Are You Paying Too Much for Your Accountant, Hosting, or Software?

April 2026 · 7 min read · By Zankex

Most small business owners pay what they're charged. They get a quote, it sounds reasonable, they agree — and then they pay the same rate at renewal without checking whether the market has moved. Over three to five years, this habit adds up to hundreds or thousands of pounds in unnecessary overpayments.

It's not laziness. It's that checking takes time, switching feels like effort, and most people don't know what the market rate actually is. This article gives you the benchmarks and shows you exactly what to do about it.

The services where small businesses most commonly overpay

Accountants. The range for a UK sole trader's annual accounts and Self Assessment is enormous — from around £150/year for a basic online service to £900+ for a full-service local firm. Many freelancers pay £400-600 for exactly the same output that a specialist online accountant would deliver for £200-300. The market has changed significantly in the last five years. If you haven't compared quotes recently, you should.

Web hosting. If you're paying more than £10/month for hosting a simple small business website, you're almost certainly overpaying. Static sites can be hosted free on Netlify or Cloudflare Pages. WordPress sites run well on £3-7/month plans from Hostinger or SiteGround. Legacy hosting companies charge premium prices on inertia alone — most customers never bother to move.

CRM software. HubSpot's free tier is genuinely one of the best CRMs available — it handles contacts, deals, emails, and pipeline management for zero cost. Many small businesses pay £30-100/month for CRM features that HubSpot provides free. Unless you have specific automation needs that require a paid plan, there's rarely a justification for paying for a CRM at under 50 users.

Email marketing. Brevo, MailerLite, and Mailchimp all offer genuinely useful free tiers for lists under 500-1,000 subscribers. If you're paying for email marketing with a list smaller than that, you're paying before you need to. Even beyond those thresholds, the difference between providers can be £20-40/month for essentially identical features.

Payment processing. Transaction fees range from 0.8% to 3.5% across providers. On £3,000/month in card sales, that's the difference between paying £24 and £105 per month. Stripe at 1.5% + 20p and Revolut Business at 0.8% + 2p are significantly cheaper than many legacy card processors that small businesses inherit from their early days and never revisit.

Why providers can keep charging above-market rates

It comes down to switching costs — not financial switching costs, which are usually minimal, but psychological ones. Changing accountant feels like a risk. Moving hosting feels technical. Switching CRM means migrating data. So most people don't do it, and providers know this.

The annual renewal is when you have the most leverage and you use it least. At renewal, a single email or phone call saying "I've had a quote from [alternative] at [price] — can you match that?" works more often than most people expect. Providers would rather reduce your rate slightly than lose you entirely.

The script doesn't need to be complicated: "I'm reviewing my costs at renewal. I've found [competitor] offers this for £[X]. Can you match or beat that to keep my business?" That's it. You don't need to be aggressive, just direct.

A simple annual review process

Set a calendar reminder every January to spend one hour on this. For each major service you pay for, check three things: what you currently pay, what the current market rate is, and whether a switch or negotiation is worthwhile.

Most years, the answer will be "it's fine, move on." But once every two to three years, you'll find something worth addressing — and a single successful negotiation typically saves £100-400. For an hour of work, that's a reasonable return.