A prenup in England and Wales typically costs between £1,000 and £5,000 in total, covering drafting and independent legal advice for both of you, according to published solicitor pricing. Straightforward finances and a fixed-fee solicitor can bring that closer to £1,000 to £3,000 combined. Complex finances, a business, property abroad, or a trust can push it past £5,000, sometimes to £10,000 or more.
The reason the range is so wide, and the reason it never drops much below four figures, is the same reason covered in are prenups legally binding in the UK: a prenup only carries real weight in court if each of you had independent legal advice. That means two solicitors, not one, every time. Below is where the actual pounds go, sourced from published pricing, so you can budget before you call anyone.
Why you are always paying for two solicitors
A prenup is not one piece of legal work. It is at least two:
Drafting the agreement itself. Usually done by one solicitor, instructed by whichever of you is proposing the agreement, who prepares the document and the financial disclosure schedules.
Independent legal advice for each of you, separately. This is not optional if you want the agreement to hold real weight later. One solicitor cannot advise both of you, because the entire point is that each of you has someone whose only job is to look after your interests. That means a second solicitor fee, and sometimes a third if the drafting solicitor only acts for one of you and the other needs their own advice from scratch.
That structure is why "how much is a prenup" rarely has a single-figure answer. You are really pricing two or three pieces of professional time, not one document.
Sourced price ranges
These figures come from published UK solicitor pricing pages, current as of 2025 and 2026.
| Tier | Drafting | Independent advice, per party | Typical total for both of you |
|---|
| Simple, straightforward finances | £899 to £1,850 + VAT | £550 to £1,750 + VAT | roughly £1,000 to £3,000 + VAT |
| Standard | £1,000 to £2,500 + VAT | £550 to £1,750 + VAT | roughly £2,000 to £4,000 + VAT |
| Complex or high-net-worth | £5,000 to £10,000+ + VAT | £550 to £1,750+ + VAT per party | £5,000 to £10,000+ + VAT |
Source: Regent Law, "Prenuptial Agreement Costs in the UK".
A separate pricing guide gives a similar overall range, £1,000 to £5,000, with a basic agreement at £1,000 to £2,000 and a complex one at £2,000 to £5,000, plus hourly rates of £150 to £450 depending on the solicitor's seniority and location. Source: Prenuptial Agreement Solicitors, "How Much Do Prenuptial Agreement Solicitors Charge?".
Fixed fees, if your finances are simple
Several firms publish fixed fees rather than hourly rates for uncomplicated cases, which makes budgeting easier if that describes you:
Co-op Legal Services: fixed fee from £1,200 including VAT, covering initial advice, guidance on the disclosure schedule, and drafting. Source: Co-op Legal Services.
OLS Solicitors: fixed fee from £899. Source: OLS Solicitors.
Fixed fees like these typically cover drafting only. Confirm with the firm whether independent advice for the second party is included or billed separately, since that is the part most likely to add cost on top of an advertised headline figure.
Regional variation
Where your solicitor is based changes the price too, independent of how complex your finances are:
| Region | Typical range |
|---|
| London | £2,500 to £5,000 |
| South East | £1,800 to £3,500 |
| South West | £1,500 to £3,000 |
| Midlands | £1,500 to £3,000 |
| North England | £1,200 to £2,500 |
| Wales | £1,200 to £2,500 |
Source: Prenuptial Agreement Solicitors. A separate source puts London hourly rates at £300 to £450, against £150 to £300 nationally, a premium of roughly 20 to 40 percent. Source: Regent Law.
You do not need to instruct a solicitor local to where you live. If cost matters more to you than meeting in person, ask firms outside London whether they work remotely, since the legal advice itself does not depend on postcode.
What pushes the price up
Four things specifically increase cost, according to the pricing guides above, beyond the baseline of drafting plus two lots of independent advice:
Asset complexity. Multiple properties, several pension pots, mixed savings and investment accounts. Each one is something the disclosure schedule has to capture accurately, which takes longer to prepare and longer for each solicitor to advise on.
Foreign property. A flat or house outside England and Wales can raise questions about which country's law actually governs that asset on divorce, which is a different, more specialised piece of advice than a UK-only estate.
