Most users who contact us with data recovery enquiries are keen to know what the price will be. Whilst we do our best to indicate a guideline price based on the symptoms described, this can be very difficult. Imagine phoning a garage, informing them that your car has broken down and requesting a price. Until they see the vehicle they won’t know if it needs a new engine, or simply a spark plug! Data recovery is somewhat like this. Replacing a failed motor or actuator assembly is not dissimilar to replacing a car engine in terms of labour. However, the charges are significantly less than replacing an engine!

The few negative reviews we receive follow the same story….”the service was good, but the quote was more than we anticipated”. That’s not to say that every quote we give is expensive. In fact, we have never heard of another company recovering data for less. Prices for a hard drive recovery start at around £195, but can escalate to £595 or more.

This is why we offer a free no obligation assessment where we can quote. If the user declines, we return the media free of charge unless the user requests special delivery instructions. In these cases we ask for the costs of carriage.

Normally our assessments include a file listing of recoverable files. To get to this stage we must firstly complete the recovery. Should the user decline our quote, we absorb our costs associated with the data recovery. Occasionally damage to the media is so severe that we are unable to complete the recovery and provide a file listing of recovery files. In these cases our free no obligation assessment would include a technical report, likelihood of success and a quote to continue.

Where we are not 100% confident of a full recovery, we would offer users the option of continuing on a non-guaranteed basis, using our best endeavours to recover the data. Normally we would split costs into two parts, so that users are not paying the full amount in the event of an unsuccessful recovery. We ask for an upfront payment to cover these costs. Clearly there is no obligation and the user can decline the quote. If you are a user sending in your media, please keep an open mind. The analysis of free of charge and most of the time we will complete the recovery on a no obligation basis. If you are concerned about the upper end of the pricing scale, ask your consultant when you enquire. It is expensive for us to have a quote declined, so we do try to be realistic in guideline pricing.