Kavorly
Guide · Getting certified
How much does ISO certification cost, and how long does it take?
Two honest answers up front. Cost isn't one number — it's two very different costs that people often blur together. And timeline is usually months to about a year, but the length has almost nothing to do with how quickly you can book an auditor. Here's how both really work, so you can budget for the real thing rather than a made-up average.
The two costs people mix up
When someone asks "what does ISO certification cost?", they're usually asking about one thing but need to plan for two:
- The certification body's fees. This is what you pay an accredited body to audit you — an initial assessment, then ongoing checks (more on the cycle below). It varies with your size, your scope, how many standards you're certifying, and which body you use. There is no universal figure, and anyone quoting you a flat "typical package" price without knowing your organisation is guessing. Get quotes from two or three UKAS-accredited bodies — accreditation matters, because non-accredited certificates are often not accepted by the customers you're certifying for.
- The cost of running the management system. This is mostly your own people's time — writing and maintaining documents, running internal audits and management reviews, gathering evidence, closing actions. It's usually the larger, ongoing cost, and it's the one you actually control. Our free cost-to-run tool estimates this half from your own numbers — nothing is sent to us.
Why the distinction matters for budgeting. The audit fee is visible and quoted; the internal-time cost is invisible and usually bigger. Teams that only budget for the audit fee are surprised by the real expense — the hours their people spend keeping the system going, especially if that work is crammed into a scramble before each visit.
The certification cycle — what you're paying for over three years
Certification isn't a one-off purchase; it's a cycle:
- Initial certification — a Stage 1 review (are you ready?) followed by a Stage 2 audit (the main assessment of your system in operation).
- Annual surveillance audits — the body returns, usually each year, to confirm the system is still running and improving.
- Recertification — a fuller audit roughly every three years to renew the certificate.
So when you budget, budget for the cycle — the initial audit plus recurring surveillance and, every third year, recertification — not a single upfront number.
Why it takes months, not weeks
You can book an audit quickly. What you can't do quickly is manufacture a history of the system operating — and that history is exactly what an auditor comes to see. They'll expect documented processes, at least one internal audit and one management review actually carried out, and corrective actions worked through to closure. Those things take time to accumulate because they're meant to reflect real activity, not a document written the night before. That's why the honest timeline is a few months to about a year — and why starting before you urgently need the certificate (for a tender, say) is both faster in practice and far calmer. If a tender is what's driving this, this guide covers where ISO shows up in bids →
What drives the cost up or down
- Size and headcount — bigger organisations take longer to audit.
- Sites and scope — more locations and a wider certificate scope cost more.
- Number of standards — certifying several as one integrated management system is markedly cheaper than running three separate ones.
- How much system already exists — building from scratch costs more time than formalising what you already do.
- Consultant or in-house — external help speeds things up but adds fees; doing it in-house saves fees but costs your time.
- Scramble vs continuous — the single biggest controllable factor. Rebuilding evidence before each audit is expensive in people's time; keeping it current as you work is not.
How to get a number you can actually stand behind
- Confirm the standard and scope you actually need — often driven by a specific customer or tender requirement.
- Get quotes from two or three UKAS-accredited certification bodies for that scope.
- Estimate your internal time separately — the cost-to-run tool is a starting point.
- Decide build-it-yourself vs consultant, and factor the trade-off of fees against time.
Where Kavorly fits
Kavorly can't change what a certification body charges — but it targets the bigger, controllable half: the cost of running the system. By keeping the management system live and the evidence current as you work, it removes the expensive pre-audit scramble and the reconstruction that eats your people's time year after year — so the ongoing cost of certification is lower and more predictable.
This guide is a general introduction to the costs and timeline of certification, not a quote or certification advice. Actual fees and durations vary by organisation, scope and certification body — always get quotes from accredited bodies for your specific situation.