based charges

A newer model, usually layered on top of a subscription rather than replacing it. The software includes an allowance of credits or tokens each month, and AI features consume them as you work.

What consumes a credit varies by product. It might be a circuit imported from a photo, an observation the AI drafts, or a check it runs against your values. Some products let unused credits roll over, and additional credits are usually sold at a small unit price.

Two things worth working out. What a typical certificate costs you in credits, since a full EICR with a dozen circuits uses considerably more than a Minor Works. And which features draw on them, because if the regulation checking is metered, the cost scales with how much checking you want doing.

For most single-engineer workloads a monthly allowance will cover it. The picture changes with volume, so ask what happens when you go over and what the unit price is.

Upfront licence

You buy the software once and own that version. No compulsory renewal.

It suits contractors who want the cost dealt with in one go and are comfortable staying on the version they bought.

Two things usually sit alongside the licence fee. Updates and support are often sold as an optional annual package, and while it’s optional in name, it’s what keeps you current when BS 7671 changes. Ask what a major amendment costs if you’re not on the package.

Licences are also frequently tied to one computer, with a mobile or tablet version sold separately. If you want the software on a laptop in the van and a desktop in the office, that’s two purchases rather than one.

Annual licence

A flat yearly fee, usually with unlimited certificates. You know at the start of the year what the software costs you by the end of it.

It suits anyone whose volume varies, and teams where several engineers need the same software. The cost doesn’t move when March is busy.

The thing to check is what’s counted. Some annual licences are per engineer, some cover a team, some charge extra for additional certificate types or reports. The figure only means something once you know how many licences you need.

This is the model we use for Shine Forms. Unlimited certificates, a flat annual cost, regulation updates included, and no metered charges for the checking.

Working out your own number

Five things to establish before comparing anything.

Your annual certificate volume. Not your best month multiplied by twelve. Look at last year properly.

How many people need access. Per-user pricing changes the picture completely for a team of four, and it’s the figure most often left out of the comparison.

Which certificate types you produce. If you work under BS 5839 or BS 5266 as well as BS 7671, check whether those cost extra or come as standard.

Whether anything is metered. If AI features draw on credits, work out roughly what a normal week uses.

What’s separate. Support, updates, additional reports, mobile versions, cloud storage. These show up as add-ons often enough to be worth asking about directly. Then run your numbers against each model rather than comparing advertised prices. A per-certificate product and an annual licence can’t be compared any other way, and neither can a monthly figure that turns out to be per person.

What free usually means

Free certification software exists, though it’s rarely free across a whole year. Scheme tools are often free at the point of use with per-certificate charges layered on. Free tiers of subscription products may not let you produce a finished PDF. Trials are free for a period of time. Templates and spreadsheets cost nothing and produce nothing an assessor will accept

We’ve covered that properly in Is There Free Electrical Certificate Software?

Before you commit

Take a trial and produce a certificate on it. Price is the easiest thing to compare and the least useful on its own, because software that takes you an extra twenty minutes per certificate costs you more than the licence fee ever will.

Our 30-day trial is fully functional with no feature gating. Current pricing is on our pricing page.

For the wider set of questions, How to Choose Electrical Certification Software works through what else to check.