Memorial pricing in the UK is not transparent, and it is not transparent for a reason. People buying memorials are grieving, are usually buying such a thing for the first and only time, and are not in a frame of mind to shop around. The industry knows this.
So here is the whole picture, including the numbers most suppliers put in the small print.
The plaque
Broadly, UK prices fall into three bands:
- Around £20 to £45. Printed or vinyl codes, sometimes on plastic or laminate. Fine indoors or on stationery. Not built for a graveside, for the reasons set out in our guide on whether QR plaques survive British weather.
- Around £60 to £110. Laser-marked metal, usually stainless steel or anodised aluminium. This is where the durable products sit. Our plaque is £79.99.
- £120 and up. Larger plaques, bronze casting, bespoke shapes, or plaques integrated into a full memorial by a mason.
Above roughly £110 you are usually paying for size, material weight or bespoke design rather than for a code that works better. Below roughly £60 you are usually paying less because something has been left out, and the thing left out is normally either the marking method or the hosting.
The subscription, which is the real number
This is the one to look for, because it is where the money is.
A large share of memorial QR suppliers charge a recurring fee to keep the page online. Common structures are roughly £3 to £6 a month, or £25 to £60 a year, sometimes described as hosting, sometimes as a membership, occasionally buried in the terms as a renewal.
Run the arithmetic over the life of a memorial rather than the life of a credit card statement:
- £45 plaque plus £40 a year, over 20 years: £845
- £45 plaque plus £40 a year, over 40 years: £1,645
- £79.99 plaque with no recurring fee, over 40 years: £79.99
The cheapest plaque on the market is frequently the most expensive memorial on the market. It is a straightforward piece of pricing psychology and it works because nobody multiplies at the point of purchase.
Two questions settle it, and both should be answered in writing before you pay:
- Is there any recurring charge, of any kind, ever?
- What specifically happens to the page if a payment is missed?
The second answer varies more than you would hope. Some suppliers take the page offline. Some leave it up but stop accepting changes. Some show adverts on it. At least one common arrangement deletes the content after a grace period. If the person who set up the payment dies, which for a memorial is not a hypothetical, all of this happens automatically and without anyone being told.
Engraving and personalisation
Having the name and dates engraved onto the plaque alongside the code typically adds £10 to £30. Ours is £14.99.
It is worth it for a practical reason as much as a sentimental one. An unengraved code is anonymous. Someone walking past has no idea whose it is, and no reason to scan it. A code with a name beside it says who it belongs to before anyone lifts a phone, and it stays meaningful even to someone who has no phone at all.
Fitting
If you are fixing the plaque yourself, to an urn, a frame, a bench you own, or a memorial in your own garden, fitting is free.
If it is going onto a memorial in a cemetery or churchyard, it is not, and the costs come in two parts:
- The permit. Burial authorities charge to approve an addition or alteration to an existing memorial. Fees vary widely by authority and commonly fall somewhere between £50 and £200. Your local council or the parish will quote the exact figure.
- The mason. Most council cemeteries require work on memorials to be carried out by an accredited memorial mason rather than by the family. Expect a call-out and fitting charge, often in the region of £60 to £150 for a small additional plaque, and less if it is done at the same time as other work.
The practical saving here is timing. If a headstone has not yet been installed, adding the plaque as part of the original commission costs a fraction of adding it as a separate visit two years later. If you are at that stage, tell the mason now.
The optional extras
Two things that are genuinely worth their cost, and one that is not.
Memory cards, around £15 to £25 for a pack. Small cards carrying the link, handed out at the funeral so that the people who knew them can add what they remember. Ours are £19.99 for 25. This is the single highest-value thing you can buy alongside a plaque, because it is the difference between a page one exhausted person fills and a page fifty people fill.
A printed book of the page, around £30 to £60. Ours is £39.99. Worth it if you want something that survives regardless of what happens to any website, including ours.
Rush processing. Frequently offered, rarely worth it. The page can be live the day you order, because it is a web page. Only the physical plaque takes time to make and post, and there is no funeral that requires the plaque itself to be present.
Putting it against the rest of the cost of dying
For scale, because a memorial decision is never made in isolation. UK figures vary regionally and these are broad market ranges rather than quotes:
- An attended funeral: commonly £4,000 to £5,000
- Exclusive right of burial in a council cemetery: often £800 to £2,500, and substantially more in parts of London
- A simple lawn headstone, supplied and fitted: often £700 to £1,500
- A full kerbed memorial: £2,000 to £4,000
- A memorial bench with council siting rights: £500 to £1,500 for the bench, plus siting fees that in some boroughs exceed the bench
- A QR memorial plaque: £80 to £110 including engraving
Always confirm cemetery and permit fees with the specific authority. They are set locally and the variation between neighbouring councils can be several hundred pounds.
What a fair total looks like
For most families, fitting the plaque themselves to an urn, a frame or an existing bench, the honest total is the plaque plus engraving plus a pack of cards. Somewhere around £115. No renewals, no expiry, nothing to remember.
For a plaque going onto a memorial in a council cemetery, add the permit and the mason, and budget £250 to £400 all in.
Anything materially above that, or anything that arrives with a direct debit attached, is worth a second look and a direct question.