§ 01
Forensic collection
Charged per device, per custodian or by the hour, typically £150 to £300 per hour of examiner time, with a device minimum. Covers imaging, verification, chain-of-custody documentation and the collection statement.
§ Commercial · Cost guide · Reviewed September 2026
What eDiscovery actually costs in the UK.
UK eDisclosure (US: eDiscovery) is priced on four units: forensic collection by the hour or device, processing per gigabyte, hosting per gigabyte per month, and professional or expert time by the hour. This page sets out the models, indicative ranges, the drivers that move a bill, and worked examples, so a budget can be built before a single document is collected.
- Processing
- £20 to £75 / GB
- Hosting
- £5 to £25 / GB / month
- Typical cull
- 60% to 95%
- Scoping call
- Not charged
Ref · E-D · 2026 · §CSTClass · ConfidentialJuris · England & WalesStatus · Active
Plate · Cost§ 01 · Audience
Who this page is for.
Anyone who has to put a number in front of a client, a partner or a finance director before disclosure starts.
- Litigation partners
Building a costs budget for a Precedent H or a client estimate.
- In-house counsel
Setting an investigation budget before external counsel is instructed.
- Procurement
Comparing quotations on like-for-like units.
- Case managers
Forecasting spend across the life of a matter.
§ 02 · The problem
Why quotations are so hard to compare.
The numbers are rarely wrong. They are usually measuring different things.
Risk
The gigabyte is not standard
One provider measures data as collected, another after containers and archives are expanded, a third after de-duplication. The same dataset can be billed as 40 GB, 90 GB or 25 GB without anyone being dishonest.
Risk
Hosting is a recurring cost
Processing is charged once. Hosting is charged every month until the matter closes. On a two-year dispute, hosting frequently exceeds processing several times over.
Risk
Review is often left out
Technology costs are quoted; the human hours that dominate the bill are quoted separately or not at all. Ask for the fully loaded figure.
Risk
Minimums and pass-throughs
Monthly minimums, user licence fees, project-management uplifts and technology pass-throughs can add a quarter to a bill that looked competitive on unit price.
§ 03 · Scope
The four pricing models, and what each covers.
Nearly every UK quotation is a combination of these four.
§ 02
Processing and early case assessment
Charged per gigabyte ingested, commonly £20 to £75 per GB with volume tiers. Covers extraction, de-duplication, indexing, filtering, threading and near-duplicate analysis before review.
§ 03
Hosted review
Charged per gigabyte per month, commonly £5 to £25 per GB per month, sometimes with per-user licence fees. Covers the review platform, UK data residency, security and support for the life of the matter.
§ 04
Professional and expert time
Consultant, project management, review and expert witness hours. Expert reports under CPR Part 35 are frequently fixed-fee once scope is agreed; court attendance is charged by the day.
§ 04 · Why e‑discovery.uk
Three worked examples.
Indicative only, at 2026 rates, excluding VAT. Every matter is scoped and quoted in writing before work starts.
Employment tribunal, one custodian
One laptop and one mobile, roughly 8 GB collected, culled to 1.2 GB for review. Collection and imaging, processing, three months of hosting and a short review: typically £3,000 to £7,000 in total.
Commercial dispute, eight custodians
Microsoft 365 mailboxes, Teams, OneDrive and two mobiles, roughly 240 GB collected, culled to 34 GB. Collection, processing, twelve months of hosting, threading, technology-assisted review and a production: typically £35,000 to £75,000 depending on the review model.
Regulatory response, compressed deadline
Twenty custodians, mixed sources, 900 GB collected, statutory deadline of four weeks. Parallel collection teams, priority processing, continuous review and a staged production: six figures, with the premium attributable to the timetable rather than the volume.
Expert report only
A CPR Part 35 report on a defined question, for example whether files were exfiltrated before a resignation: commonly £2,500 to £8,000 fixed, plus conference and court attendance.
§ 05 · Typical matters
What the rules say about proportionality.
Cost is not just a commercial question in England and Wales. It is a procedural one.
- ▸CPR Part 31 and Practice Direction 57AD both require a search for documents to be reasonable and proportionate to the issues in the case.
- ▸PD 57AD requires the parties to complete a Disclosure Review Document, including an estimate of the costs of each Extended Disclosure model proposed.
- ▸The court may order a party to bear costs caused by a disproportionate or inadequate search, so an early, defensible cull is a costs strategy as well as a technical one.
