Prices for lie detector testing in the UK vary more than almost any comparable professional service, because the industry is unregulated and there is no standard pricing. This guide covers what tests typically cost by case type, where the money actually goes, the surcharges that quietly inflate a quote, why suspiciously cheap tests are usually exactly that, and what a complete professional price should include.
A single-issue private examination on one person typically costs between £400 and £700 across the UK market. Because the industry is unregulated - there is no licensing body and no pricing standard - two providers can quote wildly different figures for the same job, and both can be operating exactly as they intend. The spread reflects genuine differences in what is included, and some differences in nothing at all.
Case type moves the price predictably. Testing two people on the same matter - the classic both sides of an infidelity dispute booking - usually costs materially more than a single test, though less than double, since the consultation work overlaps. Workplace and corporate matters involving several employees are typically priced per subject with a day-rate structure, and complex investigations with bespoke question development sit at the top of the market. Urgent same-day and next-day appointments command a premium everywhere, for the obvious reason that they displace everything else in an examiner’s diary.
Geography matters less than people expect. A genuinely mobile national provider prices the country evenly, because the examiner travels as a matter of routine; it is the local single-examiner outfits whose quotes swing with distance. If a quote climbs steeply the moment you mention your town, you are paying for someone’s reluctance to drive, not for a better examination.
It is worth understanding what you are actually buying, because it explains both the fair price and the cheap-test problem. A professional examination consumes most of a working day: travel to you, a pre-test consultation of an hour or so in which the issue is defined and every question agreed word for word, the structured testing session itself, a debrief, then analysis and the writing of a proper report. Add the equipment, insurance, venue costs where needed and the administration around booking and confidentiality, and the honest cost floor becomes obvious.
The consultation deserves special emphasis because it is the part cheap providers cut first and the part your result depends on most. Reliability lives in question design - single-issue scope, concrete wording, no ambiguity for anyone to hide in - and question design takes unhurried time with a skilled examiner. A test priced as if the whole visit takes ninety minutes is telling you, arithmetically, that this stage will be rushed.
The report is the other commonly shaved corner. A verbal on the day result costs a provider nothing; a written certificate setting out the questions, method, finding and its limits takes real time to produce - and is the only part of the service that still exists a week later. When you compare quotes, you are largely comparing how much consultation and how much documentation each price actually contains.
Reading about testing only gets you so far. A professional lie detector test - at home or a discreet local venue anywhere in the UK, with a written results certificate - gets you the answer itself. Same-day and next-day appointments available.
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The advertised price is not always the price you pay, and the surcharge patterns repeat across the industry. Common additions include: home visit fees, sometimes framed as mileage; evening and weekend premiums; venue hire passed to the client when testing away from home; charges per additional question beyond an arbitrary allowance; per-subject charges that surface only after a couples booking is half-arranged; and separate fees for the written report - the practice that most reliably identifies a provider to avoid, since a result you cannot show anyone is barely a result.
Retest pricing deserves particular attention before you book, not after. Stress-based tests produce a meaningful rate of inconclusive outcomes - charts that support no confident finding - and most providers charge again for the retest. Ask directly: what happens to my money if the result is inconclusive? The answer, and the comfort with which it is given, tells you a great deal.
The single question that cuts through all of it: what is the total, on the day, for my exact situation - travel, venue, everyone being tested, the report, everything? A professional answers in one sentence with one number. Hesitation, itemised hedging or we will confirm on the day are all the same answer wearing different clothes.
Tests advertised far below the market floor deserve real suspicion, and the arithmetic explains why. If a proper examination consumes most of a day of a trained professional’s time plus travel and equipment, a £200 price is only possible by removing hours from the service - which means a token consultation, improvised questions, a compressed testing phase, no meaningful report, or an examiner without meaningful training. None of those cuts shows on the website; every one of them shows in the reliability of your result.
There is a second-order cost, too. A cheap test that produces a wrong or worthless answer is not a £200 loss - it is whatever you then do on the strength of it. People end relationships, sack employees and tear up family relations over test results. The cost of the test is trivial next to the cost of a wrong answer confidently acted upon, which is the real quantity a professional fee is protecting.
None of this means expensive automatically equals good - the industry contains overpriced mediocrity as well. It means price is a signal to interrogate rather than a ranking to obey: at any price point, the questions that matter are the ones this guide keeps returning to. Single issue? Questions agreed in advance? Documented method? Written report included? Total price stated up front? Those five answers are worth more than the number on the invoice.
Our professional lie detector tests start from £499, and the quote is complete: examiner travel anywhere in the UK, a home visit or a discreet local venue arranged for you, the full consultation and structured examination, and the written results certificate. Urgent same-day and next-day appointments are available at a clear fixed price agreed before you book, couples and multi-subject bookings are priced up front, and nothing is added on the day. Flexible payment options, including deposits for advance bookings, are shown at checkout.
We publish the pricing philosophy as plainly as the price: you are buying a documented answer, so everything the answer depends on - the consultation, the protocol, the report - is inside the fee rather than sold back to you in pieces. And one caution that applies wherever you book, including with us: a wrong answer is expensive at any price. Judge every provider on discipline first and price second; the £50 differences between quotes are noise next to the difference between a rigorous examination and a rushed one. The booking page carries current prices for every service, visible before you commit to anything.
The admissibility rules on this page, applied: voluntary written invitations, HR advice first, and a test used as one strand of a documented investigation - never the verdict. How one employer cleared three staff and found the answer lawfully.
Read the case study
Most private tests are never meant for a courtroom - they are meant to settle a question between two people. How an accused partner volunteered, agreed the questions in advance, and ended a two-month argument in ninety minutes.
Read the case study
When the police cannot attribute shared access and solicitors only harden positions, a symmetrical pair of tests - identical scope, results shared simultaneously - resolved what two years of letters could not.
Read the case studyAll three, with full detail on how each test was structured: browse the polygraph case studies.
Short answers to the follow-up questions people ask next.
You have the facts - what you came for is the answer to your own situation. Professional lie detector testing across the whole of the UK, with same-day and next-day appointments and a written results certificate with every test.
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