How much should a letting agent budget for AML compliance checks per let?

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For a typical 5-10 person UK letting agency, AML compliance check costs sit between £3 and £25 per check across the main vendors. Certaby's letting-agent suite is £4.95 per check on PAYG, dropping to £4.50 at 10-pack, £3.95 at 100-pack, and £2.95 at 1,000-pack. The suite covers sanctions screening, PEP screening, adverse-media check, FCA Warning List, and the property risk pack (EPC band, MEES verdict, flood band, contaminated-land flags) in a single signed PDF cert per MLR-2017 record-keeping rules.

Per-let cost math: most letting agents run one suite check per new tenant onboard plus an optional landlord check on first instruction. For a 10-tenancies-per-month firm that is £49.50 per month at single PAYG pricing, or under £30 a month at 100-pack volume. For a busier 40-tenancies-per-month firm, that is £198 per month single or £158 per month at 100-pack. Compared with a typical agent's letting fee of 8-12% of first-month rent (£80 to £200 on a £1,000-£2,000 tenancy), the AML check sits at roughly 5-15% of the agent's margin on that fee.

The other vendors price differently. SmartSearch and Credas typically run annual contracts in the £500-£1,200 per month range for a 5-10 person firm depending on seat count and check volume. Veriphy and ThirdFort sit closer to a per-check model in the £4-£15 range but often with seat licences on top. The exact comparison depends on volume, seats, and what is bundled in.

Three practical budgeting principles for AML in a letting firm:

1. Budget scales with new business, not headcount. PAYG models like Certaby cost nothing in quiet months and only fire on actual lets. Contract models charge regardless of volume, so a £700 per month minimum hits the same whether the firm did 5 tenancies or 50 that month.

2. Plan for the optional extras. The base sanctions plus PEP check is the legal floor under MLR-2017 reg 28. Property-risk overlay (flood, MEES, contaminated land) is regulated separately under NTSELAT material-information rules, so it ends up in the same evidence file even if it is not strictly AML.

3. Include the time saving. A manual screen (open OFSI, check name, open OpenSanctions PEP, check name, screenshot, store in spreadsheet) takes 30-45 minutes per let. A single Certaby suite check takes 90 seconds. For a firm doing 20 lets a month, that is 10-15 hours of officer time recovered, worth far more than the £100 in fees.

The most defensible budget signal: per-check pricing under £10 plus signed audit-cert per check, no annual contract. That is the floor that lets the firm respond to HMRC inspection with concrete evidence without the contract overhead. Certaby's £4.95 single PAYG is set deliberately to sit just under the manual-time-replacement breakeven for any size of firm.

How much should a letting agent budget for AML compliance checks per let?

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