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Pricing · published rates

What data recovery costs.

Published rather than quoted case by case, so you can check ours against anyone else’s. Four things set the price and the amount of data is not one of them — recovering 40GB and 4TB from the same failed drive is the same work.

Free diagnostic in 48 hours
A written quote, fixed
No fix, no fee · most jobs
// starting prices

From £250 + VAT.

The precise figure lands in writing once the free diagnostic is finished — and never ahead of it. Every price on this page excludes VAT.

£250
Cards & USB
£300
Single drives
£500
RAID & NAS, from
£1,250
SAN, from
48 hr
Free diagnostic
No fix
No fee, most jobs
// what sets the price

Fault class. Not the value of the data.

Three things determine what a recovery costs, and how much you want the files back is not one of them.

ClassWhat is involvedFrom
LogicalDeletion, format, partition, file system Imaging plus analysis. No parts, no clean-air time. The cheapest class and the one most often attemptable yourself on a healthy disk. £250 / £300
ElectronicDead board, surge, no power Adaptive ROM transferred to a matched replacement board, then imaged. The disk itself is usually untouched. £300
FirmwareSpins but reports nonsense Vendor-mode access to repair the modules the drive loads at start-up. No physical damage and no software route. £300
MechanicalHeads, motor, platters Clean-air work and donor parts. Costs commit at the start, which is why this class carries a deposit. £300
ArrayRAID, NAS, server, SAN Every member imaged individually, then geometry derived and the volume reconstructed. More work and more elapsed time. £500
// our prices

Published, so they can be compared.

Cards and USB media from £250 +VAT. A single drive, SSD or external from £300 +VAT. RAID, NAS and server work from £500 +VAT. Enterprise storage quoted individually after diagnostic.

Every figure is fixed in writing after the free 48-hour diagnostic and does not move afterwards. No percentage of the data, no hourly rate, nothing charged for looking, and on the majority of jobs nothing at all if the recovery fails.

// what to be wary of

Four pricing practices worth questioning.

01 / PERCENTAGE OF VALUE

A conflict of interest

Charging a share of what is recovered gives a laboratory a direct stake in what your data is worth, and in you believing recovery is possible. A fixed fee has neither.

02 / ESTIMATES THAT MOVE

Not really a quote

A figure that can rise once the drive is open is an opening position. Ask specifically what happens if the job turns out harder than expected.

03 / THE VERY LOW QUOTE

Sometimes a lead generator

A number well below the ranges above may belong to a firm that will subcontract the actual work and add a margin, or that quotes low and revises later.

04 / NO STATED LIMITS

The revealing question

Ask what they cannot recover. A laboratory with no ready answer has either not done enough of this or would rather not tell you.

// questions

Cost, answered.

Partly fault class, which is legitimate. Partly business model — percentage pricing and open-ended estimates produce figures that bear little relation to the work involved.

It should be on most jobs. Where clean-air work or donor parts are needed those costs commit at the start, so a deposit is reasonable — but you should be told before agreeing, not after.

Not here. The price is set by fault class at diagnostic and is identical whether the drive holds holiday photographs or a company's accounts.

Yes, and it includes a written account of what failed and what we expect to recover. If the answer is that it is not worth attempting, you get that instead of a quotation and there is nothing to pay.

On a healthy drive, possibly, and it may save you the fee entirely. On a drive making any noise, no. Ring and ask — we will tell you which situation you are in at no charge.

For established businesses, yes, with purchase orders raised before work begins.