One of the first questions businesses ask when considering Cyber Essentials Plus is: “How much is this going to cost?” It is a perfectly reasonable question, but the answer is not as simple as a single number. The total cost of CE+ certification depends on several factors, including your organisation's size, the complexity of your IT environment, and how much preparation is needed before you are ready for the assessment.
This guide provides a transparent breakdown of the costs involved, explains what drives those costs, and helps you understand the return on investment that CE+ certification delivers.
The Cyber Essentials scheme, backed by the UK Government’s National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC), has grown significantly since its introduction in 2014. What began as a voluntary certification has become a de facto requirement for organisations handling government contracts, and an increasingly common expectation in private sector supply chains. As the scheme has evolved — with major updates to its requirements and assessment methodology — understanding the associated costs has become more important than ever for budget planning and stakeholder buy-in.
For many UK SMEs, the decision to pursue CE+ is not purely about security — it is a commercial decision. The certification opens doors to government contracts, satisfies supply chain requirements from larger clients, and demonstrates a verifiable commitment to cybersecurity that can differentiate your business in competitive tenders. Understanding the full cost picture, including both the direct certification expenses and the indirect costs of preparation, allows you to make an informed investment decision and present a compelling business case to your board or stakeholders.
Understanding the Cost Components
The total cost of achieving Cyber Essentials Plus certification is made up of several distinct components. Understanding each one helps you plan your budget and avoid surprises.
1. Basic Cyber Essentials Assessment Fee
Because Cyber Essentials Plus requires you to first hold a current basic Cyber Essentials certificate, the basic assessment fee is the starting point. Basic CE assessment fees are set by IASME and are based on organisation size:
| Organisation Size | Number of Employees | Basic CE Fee (Approx.) |
|---|---|---|
| Micro | 0 – 9 | £300 + VAT |
| Small | 10 – 49 | £300 + VAT |
| Medium | 50 – 249 | £400 + VAT |
| Large | 250+ | £500 + VAT |
Schedule your basic CE assessment and CE+ assessment with the same certification body whenever possible. Many certification bodies offer a bundled discount when you complete both assessments together, and it simplifies the administrative process. Some providers also offer a “fast-track” option where the basic CE and CE+ assessments are conducted back-to-back within the same week.
2. Cyber Essentials Plus Assessment Fee
The CE+ assessment fee covers the cost of the independent technical audit conducted by a qualified assessor. Unlike the basic CE fee, the CE+ assessment fee is not fixed — it varies by certification body and depends on the scope and complexity of your environment.
Factors that influence the CE+ assessment fee include:
Number of devices in scope: More devices means more testing time, which increases the fee.
Number of locations: Multi-site organisations require more assessment time, especially if the assessor needs to visit multiple locations.
Complexity of the IT environment: Organisations with complex network architectures, multiple cloud services, or hybrid environments typically face higher fees.
Remote vs on-site assessment: Some assessments can be conducted remotely, which may reduce costs. Others require on-site visits.
CE+ Assessment Fee Estimates by Organisation Size
It is worth noting that the CE+ assessment fee is a one-time cost per certification cycle, not an ongoing charge. However, because the assessment involves hands-on technical testing of your devices and configurations, the assessor needs sufficient time to thoroughly evaluate your environment. Cutting corners on the assessment — by choosing the cheapest provider without considering their thoroughness — can actually cost you more in the long run if issues are missed and you fail the assessment, requiring retesting at additional expense.
3. Preparation and Remediation Costs
This is often the largest variable cost component and the one that is hardest to predict without a gap assessment. Preparation costs depend entirely on the current state of your IT environment relative to the five Cyber Essentials technical controls.
If your organisation already has strong security practices — up-to-date systems, properly configured firewalls, anti-malware deployed, and good access controls — the preparation work may be minimal. If there are significant gaps, remediation could involve:
Software upgrades: Replacing end-of-life operating systems or applications (e.g., migrating from Windows 10 to Windows 11 before end of support, replacing legacy applications).
Hardware upgrades: Replacing network equipment with outdated firmware that can no longer be updated, or deploying new firewall appliances.
Consultancy and engineering time: If you work with a managed service provider for remediation, this will typically be charged as professional services time.
Software licences: Anti-malware licences, endpoint protection platforms, or MFA solutions if these are not already in place.
The chart above illustrates a typical first-year cost breakdown for a UK SME achieving CE+ certification. Remediation and preparation consistently represent the largest share of the total investment. This reinforces the importance of conducting a gap assessment early in the process — organisations with mature security practices often find that remediation costs are minimal, while those starting from a weaker baseline may need to budget significantly more for the preparation phase.
