How much does a client portal cost in the UK?

If you are trying to put a figure in a budget paper, “it depends” is not much help. So this guide gives real numbers, explains what moves them, and shows how to turn an estimate into a fixed price.

The short answer

We publish our prices, so here they are as one reference point:

Portal Starter, from £9,500. Secure sign-in, two user roles (for example staff and client), one main type of record with search, document upload, email notifications, an admin dashboard, data protection export and delete tools, automated tests and a staging site. About six weeks.
Portal Core, from £18,000. Up to four roles, workflows and approvals, card payments or one connection to another system, reports, an audit log and moving your existing records across. About ten weeks.
Larger internal systems with several modules and integrations are quoted after a paid discovery.

Other suppliers will price differently. Larger agencies with account managers and project managers will usually cost more; a freelancer or a no-code build may cost less. What matters is comparing like with like, which the rest of this guide helps with.

What you are actually paying for

A portal looks simple from the outside: a login and a few pages. The cost sits in the parts you do not see.

Sign-in and permissions. Who can see what, and making sure a client can never see another client’s records. This needs to be right on day one and tested every time the system changes.
Records and workflows. The cases, applications, jobs or orders the portal exists to manage, and the steps they move through.
Documents. Uploading, storing, scanning file types and controlling who can download what.
Notifications. Emails when something needs attention, which must reach the inbox rather than the spam folder.
Data protection. Exporting or deleting a person’s data on request, and keeping personal data out of places it should not be.
Testing and release. Automated tests and a staging site, so changes do not break what already works.

What moves the price

Two portals with the same number of screens can differ a great deal in cost. These are the usual reasons:

The number of user roles. Each role is a different view of the same data, with its own rules. Staff, client and admin is very different from staff, client, manager, auditor, finance and partner.
Connections to other systems. Linking to an accounting package, a CRM or a school’s management information system means working with someone else’s API, its limits and its quirks.
Payments. Taking money means refunds, failed payments, receipts and reconciliation. Charities add Gift Aid.
Existing data. Moving 500 tidy rows is quick. Moving 5,000 rows from several spreadsheets with different column names, duplicates and missing values is a project in itself.
Reporting. A few fixed reports are straightforward. Reports that users can filter and export in many ways are not.
Sensitive data. Children’s data, health information or financial records need more care in design, testing and documentation.
How settled the process is. If staff do the same task three different ways, someone has to decide which way the system will support before anyone builds it.

The running costs people forget

The build is not the whole cost. Plan for:

Hosting and database. Usually modest for a small portal, and best kept in accounts in your own organisation’s name so you can see the bills.
Email sending and file storage, which are charged by the provider and grow with use.
Care and maintenance. Security updates, backups that are tested, monitoring and small fixes. Our care plans for portals are £249 or £549 a month, with included hours.
Changes. Once people use a portal, they ask for improvements. That is a good sign, and it needs a budget.

Off the shelf, no-code or bespoke?

An off-the-shelf portal product is the cheapest way to start if your process matches how the product works. Check the price per user per month as you grow, and whether you can get your data out.

A no-code builder can produce a working portal quickly. It suits simple, low-risk processes. Watch for limits on permissions, data volume and per-user pricing.

A bespoke portal costs more up front. It makes sense when your process is what makes your organisation work, when off-the-shelf tools need so many workarounds that staff stop using them, or when you want to own the system outright.

A good supplier will tell you when you do not need bespoke software. If they never say it, be wary.

How to get a fixed price you can rely on

Any honest quote for a portal depends on understanding the work first. That is why we start larger portals with a Discovery Sprint (£2,400, two weeks): a map of the process and data, prioritised requirements, the technical approach, a data protection note, clickable wireframes of the key screens and a fixed price for the build. £1,000 is credited against the build if you go ahead within 30 days, and the pack is yours either way.

Whoever you talk to, ask:

Is the price fixed, and what exactly does it include and exclude?
How are changes priced?
Who owns the code and the hosting accounts when it is finished?
What does it cost to run and maintain each month?
Who will actually build it, and who do I call when it breaks?

Prices in this guide do not include VAT. Tibyan Labs is not registered for VAT, so none is added at present.