GrantUp Review 2026: How Much Does It Charge?
We compete with GrantUp, so read this knowing that. Everything below comes from GrantUp's own website, Companies House and Trustpilot, read on the date above, and we quote GrantUp's words where it matters.
Is GrantUp worth it, and what does it cost?
GrantUp is a UK grant-writing consultancy built for biotech, medtech, digital health and other deep-tech companies, and it is worth considering if you want someone else to write an Innovate UK or NIHR application. It charges a fixed fee per submission, quoted before any work starts and with no percentage of the award, but it does not publish the amount. Two routes do carry a success fee: a no-win-no-fee option for qualifying companies, and its six-month Unlimited retainer, where its own page says a success fee applies on award. It reports a success rate above 80 per cent on applications it writes, counted only on work it chose to accept, and £190m+ won for clients. It scored 4.1 on Trustpilot from 26 reviews. Grant Up Limited, company 12822566, was incorporated in 2020 and is registered in Dorking. EchoGrant, which publishes this review, competes with GrantUp.
How much does GrantUp charge?
GrantUp does not publish a price, so the only way to get a figure is to ask for a quote. What it does publish is the structure: most engagements are a fixed fee per submission, scoped to the competition and the stage you are at, quoted on the first call, with no hourly meter and no percentage of the award. That is less common than it should be among UK consultancies, and it means you know the cost before you commit. For scale, UK grant consultancies typically charge £2,000 to £15,000 per application. Tatton (formerly UK Grant Funding), one of the few that publishes, starts from £3,500 plus a 7 to 12 per cent success fee. If GrantUp quotes inside that range with no success fee, it is competitively priced. Check which route you are on, because two of them do take a share of the award.
| Route | How it is charged | Success fee | Price published? |
|---|---|---|---|
| Standard engagement | Fixed fee per submission, quoted before work starts | None: “no percentage of the award” | Not published |
| No-win-no-fee | For qualifying companies, typically where the case is already strong | Paid on award (terms not published) | Not published |
| Unlimited retainer | Paid six-month retainer | Yes: “A success fee applies on award” | Not published |
| Resubmission | Support at “reduced scope and fee” | Not stated | Not published |
What GrantUp actually sells
GrantUp is a consultancy, not software: people write the application. Its services are grant writing, funding partnerships, reporting and claims once a grant is won, R&D tax relief, and the Unlimited retainer. Its homepage says it is “built for biotech, medtech and digital health founders” and names Innovate UK and NIHR competitions, while listing a wider spread of sectors from AI and advanced manufacturing to fintech, food, transport and clean energy.
Its method has five stages: identify, frame, build, assure, advance. It says it typically needs three to five weeks to build a strong application, and that from a competition opening to money arriving often takes four to six months. If an application fails, it offers to support a resubmission “at reduced scope and fee”.
Reading its success-rate claim
GrantUp states a per-engagement success rate above 90 per cent and above 80 per cent on individual applications it writes, and to its credit it says how they are counted: “based on work where we accepted the engagement”. A consultancy that declines weak projects will always report a higher rate than the competition average, so treat the figure as a statement about selectivity rather than as your chance of winning. It also reports “£190m+” of cumulative funding won by the team for clients across UK and European programmes.
The company and its reviews
Grant Up Limited, company number 12822566, was incorporated on 18 August 2020 as Snap Out Consultancy Limited and renamed in June 2022. It is active, with a registered office at The Atrium, Curtis Road, Dorking, Surrey. Its site footer describes it as part of the GrantUp group and links to a US site, grantup.com.
On Trustpilot it scored 4.1 (“Great”) from 26 reviews on 12 October 2026, a small sample. Its UK website terms cover use of the site only; the fees and deliverables for a project are set in a signed engagement agreement, so read that before you sign.
