Grantify is one of the better-known UK grant application services: an AI platform paired with a human funding expert, aimed mainly at startups applying to Innovate UK. It is not the only way to get a bid written. Consultancies charge success fees, specialists charge fixed fees, and AI tools now cost less than a day of a consultant's time. This guide compares how each one charges, what that means on a real grant, and what to check before you sign.
The short answer
- Check the competition first: UKRI says Smart grants are closed for new applications, so start with what is actually open on the Innovation Funding Service
- Smaller grants: in our example models, success-fee terms cost less than a £15,000 fixed fee on awards below about £115,000. A cheaper fixed-fee writer changes that, and some success-fee firms do not take small bids
- Larger grants: a 10–15% success fee grows with the award, so on £250,000 and up a fixed fee or a low success percentage often costs less if the bid wins
- Experienced in-house writer: an AI tool or a one-off review costs hundreds of pounds, not thousands
- Whoever you use: get the fees in writing, including when the success fee is triggered and whether it is charged on the whole award
What changed in UK grant funding
For years, most grant services were built around one competition. Innovate UK's Smart grants accepted any sector and any good idea, so a firm could repeat the same process every round. Innovate UK paused open Smart grants in January 2025 and said there would be no Smart rounds in the 2025/26 financial year. UKRI's current guidance says Smart grants are closed for new applications while funding is aligned to Innovate UK's new strategic direction. Relevant alternatives include the Growth Catalyst programme and sector- or technology-specific competitions in areas like AI, net zero and health, though these are not a one-for-one replacement.
That matters when you choose a service. A competition with a narrow scope is less forgiving of a generic bid, and a firm's past Smart grant record tells you less than it used to. Ask any provider which open competition they would apply to for you, and why, before discussing fees. You can see what is open on the Innovation Funding Service.
Grants are not the only route. If you already spend on R&D, our guide to R&D tax credits for small companies covers the merged scheme, and HUBPAL's R&D tax credits guide for UK SMEs works through a claim. Equity investors are another option, and our SEIS and EIS guide explains the reliefs they look for.
Four ways grant services charge
- Success fee only (no win, no fee). You pay nothing upfront and a percentage of the award if it is approved. Third-party reviews report 10–15% for firms that offer this. The firm carries part of the risk: you lose no adviser fee on a failed bid, but your own team's time is still spent. Because of that risk, these firms are selective, and some only take larger bids.
- Hybrid. A smaller upfront fee plus a success fee. Several consultancies, including Grantify, Tatton, GrantTree and GrantUp, offer this.
- Fixed fee. One price per application, win or lose. Acclivity Ventures quotes £8,000–£25,000 for an Innovate UK or EIC Accelerator bid and charges no success fee on public grants.
- Software and one-off writing. AI tools that draft and score your application, sold by subscription or per application. You or your team still own the writing.
Grantify and alternatives compared
| Service | Type | Published or reported fees | Main grants | Track record (self-reported) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Grantify | AI platform plus assigned funding expert | Not published. An undated partner listing showed £5,000–£10,000 upfront + 3.5% success commission; current terms unconfirmed. Some reviewers say they paid $6,000–$7,000 upfront | Innovate UK, EIC, US SBIR | £185m+ for 650+ startups and 55–60% success on Smart rounds (2024 article); it says it turns down over 90% of initial enquiries |
| Tatton Consulting (UK Grant Funding) | Consultancy, hybrid or no win, no fee | Both models described on its site, without prices. A review by a competing provider reports from £3,500 + 7–12%, or £0 + 10–15%; not confirmed with Tatton | Innovate UK, Horizon Europe and EIC, NIHR i4i, DASA, ESA; projects over £150,000 | £125m+ secured; about 75% first-time win rate, and a separate 90%+ figure per engagement |
| GrantTree | Consultancy, hybrid | Setup fee and success fee set in each client's engagement letter; the success fee is due when the funder approves the bid in principle | Innovate UK and other UK funders | Not checked |
| GrantUp | Consultancy, hybrid | Setup fee from £1,750, plus a success fee agreed before work starts | Innovate UK, UKRI, Horizon Europe, EIC, ESA, ARIA | No figure published |
| Sustainable Ventures | Consultancy, success fee only | No upfront fee for a full bid; success fee based on award size (rate not published) | Innovate UK grants of £150,000 and up; climate tech | 80% success rate; £14m+ secured |
| Acclivity Ventures | Fixed-fee specialist | £8,000–£25,000 per application; £550 a day; no success fee on public grants | Innovate UK, UKRI councils, EIC, US SBIR; deep tech and health | Over £35m secured (the same page also shows £28m+) |
| EchoGrant | AI scoring plus done-for-you writing | Free scoring; £250 assessment; writing from £2,500; no success fee | UK SMEs applying for a few grants a year | None published |
| ZenGrants | AI writing subscription | £55–£69 a month; Max tier £79–£99 a month (reported; not confirmed on its own pricing page) | Innovate UK and UKRI | None published |
Fees and claims from each provider's own site, checked 24 October 2026, except where marked as reported. Tatton's figures come from a review published by EchoGrant, which sells a competing tool, and EchoGrant's and ZenGrants' prices from the same publisher's comparison. Success rates are the firms' own claims and are not defined the same way: some count first attempts and others include resubmissions, and firms that screen clients heavily will report higher rates. They cannot be compared directly.