- ▸Costs budgeting under CPR Part 3 means the disclosure figure is often fixed long before the volume is known, which is why sampling before the budget is filed is worth the fee.
- ▸CPR Part 35 requires an expert's fees to be proportionate; a defined-scope fixed fee is usually easier to justify than an open hourly retainer.
§ 06 · Deliverables
What you get from us before any money is committed.
All of the following are free and usually delivered within one working day.
- Scoping call
Thirty minutes with the practitioner who would run the matter, not an account manager.
- Written estimate
Itemised by unit, with the assumptions and the volume definition stated in plain terms.
- Cull forecast
Where a sample is available, a forecast of the review volume after de-duplication, threading and filtering.
- Budget schedule
A month-by-month hosting profile so the recurring cost is visible from the start, not discovered later.
§ 07 · Frequently asked
Answers to the questions counsel ask most.
- How much does eDiscovery cost in the UK?
- Most UK eDisclosure (US: eDiscovery) work is priced on four units: forensic collection charged by the hour or by device, processing charged per gigabyte ingested, hosting charged per gigabyte per month, and professional or expert time charged by the hour. For a single-custodian employment matter of a few gigabytes, total spend is usually in the low thousands of pounds. A multi-custodian commercial dispute running to several hundred gigabytes typically runs into the tens of thousands once review is included. Review labour, not technology, is normally the largest single line.
- What is a typical per-GB processing and hosting rate in the UK?
- Published UK market ranges sit at roughly £20 to £75 per gigabyte for processing, and roughly £5 to £25 per gigabyte per month for hosted review, with volume tiers reducing the unit price substantially above a few hundred gigabytes. Rates vary with the platform, the level of support included, whether the data is kept in the UK, and whether analytics and technology-assisted review are bundled or charged separately. Always ask whether the quoted gigabyte is measured before or after expansion of containers and archives, because that single definition can double a bill.
- How is a digital forensics expert witness charged in England and Wales?
- Expert work is charged by the hour or on a fixed fee for a defined deliverable, with separate rates for examination, report writing, conference and court attendance, plus travel and waiting time. A CPR Part 35 report on a defined question is often quoted as a fixed fee once the scope is agreed. Legally aided work is charged at the prescribed rates. We give a written fee estimate before work starts and flag any change in scope before it affects the estimate.
- Which factors drive eDiscovery cost the most?
- Volume after de-duplication, the number of custodians, the number of distinct data sources, the proportion of chat and mobile data, the need for forensic imaging rather than logical collection, foreign language content, redaction volume, the review model chosen, and the deadline. Compressed timetables cost more because they require parallel working. Early scoping and sampling is the cheapest hour anyone spends on a matter.
- How can we reduce the cost of disclosure?
- Narrow custodians and date ranges before collection, agree search terms and a Disclosure Review Document with the other side early, de-duplicate across custodians rather than within, use email threading and near-duplicate grouping to cut the review set, apply technology-assisted review where the volume justifies it, and host only what survives the cull. A disciplined cull typically removes between 60% and 95% of collected volume before a reviewer sees a document.
- Do you charge for scoping or an initial call?
- No. Scoping calls, indicative estimates and cull forecasts are free. We would rather spend an unbilled hour getting the scope right than bill for a collection that was never proportionate.
- Is a fixed fee possible?
- For defined deliverables, yes: forensic imaging of a known device set, a single-custodian collection, an expert report on a defined question, or a production to an agreed specification. For end-to-end disclosure of an unscoped dataset a fixed fee is only responsible after a sample has been processed, because nobody can price an unknown volume honestly.
- How does UK pricing compare with US pricing?
- The units are the same, the labels differ. US providers quote per-GB processing and per-GB-per-month hosting in dollars, and often bundle project management. UK pricing is typically more itemised. Cross-border matters should be priced in one currency with one set of units to avoid double-charging for the same processing pass.
§ 08 · Related pages
Related reading
Choosing a provider →
The six criteria that differentiate UK providers, and how to test them.
UK and US glossary →
Every term used on this page, defined in both vocabularies.
PD 57AD in practice →
Disclosure models, the DRD and the technology questions.
Get a written estimate →
Tell us the sources and the timetable; we respond the same working day.
Instruct the practice
Bring us in early.
Defensibility is built, not retrofitted.
Whether you are responding to a regulator, preparing for disclosure, or scoping an internal investigation, start the chain of custody with a short, confidential conversation.