Who it suits, and who should look elsewhere
It may suit you if
- you are a life-sciences or deep-tech company applying to Innovate UK or NIHR
- you want a writer, not a tool, and have three to five weeks
- you want the fee fixed before work starts
Look elsewhere if
- you want a published price before a call
- your deadline is less than three weeks away
- you have already written the application and only want it checked
- you would rather draft it yourself with software
Alternatives, with prices where they publish them
Tatton (formerly UK Grant Funding) publishes its prices: from £3,500 plus a 7 to 12 per cent success fee, or from £0 plus a 10 to 15 per cent fee on approval. GrantTree charges a setup fee plus a success fee calculated on the whole award. ZenGrants is AI software for writing Innovate UK and UKRI applications yourself, at £69 a month or £55 a month billed annually, with no success fee. We compare fourteen UK consultancies in the best grant writing consultants in the UK.
EchoGrant, which publishes this page, scores a project against a grant free with no signup, reviews an application you have already drafted for a fixed £250, and writes applications from £2,500, with no success fee. If you are a biotech company that wants a sector specialist to write the whole bid, GrantUp is closer to that than we are.
Four questions to ask GrantUp before you sign
- What is the fixed fee for this competition, and when is it due?
- Am I on the standard route, no-win-no-fee or the retainer, and what percentage applies on award?
- Who writes the application, and how many hours of their time does the fee cover?
- Can the success fee be paid from the grant? If not, can I afford it in cash?
Questions people ask
How much does GrantUp charge?
GrantUp does not publish a price. On 12 October 2026 its site said most engagements are a fixed fee per submission, quoted before any work starts, with no percentage of the award. Two routes do carry a success fee: a no-win-no-fee option for qualifying companies, and a six-month Unlimited retainer, where its own page says “a success fee applies on award”. For scale, UK grant consultancies typically charge £2,000 to £15,000 per application, and Tatton, which does publish, starts from £3,500 plus a 7 to 12 per cent success fee.
Does GrantUp charge a success fee?
Not on its standard fixed-fee engagement, which its homepage describes as having “no percentage of the award”. Its Unlimited retainer does: the retainer page states that a success fee applies on award. The no-win-no-fee option, offered to qualifying companies, is by definition paid on success. Neither the retainer price nor the percentage is published, so ask for both in writing.
Is GrantUp legit?
Yes, it is a real, active company. Grant Up Limited is registered at Companies House under number 12822566, was incorporated on 18 August 2020 (as Snap Out Consultancy Limited, renamed in June 2022), and has a registered office in Dorking, Surrey. It scored 4.1 on Trustpilot from 26 reviews on 12 October 2026.
What is GrantUp’s success rate?
GrantUp says its per-engagement success rate is above 90 per cent and that applications it writes succeed above 80 per cent of the time, and it qualifies both: they are “based on work where we accepted the engagement”. That is a selected sample, so it is not comparable with Innovate UK’s official award rate across all applications, which UKRI data puts at 16 to 25 per cent a year since 2020-21.
How long does GrantUp take to write an application?
Its FAQ says it typically needs three to five weeks to build a strong application, and that from a competition opening to money arriving is often four to six months in total. If your deadline is closer than three weeks, ask before you engage.
Sources, all read on 12 October 2026: grantup.co.uk (homepage, FAQ, Our Approach, Unlimited and Terms pages), Companies House (company 12822566), Trustpilot (uk.trustpilot.com/review/grantup.co.uk), and ukgrantfunding.co.uk/services-pricing for Tatton's published fees. Quotations are as they appeared on those pages. We have not used GrantUp's service. If you work at GrantUp and something here is wrong or out of date, tell us and we will correct it the same day.
Explore More
Best Grant Writing Consultants UK
Fourteen UK consultancies checked on their own sites.
Learn more →What Grant Writing Costs in the UK
Day rates, fixed fees and how success fees really work.
Learn more →Grantify Alternatives UK
Software, consultancies and databases, with prices.
Learn more →How Innovate UK Scores an Application
The questions, the scale and what assessors look for.
Learn more →