What you pay on a £300,000 grant
Headline fees are hard to compare because they fall at different times. The chart below uses one example set of terms for each model, chosen from within published or reported ranges, and shows what you would pay on a £300,000 award, first if the bid fails and then if it wins. They are not quotes from any provider or market averages.
What you pay on a £300,000 grant, win or lose
Illustrative scenarios using selected assumptions within published or reported ranges; not provider quotes or market averages. Excludes VAT and your own staff time.
Show the data as a table
| Pricing model | Assumed terms | If the bid fails | If it wins |
|---|---|---|---|
| No win, no fee | 12.5% of the award | £0 | £37,500 |
| Hybrid consultancy | £3,500 + 10% | £3,500 | £33,500 |
| Grantify (older listing) | £7,500 + 3.5% | £7,500 | £18,000 |
| Fixed-fee specialist | £15,000 per application | £15,000 | £15,000 |
| Per-application writer | from £2,500 | £2,500 | £2,500 |
| AI writing subscription | about £1,000 a year | £1,000 | £1,000 |
Two things stand out. A no-win-no-fee firm costs nothing on a failed bid but the most on a winning one, £37,500 here. A fixed fee costs the same either way. Which is better depends on how likely the bid is to win and how much cash you have now. A success fee only costs you if you win, so before you apply its expected cost is the fee multiplied by your chance of winning: with a one-in-three chance, a 12.5% fee on £300,000 has an expected cost of about £12,500. Grantify's older listed terms sit in between: a larger upfront fee than most hybrids but a much lower success percentage, plus a free resubmission if the first attempt fails.
When a success fee costs more than a fixed fee
Percentage fees grow with the grant, and fixed fees do not. The lines below show the same models across awards from £50,000 to £500,000.
Total fee as the grant gets bigger
Success-fee models overtake a £15,000 fixed fee at about £115,000 (hybrid), £120,000 (no win, no fee) and about £214,000 (Grantify's older listed terms). These are crossover points between our example models, not general market thresholds.
Show the data as a table
| Grant | Fixed-fee specialist | Hybrid consultancy | No win, no fee | Grantify (older listing) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| £100,000 | £15,000 | £13,500 | £12,500 | £11,000 |
| £150,000 | £15,000 | £18,500 | £18,750 | £12,750 |
| £250,000 | £15,000 | £28,500 | £31,250 | £16,250 |
| £500,000 | £15,000 | £53,500 | £62,500 | £25,000 |
Against a £15,000 fixed fee, the success-fee models in this example cost less on a winning bid below about £115,000, and they also move part of the fee risk to the consultant. Fixed fees vary widely, though: Acclivity quotes £8,000–£25,000, and done-for-you writing starts at £2,500, so compare actual quotes at your expected award size. Sustainable Ventures, a success-fee firm, only takes Innovate UK grants of £150,000 and up. From about £250,000 upwards, a 10–15% fee is often more than an experienced fixed-fee writer would charge. Whatever the size, the percentage applies to the grant, not to your project costs. Innovate UK funds only part of a project, and your company pays the rest.
Check eligibility before you incorporate
Many business-led Innovate UK competitions require a UK-registered business, but rules vary by competition, and registering a company does not by itself meet the other criteria. Check the specific competition's eligibility rules before incorporating or paying an adviser. If you do need a company, 1st Formations can register a UK limited company online.
Compare formation packagesA closer look at Grantify
Grantify describes a three-step process: build a funding profile, review the competitions its matching tool ranks for you, then write the application in its platform with AI drafting help and reviews from a funding expert. It says the process typically takes about a month and that it offers a free resubmission if the first attempt is unsuccessful.
Some of its figures need care. Its site says "72% of recent Smart Grant winners used Grantify". That is the share of winners who were clients in its best round, not the share of clients who won. Its separate claim of a 55–60% success rate across Smart grant rounds is the more useful number, but it is self-reported, it dates from a September 2024 article, and Grantify says in the same article that it turns down over 90% of initial enquiries. That is the success rate of a heavily screened client group, not the chance that any company will win by using it. Its funding total also appears as both £185m and over £200m on different pages.
