Why We Called 199 Vet Practices (And What They Told Us)

Most "price comparison" sites scrape old data from the internet and hope it's still accurate. We didn't fancy that approach.

Instead, we picked up the phone and called 199 vet practices across London. One by one. Asked them the same questions. Recorded every price.

Why Phone Calls?

Three reasons:

1. Most vets don't publish prices online. Despite the CMA's recommendation for price transparency, 84% of UK vet practices still don't list their fees on their website. If you want real prices, you have to ask.

2. Published prices are often wrong. Several practices we called had different prices to what was listed online. One had raised their consultation fee by £15 but hadn't updated their website in months.

3. It builds trust. When we say a consultation costs £61 at a specific Goddard branch, that's because someone at that branch told us on the phone. Not because a bot scraped an outdated PDF.

What We Asked

Every practice was asked the same 15 questions covering: consultation fees, vaccination costs (primary and booster), neutering (cat and dog, male and female), microchipping, dental cleaning, emergency consultations, flea and worming treatment, blood tests, X-rays, and ultrasound.

What We Found

176 of the 199 practices gave us their prices. The remaining 23 either didn't answer, asked us to email, or said they'd call back (they didn't).

The practices that wouldn't share prices? Interesting pattern there. They tended to be the more expensive ones.

The data confirmed what we suspected: prices vary enormously between practices, even within the same chain. A Medivet in Hackney might charge £20 less for a consultation than a Medivet in Islington.

What Happens Next

We're now extending this to Manchester, Birmingham, Edinburgh, and Bristol. Same approach: pick up the phone, ask the questions, record the answers.

If you want to see the prices we collected, check out our London pricing page or search by your postcode.

Want to help? If you've recently got a price quote from your vet, submit it here — it takes 30 seconds.