How our prices work

HomeCost shows what people actually paid for work on their homes, so you can tell whether a quote is fair. Here's exactly where the numbers come from.

Where prices come from

• Homeowners share what they paid, anonymously, using our share form.
• Verified customers share their price after leaving feedback for a local business that uses our review tools.
• Completed jobs: local trades who use our tools can log the price of a finished job, without any customer details.

Every price is labelled with its source on local price pages. We don't use quotes, adverts or estimates as "prices paid", and we never make figures up.

Advertised prices

Some pages also show prices that local businesses publish on their own websites, in a separate "advertise" section with a link to each source. These are what the business says it charges, not what anyone paid, so they are never included in our price figures. We check each one when we add it, but businesses change their prices, so always confirm before booking. If you run one of these businesses and want a price updated or removed, contact us.

How we check them

• Prices far outside what that job could realistically cost are rejected automatically.
• Prices well away from the local typical range are held for a manual check before they're included.
• We limit how many prices can be shared from one place, to stop anyone skewing the numbers.

How we show them

• We only show figures once there are at least 5 real prices. A town page uses prices from that town; until it has 5 of its own, it also includes real prices from towns within 15 miles, and says so on the page. A job page needs at least 5 prices across all areas.
• The typical price is the median: half of people paid less, half paid more. It isn't pulled about by one unusual job.
• "Most people paid" is the middle half of prices (the 25th to 75th percentile).
• We use prices from the last 3 years, rounded, and never show names, addresses or full postcodes.

What the prices can't tell you

Every home and every job is different. Size, access, materials and what's included all change the price. Use HomeCost as a guide alongside two or three written quotes, and always check a trade's insurance and any required registrations before work starts.

Paid listings

Trades can pay to be verified or featured in the directory. Featured listings are always labelled. Payments never affect the price data.