On Trustpilot, Grantify had 348 reviews and a TrustScore of 4.3 when we checked on 24 October 2026, with 89% five-star and six reviews in the previous 12 months. Some reviewers report upfront fees of $6,000–$7,000 and concerns about communication or the amount of writing they were expected to do themselves. These are reviewers' accounts, not independently verified findings. Trustpilot notes that the company has not invited reviews recently, so recent experience is thinly covered.
Questions to ask before you sign
- Which open competition, and why? A firm should name a specific competition and explain why your project fits its scope.
- What is the total fee, in writing? Get the upfront fee, the success percentage and any extras for budgets, resubmissions or post-award claims.
- When is the success fee due? GrantTree's terms, for example, trigger it when the funder approves the bid in principle. Innovate UK pays grants in arrears through claims, so you may pay the fee months before the money arrives.
- What is the percentage charged on? On the total grant, or only on the share paid to your company in a consortium?
- Who writes it? A named writer with experience in your sector, a junior team, or mostly software?
- What happens if it fails? Is a resubmission included, and does a second success fee apply?
- What does the success rate mean? Ask how it is calculated: bids submitted, bids won, and over which rounds.
Plan to pay the fee from your own cash. Innovate UK's cost guidance covers eligible costs of the project itself, and claims must be for costs actually incurred and paid. Treat three kinds of fee separately: preparing the application happens before the project starts; a success commission is based on the award, and Sustainable Ventures, for example, says its success fee cannot go in the project budget; technical subcontract work during the project may be eligible, depending on the competition. If you win, you will also need clean records for quarterly claims. HUBPAL offers an accounting service for UK limited companies that can keep the books in a form a monitoring officer can check.
Free help to try first
- Innovation Funding Service: every open Innovate UK competition, with its scope, deadlines and the assessors' scoring questions.
- GOV.UK business finance support finder: grants, loans and other support filtered by location, sector and company size.
- Innovate UK Business Growth: free one-to-one support from an innovation specialist. Its contact page says the advisory service is paused for new referrals, so check whether intake has reopened.
- Your local Growth Hub: often knows regional grants that national services do not cover.
If you are still deciding how to set up the business, our guide to setting up a UK company for a SaaS startup covers structure, banking and the tax reliefs investors expect.
FAQ
Is Grantify worth it?
It depends on the grant size and whether the competition suits you. Grantify combines an AI drafting platform with an assigned funding expert and offers a free resubmission if the first attempt fails. It does not publish prices. An undated partner listing showed £5,000 to £10,000 upfront plus a 3.5% success commission, but its current terms are unconfirmed, and some reviewers say they paid $6,000 to $7,000 upfront. Ask for a written fee schedule and compare the total cost with a fixed-fee writer and a success-fee consultancy at your expected award size.
How much do grant writing services charge in the UK?
Fees fall into four models. Fixed-fee specialists such as Acclivity Ventures quote £8,000 to £25,000 per Innovate UK or EIC application with no success fee. Hybrid consultancies charge an upfront fee plus a success fee: GrantUp's setup fee starts at £1,750, and a review by a competing provider reports Tatton at £3,500 plus 7 to 12%, which we could not confirm with Tatton. No-win-no-fee firms such as Sustainable Ventures charge only a success fee. AI tools cost far less, from about £55 a month for a subscription or £2,500 for done-for-you writing.
Can I pay a grant consultant out of the grant?
Plan on paying bid-writing fees from your own cash. Innovate UK's cost guidance covers eligible costs of the project itself, and claims must be for costs actually incurred and paid. Preparing the application happens before the project starts, and a success commission based on the award is not a project cost: Sustainable Ventures, for example, says its success fee cannot go in the project budget. Technical subcontract work done during the project is a separate question and may be eligible. Grants are paid in arrears through claims, so a success fee usually falls due before the grant money arrives. Confirm the position for your competition with Innovate UK.
Are Innovate UK Smart grants still open?
No. UKRI says Smart grants are closed for new applications while funding is aligned to Innovate UK's new strategic direction. Innovate UK paused open Smart rounds in January 2025. Relevant alternatives include Growth Catalyst and sector- or technology-specific competitions, though these do not replace Smart one for one. Check the Innovation Funding Service for open competitions before paying anyone to prepare a bid.
Sources: Grantify; Grantify: Is Grantify legit?; Funding Bay partner listing; Grantify on Trustpilot; Tatton Consulting; EchoGrant review of grant consultants; GrantTree service terms; GrantUp services; Sustainable Ventures grant funding; Acclivity Ventures grant writing; EchoGrant comparison of AI grant-writing tools; Innovate UK costs guidance; UKRI guidance for specific funds; Innovation Funding Service; GOV.UK business finance support. Reviewed 24 October 2026. Track records are the providers' own claims. Fees change, so confirm terms with each provider before you sign.