Certification process
Fees & certification cycle
We do not publish a price list, because an honest one is impossible — your cost is driven by audit days, and audit days are calculated from your organisation. What we can publish is exactly how that calculation works.
Certification cost is dominated by audit days, and audit days are not a commercial variable. They are calculated under IAF MD 5, which maps effective headcount and the risk category of your activity to a minimum number of days. A certification body that offers you fewer days than the calculation requires is either misapplying the rule or operating without accreditation.
What determines your audit days
- Effective number of personnel, including part-time, shift and contract staff, adjusted per the rules
- Risk category of your activity — a chemical plant and a design consultancy are not equivalent
- Number of sites and whether multi-site sampling is permitted for your scheme
- Complexity of processes, including whether design and development is in scope
- Number of standards being audited, with permitted reductions for integrated systems
- Maturity of the system, where permitted reductions apply
What your quotation includes
- Stage 1 and Stage 2 audit days for the initial certification
- Certification decision and certificate issue
- Both surveillance audits across the three-year cycle
- The recertification audit at the end of the cycle
- Listing on our public certified-client directory
- Reasonable travel and accommodation, quoted separately and at cost
Additional costs that may apply
- Follow-up visits where a major nonconformity requires on-site verification
- Special audits following a significant change to scope, sites or legal entity
- Scope extension audits where you add standards or activities mid-cycle
- Reinstatement audits following a suspension
- Transfer audits where certification moves from another certification body
Ask for the calculation
Every GMSCPL quotation shows the audit-day calculation that produced it: effective headcount, risk category, site count, and any permitted reductions applied.
You are entitled to see this from any certification body. A body that will not show you the calculation is either not performing it or not performing it correctly.
Compare the three-year total, not the first invoice
Surveillance audits at twelve and twenty-four months and the recertification audit at the end of the cycle are all mandatory. A quotation that covers only the initial certification is not a cheaper certification — it is an incomplete quotation. When comparing bodies, put all four audits and the certification decision into one number and compare those.
Cost & timelines
What clients ask about price
Cost is driven by audit days, which are calculated under IAF MD 5 from your effective headcount and the risk category of your activity — not set commercially. That means we cannot quote meaningfully without your headcount, scope and number of sites, and any body that quotes a flat price without asking for those is not calculating audit days properly. Our quotations show the calculation, cover the full three-year cycle including both surveillance audits, and state travel separately at cost.
For an organisation with a working system, typically eight to twelve weeks from application to certificate: two to three days for the quotation, about a week to contract and plan, Stage 1, a gap of two to four weeks, Stage 2, then nonconformity closure and the certification decision. If the system still has to be built, add three to six months of implementation before any of that starts.
Three reasons, in order of importance. First, whether the certification is accredited — unaccredited certificates cost less because they are worth less. Second, whether the audit days match the IAF MD 5 calculation. Third, whether surveillance audits are included in the quoted figure or charged separately later. Compare the three-year total for accredited certification with correctly calculated audit days, and the range narrows considerably.
They are quoted separately and charged at actual cost, not marked up. Where we have an assessor resident near your site, travel cost is minimal — which is one practical reason our regional coverage matters.
Question not answered here? Ask a certification specialist — we answer technical questions without requiring an enquiry first.
Next step
Get the number, and the working behind it
Send us your scope, headcount and sites. Within two to three working days you will have a fixed quotation, the audit-day calculation, and the full three-year cycle cost.