Pricing / stated plainly.
£12.50 per active subcontractor, per month
That is the price. No per-user charges, no setup fee, no minimum term, and no tiers to decode. You pay for the subcontractors being monitored, which means you pay for exactly the risk you carry.
PRICES EXCLUDE VAT. BILLED MONTHLY. CANCEL ANY TIME.
- PER-USER CHARGE NONE
- SETUP FEE NONE
- MINIMUM TERM NONE
- EXIT FEES NONE
The arithmetic / done for you
What it costs at your size.
Every subcontractor under monitoring gets the full product: the monthly Digital Blast, continuous HMRC and Companies House verification, and their own HMRC Compliance Passport.
| Supply chain | Calculation | Monthly cost |
|---|---|---|
| A local firm8 trusted subcontractors | 8 × £12.50 | £100/month |
| A regional contractor25 subcontractors across active sites | 25 × £12.50 | £312.50/month |
| A principal contractor60 subcontractors under monitoring | 60 × £12.50 | £750/month |
| 200+ subcontractorsVolume pricing applies | Negotiated | Talk to us |
AN ACTIVE SUBCONTRACTOR IS ONE SCREENED OR MONITORED IN THE BILLING MONTH. A SUBCONTRACTOR ENGAGED ACROSS SEVERAL PROJECTS IS COUNTED ONCE.
The alternative / manual due diligence
Now compare it with doing this yourself.
This is what the same due diligence involves done by hand, per subcontractor, every month.
- Verify CIS registration with HMRC
- Check the VAT number against the register
- Pull the Companies House record and read the filing history
- Screen every director against sanctions, tax defaulter and disqualification lists
- Check for phoenix patterns across previous companies
- Benchmark the rate against minimum wage plus statutory costs, agreed industry rates and regional earnings
- Chase site confirmation of who is actually working
- Write all of it down, dated, in a form that would survive an enquiry
That is one subcontractor, one month. Then next month it all needs doing again, because every one of those answers can change. Even done perfectly, a manual check is a snapshot; CIS Defence checks continuously and keeps the evidence as it goes.
The other side of the ledger / FA 2004 ss.62A–62B
Now compare it with what it defends against.
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The tax itself
HMRC can determine that you are liable for 20% of any payment made where you knew or should have known it was connected to a deliberate CIS or PAYE failure. Your intentions are not the test; the warning signs are.
FA 2004 s.62A(2)
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Gross Payment Status
Cancelled immediately in fraud-connected cases, with no reapplication for five years. In the meantime, 20% comes off every payment you receive, which for most contractors is a cash flow problem measured in survival, not inconvenience.
FA 2004 s.66(3A)
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Penalties, personally
A penalty of up to 30% of the determined amount on the company, and where the failure is attributable to an officer, HMRC can shift the whole penalty onto that officer personally by decision notice.
FA 2004 s.72A / s.72B
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The enquiry itself
Even a defence that succeeds is measured in months of management time, professional fees, disclosure exercises and sleepless nights. Winning an HMRC enquiry is still an expensive way to spend a year.
ASK ANYONE WHO HAS BEEN THROUGH ONE
You pay in proportion to the risk you carry. Nothing else in your software stack can say that.
What the price includes / everything
One product. No feature gates.
There is no premium tier holding back the checks that matter. Every subcontractor gets all of it.
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Verification
CIS registration verified live with HMRC using your contractor credentials, VAT confirmed at the register, and Companies House checks covering incorporation, filing history and director screening.
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Monitoring
The monthly Digital Blast re-screens your entire supply chain automatically, with phoenix company detection, rate benchmarking against the compliance floor, industry agreed rates and regional earnings, and alerts for new and expiring risks. CIS Defence works in the background: you hear from it the day something changes, and only when it matters. The monthly digest summarises everything else.
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Judgement
Manager Override puts every accepted risk on the record: who decided, why, and for how long. Boots on the Ground adds timestamped site verification from your own project managers.
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Evidence
The HMRC Compliance Passport for every subcontractor: the complete due diligence record, every decision and its reasoning, exportable the day an enquiry letter arrives. The Command Centre shows the whole chain at a glance.
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Support
Guided onboarding through setup and your first supply chain check, email support with a response within one working day, and a platform that is ICO registered and UK GDPR compliant, hosted on UK/EU infrastructure with encryption in transit and at rest.
Common questions
The small print, in large print.
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What counts as an active subcontractor?
Any subcontractor in your supply chain who has been screened or monitored within the current billing month. Subcontractors you have removed do not count, and a subcontractor engaged across several projects in the same period is counted once.
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Do I need a long-term contract?
No. CIS Defence is billed monthly and you can cancel at any time. There are no minimum terms and no exit fees.
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Will the price change as I grow?
The rate stays the same per subcontractor as you add or remove them; your bill simply follows your supply chain. At 200 or more subcontractors, volume pricing applies and we agree a rate with you directly.
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Is my data secure?
Yes. CIS Defence is ICO registered and UK GDPR compliant, built on AWS infrastructure with all data encrypted in transit and at rest. Your HMRC credentials are stored encrypted and are never visible after submission.
Work out your number on a call.
Twenty minutes. We count your actual supply chain, run it through CIS Defence, and you leave knowing your monthly cost and what your current position would look like to HMRC.