4. Ongoing and Renewal Costs
CE+ certification is valid for 12 months, so you will need to recertify annually. Renewal costs include:
Annual basic CE fee: The IASME assessment fee for basic Cyber Essentials (same as above).
Annual CE+ assessment fee: The independent technical audit fee for CE+.
Ongoing maintenance: The cost of maintaining your security controls throughout the year — patching, updating anti-malware, managing user accounts, and so on.
Renewal is typically less expensive than the first-year certification because the foundational work — implementing proper security controls, upgrading end-of-life systems, and establishing robust processes — has already been done. The ongoing cost of maintaining compliance is essentially the cost of good IT hygiene, which your organisation should be practising regardless of certification. Most organisations find that annual renewal costs are between 40% and 60% of their first-year expenditure, assuming no major changes to their IT environment.
Start planning your renewal three months before your certification expires. This gives you time to conduct an internal pre-assessment, address any gaps that have developed during the year, and schedule the formal assessment without rushing. Organisations that leave renewal to the last minute often face higher costs due to expedited assessment fees and emergency remediation work.
Total Cost Estimates
To give you a realistic picture, here are estimated total costs for first-year CE+ certification across different organisation sizes:
| Cost Component | Micro/Small | Medium | Large |
|---|---|---|---|
| Basic CE assessment | £300–£400 | £400–£500 | £500+ |
| CE+ assessment | £1,500–£2,500 | £3,000–£5,000 | £5,000–£10,000 |
| Preparation/remediation | £1,000–£3,000 | £3,000–£8,000 | £8,000–£20,000+ |
| Estimated total (Year 1) | £2,800–£5,900 | £6,400–£13,500 | £13,500–£30,500+ |
Certification Readiness Assessment
Before committing to the full CE+ certification process, it is valuable to assess your organisation’s readiness across the five technical control areas. The following scorecard reflects typical readiness levels for UK SMEs before they begin formal preparation. Understanding where you stand helps you estimate the remediation effort — and therefore the cost — required to reach certification standard.
As the scorecard illustrates, most UK SMEs score reasonably well on malware protection (since most already have anti-virus software installed) but often fall short on secure configuration, security update management, and cloud service configuration. These are the areas where remediation effort — and therefore cost — tends to concentrate. Organisations that invest in proactive IT management throughout the year typically score much higher across all categories, resulting in significantly lower certification costs.
The Return on Investment
While the costs are real, so is the return. Understanding the ROI of CE+ certification helps justify the investment to stakeholders and budget holders.
Revenue Protection and Growth
Government contracts: CE+ certification is mandatory or strongly preferred for a wide range of UK government contracts. The government spends approximately £49.7 billion annually with third-party suppliers. Without CE+, you are locked out of a significant portion of this market.
Private sector contracts: Large enterprises and prime contractors increasingly require CE+ from their supply chain. Each new contract won through CE+ certification contributes directly to revenue growth.
Competitive differentiation: In competitive tenders, CE+ can be the factor that tips the decision in your favour. The certification fee is negligible compared to the value of the contracts it helps you win.
CE+ Certified Organisation
Non-Certified Organisation
Cost Avoidance
Reduced breach risk: Implementing the five controls can prevent around 80% of common cyber attacks. The average cost of a cyber breach for a UK small business is £4,200 (DCMS Cyber Security Breaches Survey), but costs can escalate dramatically for more serious incidents — ransomware attacks, for example, can cost tens or hundreds of thousands of pounds.
Cyber insurance savings: Many insurers offer reduced premiums for CE+ certified organisations. Some provide free cyber liability insurance (up to £25,000) with basic Cyber Essentials certification through IASME. The premium savings alone can offset a significant portion of the certification cost.
Regulatory compliance: CE+ helps demonstrate compliance with data protection regulations including UK GDPR. Non-compliance with GDPR can result in fines of up to £17.5 million or 4% of annual global turnover — making the certification cost negligible in comparison.
Beyond the direct financial impact, there are significant intangible costs associated with a cyber breach that CE+ helps mitigate. Reputational damage can erode customer trust and take years to rebuild. Operational downtime during incident response diverts staff from productive work. The stress and disruption to employees — particularly in smaller organisations where a breach can feel existential — should not be underestimated. While these costs are harder to quantify, they are no less real, and they further strengthen the case for investment in CE+ certification.
