Pricing
To become a Certified B Corporation eligible companies must submit their B Impact Assessment, paying a submission and verification fee during the certification process, and then paying an annual fee as a member of the B Corp community.
Why do we charge for certification?
With urgent challenges facing our world, your contribution is vital to make business a force for good. Certification fees help sustain our work and accelerate change towards a better future for people and the planet.
B Lab has introduced new pricing to keep up with growing demand and momentum of the movement while maintaining the rigour of our verification process and evolving our standards.
The pricing below reflects our new fees for companies submitting their assessment from 1st July 2024. For existing B Corps, there are no planned changes to fees at this time.
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Submission fee
Once your assessment is submitted, a one-off tiered submission fee is payable. This covers the cost of a high-level review of the company’s assessment prior to verification and ensures the company’s commitment to the certification process.
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Verification fee
From 1st July 2024, a one-off tiered verification fee is payable prior to the company having their assessment verified. This fee enables B Lab to keep up with growing demand and momentum of the movement, while maintaining the rigour of our verification process and evolving our standards.
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Annual fee
For B Corps, annual fees are based on a company’s total revenue on the last set of audited accounts.
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Pending B Corp fee
For companies applying for Pending B Corp status, a one-time fee of £500 (+ VAT) is payable, which covers the 12-month period. Other fees are not related to this status.
Where do your fees go?
Fees for B Corp Certification enable B Lab to continuously improve business standards, fund community engagement and advocacy efforts, all working towards driving positive systemic change.
- Engagement: B Corp community engagement activities and event coordination.
- Communications: Delivery of marketing campaigns and ongoing internal and external communications.
- Evaluation & Verification: Local and global analysts reviewing each company’s assessment.
- Standards, tech and accountability: Continuing to develop the standards so that they remain fit for purpose for the future, the tech products that go alongside those standards, and the accountability mechanisms to ensure companies meet them.
- Policy and campaigning: Developing and delivering advocacy work such as the Better Business Act to drive the widespread adoption of stakeholder governance at scale.
- Governance: Management, finance and governance costs.
- Growth and training: Activities to attract and support and develop new B Corps and B Leaders.
- Operating expenses: The day-to-day costs of doing business.
Ensuring price increases are accessible for small businesses
We know price changes can impact smaller businesses the most. B Lab has been historically charging less than the true cost for a small company's certification, recognising the important role they have played to drive early adoption of B Corp Certification. As the movement continues to grow, we must cover our costs earlier on in the process for the movement to remain financially viable.
However, while we have introduced a verification fee, we have again subsidised the true cost of this verification for the smallest companies wanting to join our community. In this way, and alongside our new equity pricing, we are continuing to ensure the B Corp movement remains a home for diverse businesses of all shapes and sizes.
Equity pricing
We’re committed to building a diverse community of businesses while ensuring our movement remains inclusive and accessible. From 1st July 2024, we are introducing new equity pricing to UK entrepreneurs facing systemic barriers to business ownership.
This means equity pricing (a 40% reduction in annual fees) will now be applied each year to all B Corps that are:
- <£5m annual revenue; and
- >50% ownership:
- People of colour and underrepresented ethnicities
- Women-owned
- LGBTQ-owned
- Disabled person owned
This is an evolution of our previous equity pricing and means more businesses will be eligible and remain eligible. It will be applied automatically but there is an opportunity to opt-out.
*For all newly certified and current B Corps that meet this criteria, the pricing will be automatically applied.
*Please note that all pricing and fee reductions are subject to change.