Business interests. A business one of you owns or holds shares in usually needs its own valuation before a solicitor can advise properly on ring-fencing it, which is additional professional cost outside the solicitor's own fee.
Trusts. Assets held in trust, or that either of you stands to inherit through one, involve advice that overlaps with private client and tax law, not just family law, which is typically billed at a higher hourly rate.
Any one of these is usually what moves a couple from the "simple" tier of pricing above into the "complex" tier, where the £5,000-plus figures start to apply.
What the fee is actually paying for
It helps to know what you are buying, not just what it costs. Across the sources above, a typical drafting fee includes:
An initial consultation to understand what you both want the agreement to cover.
Guidance on what needs to go into the financial disclosure schedule, and drafting that schedule.
Drafting the agreement itself, reflecting what you have agreed.
Liaising with the other party's solicitor to finalise wording both sides accept.
The separate independent legal advice fee for each of you covers a solicitor reviewing the draft on your behalf specifically, explaining what you are agreeing to give up or gain, and confirming in writing that you received that advice, which is the evidence a court looks for later under the conditions covered in are prenups legally binding in the UK.
If you are weighing whether to reduce that cost by drafting the substance yourselves first and only paying solicitors to review and formally advise, rather than draft from a blank page, that trade-off is covered in can you write your own prenup in the UK. It can reduce the drafting portion. It does not reduce the need for two separate lots of independent advice, which is usually the larger and less avoidable part of the bill.
Ana and Rafael's budget
Ana and Rafael have straightforward finances: Rafael's inherited flat, Ana's pension and savings, no business, no property abroad. They are based outside London, in the South West.
Using the ranges above as a guide: drafting through a fixed-fee solicitor comes in around £1,200 including VAT. Each of them then pays a separate solicitor for independent advice, at roughly £700 each, near the lower end of the £550 to £1,750 range, since their situation is simple and the review is quick. Total: roughly £1,200 plus £700 plus £700, around £2,600 for the two of them combined, comfortably inside the £1,500 to £3,000 range typical for their region.
If Rafael's inherited flat had instead been a share in a family business, or a property in another country, the same couple could easily be looking at the £5,000-plus complex tier instead, because the drafting solicitor would need longer to capture and structure that asset correctly, and each of their independent advisers would need longer to explain the implications.
Common mistakes
Budgeting for one solicitor's fee and being surprised by a second bill. The independent advice fee for the second party is not an optional extra; it is close to half of what most couples end up spending, and it is the part of the process that gives the agreement legal weight.
Choosing the cheapest fixed fee without checking what it covers. A low headline price that only covers drafting, with each partner's independent advice billed separately and by the hour, can end up costing more than a higher all-in fixed fee.
Assuming a business or foreign asset will not change the price. These are exactly the situations that move a couple from the simple pricing tier to the complex one, and it is worth asking a solicitor for an estimate before assuming your finances count as straightforward.
Leaving it too late to budget properly. A prenup taking weeks to draft and review on each side is normal. Starting the conversation about cost only a month before the wedding leaves little room to compare quotes or spread the expense.
Not asking whether VAT is included in a quoted price. Several of the figures above are quoted plus VAT; a headline number without that caveat can be roughly 20 percent higher once VAT is added.
Budgeting for it as a couple
Whatever tier you end up in, a prenup is a one-off cost you can plan for months ahead, the same way you would plan for any other wedding expense. Knowing roughly where your combined income and savings sit before you call a solicitor also makes the first conversation faster, since you will already have a rough sense of whether your finances count as simple or complex under the pricing above.
That kind of visibility, seeing what is coming in the months ahead before the bill lands, is what eziduo's forecast is for: a shared view of the two of you as a couple, twelve months ahead, so a cost like this one does not have to compete for space with everything else you are already budgeting for the wedding.
This article is informational and does not replace independent legal advice from a solicitor. eziduo is not a law firm and cannot quote you a price for legal work. Contact a solicitor directly for a figure specific to your circumstances; the ranges above are a starting point for the conversation, not a substitute for it.
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