Calculating Your ROI
Consider this simple calculation:
Value of one government contract won through CE+: £50,000 (conservative)
Cost of CE+ certification (Year 1, small business): £3,000–£5,000
Insurance premium reduction: £500–£1,500/year
Breach risk reduction value: £3,360/year (80% of £4,200 average breach cost)
Net first-year ROI: 10x to 20x the investment
This calculation is deliberately conservative. Many organisations win multiple contracts per year where CE+ was a deciding factor, and the value of those contracts often exceeds £50,000. The true ROI for most businesses is significantly higher than even our optimistic estimates suggest. Furthermore, the ROI improves each year as renewal costs are lower than first-year costs, while the commercial benefits — continued eligibility for government work, maintained supply chain compliance — remain constant.
How to Reduce Your Costs
There are several practical strategies for managing and reducing your CE+ certification costs:
Start with a gap assessment: Understanding your current position before committing to full remediation allows you to budget accurately and avoid unnecessary work.
Invest in security proactively: If you maintain good security practices year-round (regular patching, proper access controls, up-to-date anti-malware), the remediation component of CE+ preparation will be minimal.
Use a managed service provider: While there is a cost for professional services, an experienced CE+ partner like Cloudswitched can often achieve certification more efficiently than an in-house effort — especially if you factor in the opportunity cost of diverting your own staff from their core roles.
Bundle with ongoing IT support: If you already use a managed IT service provider, adding CE+ to your existing agreement can be more cost-effective than engaging a separate certification consultancy.
Plan ahead for renewal: Annual renewal is typically less expensive than the initial certification because much of the foundational work has already been done. Budget for this from the start.
Scope your environment carefully: Work with your assessor to define the scope of your assessment accurately. Including unnecessary devices or systems in scope increases testing time and cost. Conversely, excluding systems that should be in scope can lead to assessment failure. An experienced certification partner can help you define the optimal scope that meets the requirements without inflating costs.
Hidden Costs to Watch For
Be aware of potential costs that are sometimes overlooked:
Staff time: Even with a managed service, your team will need to invest some time in the process — providing access, answering questions, and coordinating with the assessor.
Retesting fees: If you fail the CE+ assessment and need to be retested, there may be additional fees. Working with an experienced partner who runs pre-assessment testing dramatically reduces this risk.
Infrastructure upgrades: If your gap assessment reveals that hardware or software needs to be replaced (e.g., end-of-life servers, unsupported routers), these capital costs can be significant but would likely be necessary regardless of CE+ certification.
Process changes: Implementing proper access controls, patching processes, and security monitoring may require changes to how your team works. While these changes are beneficial, they do require investment in training and process development.
Shadow IT: One of the most common hidden costs emerges during the scoping phase when previously unknown devices, applications, or cloud services are discovered within the organisation. Staff may be using personal devices for work, accessing cloud storage services that IT is unaware of, or running software that has not been approved. Bringing these shadow IT elements into scope — or properly excluding them — can require additional assessment time and remediation effort. Conducting a thorough asset inventory before beginning the certification process helps surface these issues early, when they are cheaper and easier to address.
Ask your certification body about their retesting policy before you commit. Some bodies include one free retest within a defined period, while others charge full assessment fees for each attempt. Understanding this upfront helps you assess the true risk-adjusted cost. Working with an experienced partner who conducts pre-assessment testing reduces the likelihood of failure to near zero.
Cloudswitched: Transparent, Managed Pricing
At Cloudswitched, we believe in transparent pricing for our Cyber Essentials Plus service. We provide a clear quote after conducting an initial gap assessment, so you know exactly what to expect before committing to the full certification process.
Our fully managed service includes gap assessment, preparation and remediation across all five controls, licensing and registration, pre-assessment vulnerability testing, examination coordination, and ongoing support — all for a single, predictable fee. No hidden charges, no surprise invoices.
We have guided hundreds of UK organisations through the CE+ certification process, from micro businesses with fewer than ten employees to large enterprises with complex multi-site environments. Our experience means we can accurately predict costs, identify the most efficient path to certification, and handle the entire process end-to-end while your team focuses on running the business. We also provide ongoing support after certification, helping you maintain compliance throughout the year so that renewal is straightforward and cost-effective.
The cost of Cyber Essentials Plus certification is an investment, not an expense. When measured against the contracts it unlocks, the breaches it prevents, and the competitive advantage it provides, the return on investment is compelling for businesses of every size. The question is not whether you can afford to get certified — it is whether you can afford not to.
Get Certified with Confidence
Cloudswitched handles your entire Cyber Essentials Plus certification end-to-end — from gap assessment through remediation to successful certification. Transparent pricing, no hidden costs, and expert guidance every step of the way.
CloudSwitched
London-based managed IT services provider offering support, cloud solutions and cybersecurity for SMEs.
