No more guessing about our quotes. The starting cost for data recovery is £250 + VAT. Your exact price is fixed in writing after a complimentary diagnostics process. In most cases you only pay if we recover your data. Below is information that will help explain exactly what each different type of job costs. It also explains what can increase your costs as well as provide some tips to help keep those costs down.
You are provided with a written confirmation of price after completing the complimentary diagnostic, prior to beginning work on your case.
Faulty hard drives of the same nature cost the same regardless of the drive’s capacity; what influences cost is how the product has failed and its complexity in being repaired.
When dealing with logical problems such as deleting files, file corruption, or losing a partition, this type of work involves software fixes. Therefore, these fixes tend to be less costly compared to physical issues such as failing heads, dead boards, and even repairing damage at the NAND level. This requires replacement components (i.e., donor parts) as well as additional time to physically restore the damaged area. For example, replacing a head or board may require additional costs for this component alone.
Single flash memory sticks or cards fall into the lowest cost category followed by individual hard drives or solid state disks/laptops and then follow larger scale systems such as multiple disk RAID/NAS/server configurations. Each disk within a multi-disk configuration must be individually copied (imaged) and reconstructed as an operational RAID system.
As mentioned above, pricing for RAID/NAS/SAN configurations depend upon several factors including the number of disks in the configuration, the RAID level used in the original build, and whether there was a failed rebuild or controller failure that has confused the original configuration we must now recreate.
Some physical recoveries require purchasing a matching donor part for both heads and/or boards which is included in your quoted price. Additionally, because of this, when you agree to proceed with drive-level repairs, you will be asked to pay a 50% deposit prior to beginning work.
Initial prices based on job types (excluding VAT). Your price will be provided in writing after completing the complimentary diagnostic process.
Where the prices start for each device type, and what you can expect to recover. Click through for details and how much each device will cost.
Never gamble on a phone estimate when recovering data. All of our pricing is structured so you are fully aware of where you stand; therefore we offer a free diagnostic in writing. This will normally occur within 48 hours, and this is used to determine what has failed, and what is recoverable. From here you receive a fixed price in writing (NOT a starting price, nor a “from £x”, etc.) and no further work occurs until you have approved the written quotation. With most jobs, if we cannot recover your data, you do not incur the recovery fee. There are only three exceptions to this rule. These include: forensic data recovery; physical drive level repairs; CCTV/DVR recovery. As these services require significant amounts of specialist time whether successful or unsuccessful, they require a 50% deposit upfront, and the balance of payment will only become due upon successful completion of your job.
A headline figure of “data recovery from £49” will nearly always increase when the faulty device is physically opened. The cheaper number initially attracts you into their service and then the true cost becomes apparent. In addition, using a low-cost service who open a failed drive, or run software applications on failing hardware may cause irreparable damage to the data prior to your specialist seeing it. Therefore, the price that matters is the fixed price in writing that you agree to prior to commencement of any work on your failed device. Ultimately, the value lies in ensuring the correct recovery process takes place during the initial attempt at recovering your data, since attempting to recover data for a second time from a failed device is often unsuccessful. This is why we diagnose for free, quote in writing and recover everything in-house without outsourcing.
The pricing questions we are most frequently asked.
Prices start at £250 + VAT for memory card and USB stick recoveries and single hard drive, SSD, laptop, and Mac recoveries (£300 + VAT), then from £500 + VAT for RAID and NAS recoveries, and from £1,250 + VAT for SAN and enterprise storage recoveries. The price you will be charged is set out clearly in a written quotation following our free assessment/evaluation.
No. Our charges relate to the type of recovery required and the amount of technical work involved in recovering your data. For example, both a 500 GB drive and a 4 TB drive may require the same level of repair/recovery work, therefore the price would remain the same regardless of the size of the drives.
No. All prices exclude VAT. VAT is applied at the normal UK rate and this figure is included in the written quotation you receive prior to deciding upon any course of action.
Yes. We will carry out an evaluation of your device(s) free of charge. This is usually done within 48 hours and we will provide you with detailed information regarding what has gone wrong with your device(s), what can be recovered, and the fixed cost of that recovery. There are no obligations to proceed with any work.
In most cases it is the complexity and nature of the failure. Are the failures logical (e.g. deleted files, corruption, a failed array configuration etc.) or physical (e.g. failed heads, a dead board, NAND-level work)? If the failures are logical, we typically use existing tools to perform the recovery. However, if the failures are physical we typically have to purchase matched donor components, and the technician working on your case will have to spend a lot of time on the “bench”, therefore these types of recoveries tend to be more expensive, and involve a 50% deposit towards our costs.
On all but those jobs that fall under the categories of physical drive level repairs, CCTV/DVR recovery and forensic recovery, if we fail to recover your data you will not be charged for our time and efforts in attempting to recover your data. In these exception cases, due to the amount of specialised expertise involved in attempting such recoveries, regardless of whether or not successful in recovering your data, we require a 50% deposit up front towards our efforts.
The price remains the same as for any other individual hard drive (£300 + VAT). However, since we perform a free assessment/diagnostic test on your device(s) prior to beginning work, in most cases you only pay if we recover your data. In addition to this, faults in enclosures or their USB bridges are dealt with during this same job at no additional charge. Also, when purchasing replacement parts for your devices (donor parts), you will be required to make a 50% deposit towards parts and/or labour involved in repairing your devices.
Only you set the prices for the photos, the accounts or the project folder, but the question doesn’t have to be answered in darkness. The diagnostic is complimentary, provides a written quote as well as an honest recoverability verdict, so you decide with real numbers right in front of you; and since in most cases you only pay if we recover your data, there’s no charge if the attempt at recovery fails. With irreplaceable data, one professional attempt will almost always be worth far more than the value of that lost device.
Begin with a free written diagnostic and we will clearly identify what is recoverable and at what cost, so you have all the time you need to decide whether you would like us to proceed with the recovery of your data. Drop your device off in Bristol during our working hours, or post it to us fully insured.