Our fees are contingent: what you pay is tied to the outcome of the claim, and the exact figure for your company is agreed in writing before any work starts. There are no hidden costs, enquiry support is included as standard, and the scoping call that comes first is free. You get the fee quoted at the end of that call, so you decide with the number in front of you.
What does a contingent fee mean here?
The fee is calculated by reference to the outcome of the claim rather than billed by the hour, and the engagement letter governs it: the basis, the amount, when it falls due and what it covers, all agreed in writing before we start. Nothing is added afterwards.
The fee is calculated as a percentage of the benefit the claim actually produces — the gross credit the claim generates, whichever scheme applies — so if the claim produces nothing, there is no percentage to charge. It is the same basis for a first claim and for every year after it. Fees are plus VAT, and a minimum applies, quoted alongside the percentage so there are no surprises at either end of the range. If you would rather have a fixed fee than a contingent one, we offer that too: say so on the call.
We do not publish the rate itself, because claims differ too much for a headline figure to mean anything. A two-project claim with clean payroll records is a different job from a twelve-project claim spanning grants, subcontracted work and a PAYE cap test.
What if it turns out you do not qualify?
Then there is no claim and no fee. Reaching that conclusion is part of the job, not a failure of it: if our honest reading of your projects is that they do not meet the definition, we tell you, the engagement ends there, and you owe us nothing for hearing it. The scoping call and the eligibility checker exist to reach that answer as early as possible, before anyone has committed to anything.
When is the fee payable?
Once HMRC has processed the claim — not when you decide to go ahead, and not on submission. One honest detail worth knowing: processing is not always the same as cash arriving, because where a company owes HMRC elsewhere, the credit can be used to settle that debt instead of being paid out. The benefit to the company is the same either way, so the fee follows processing rather than the bank transfer. The engagement letter sets all of this out in full before you sign anything.
If the fee is contingent, what stops us inflating a claim?
A fair question, and our own guidance on choosing an adviser tells you to put it to every firm you consider, us included. Five things answer it:
- A chartered adviser signs off every claim. No claim leaves this firm without that sign-off, and the adviser giving it has a professional standing to lose.
- The conduct rules prohibit exactly this. As a member firm of CIOT and ICAEW we are bound by Professional Conduct in Relation to Taxation: we may only advise a filing position that has a sustainable basis in law, and we must not let a fee incentive shape a technical judgement. An agent outside the professional bodies is bound by none of that.
- We say no, and we say it in public. If we do not think you should claim, you hear it on the first call. Our eligibility checker does the same without a conversation: it tells you when a claim looks unlikely, which is the point of it.
- We defend what we file. Enquiry support is included as standard, written into the engagement letter rather than offered as goodwill. An adviser who will be answering HMRC’s questions in two years’ time has a reason to keep the claim answerable now.
- Our name goes on the submission. Every agent involved in a claim is named to HMRC on the Additional Information Form, so what goes into your claim is attached to this firm’s record as well as your company’s.
Naming the incentive does not make it disappear; what it runs into is a set of controls that cost more to breach than any fee is worth. How we are regulated sets out the standards behind them.
What does the fee cover?
The whole engagement, from first interview to what happens after submission:
- the eligibility and scheme view, and the claim notification check that comes before anything else;
- the technical work and the costs: interviews with your competent professionals, the narrative drafted from them, staff apportionments, the PAYE cap and any grant or contract complications;
- the Additional Information Form and the corporation tax return containing the claim, both filed by us as HMRC-registered tax agents rather than handed back to you as a pack;
- enquiry support, included as standard: we handle the response to a compliance check as part of the engagement, and if a case escalates to review, ADR or beyond, we agree that further work with you before it begins.
How we work walks through the sequence step by step.
What will we not do?
We will not inflate a claim to raise the fee. Where something you hoped would qualify does not, it comes out and we explain why, whatever that does to what we are paid. We are not in the market for the largest number anyone will put on a form.
And we will not charge for the first conversation. The scoping call costs nothing and commits you to nothing; if we do not think you qualify, you have lost half an hour. If you already claim through another adviser, our claim review is a free second opinion on a filed claim, under a mutual NDA.
How do you get a number?
Book the scoping call. Half an hour on what the company builds and where the technical difficulty sat, and you get an honest view on whether it looks like qualifying R&D and which scheme applies. The fee is quoted at the end of that call, then confirmed in writing, then set in the engagement letter that governs the work. Nothing starts until you have said yes to all three.
If HMRC has already opened an enquiry into a claim someone else prepared, HMRC enquiry defence is a separate engagement, priced the same way.
Call 0330 223 4 223 or send us a message.
Written by Matthew Jones ACA CTA. Last reviewed September 2026.
