How much does waste management software cost in the UK?
Skiplog costs £129 a month, or £1,188 a year, which works out at £99 a month billed once, with a 60-day free trial on either plan. Across the wider UK market the honest answer is that the price depends on how much of the yard the software is meant to run, so this page sets out what drives the number and what to ask before you sign anything.
What you are actually pricing up
"Waste management software" covers two very different purchases. One runs the business: routing, container stock, invoicing, weighbridge hardware. The other keeps the compliance record: the transfer note, the loads you report to Defra, the carrier registrations, the quarterly return. The first is almost always priced by quote, because the scope changes with every yard. The second can carry a published price, because the job is the same at every site.
The second kind of purchase got bigger this autumn. A permitted site that receives waste now has to report what it takes in to Defra's waste tracking service, either by filling in their spreadsheet or by using software that produces those rows for you. So a compliance record is two jobs rather than one. Price any quote on both.
Skiplog is the second kind. Two plans, both for one permitted site: £129 a month, or £1,188 a year, which is £99 a month billed once. Unlimited transfer notes, unlimited registrations tracked, the receipt-of-waste rows ready for Defra's spreadsheet, and a 60-day free trial on either plan.
If you are gathering quotes, the headline monthly figure is not the useful comparison. The useful comparison is the total for year one including anything charged to get started, the unit the price multiplies by once the yard grows, and how much clerical work is left for someone in the office at quarter end and at every reporting deadline in between.
The two Skiplog plans over one year
| Plan | What you pay | One year | Trial |
|---|---|---|---|
| Monthly | £129 a month, cancel whenever you like | £1,548 across twelve payments | 60 days free |
| Annual | £1,188 billed once a year, the same as £99 a month | £1,188 in one payment | 60 days free |
Questions
How much does waste management software cost in the UK?
It depends almost entirely on how much of the business the software is meant to run. A full operations platform with routing, container tracking, invoicing and group reporting is sold as a system and normally priced by quote against vehicle, user or site counts. Software that only keeps the compliance record can publish a flat price, because the work is the same in every yard. Skiplog is the second kind: £129 a month, or £1,188 a year, for one permitted site, with a 60-day free trial on either plan and the Defra receipt-of-waste rows included.
Why will most vendors not put a price on their website?
Because their price is not one number. A product assembled from modules and sized by fleet, depot count or named users has to be scoped against your yard before anyone can quote it. Skiplog publishes because there is nothing to scope: one permitted site, unlimited transfer notes, unlimited registrations tracked, £129 a month or £1,188 a year. If you are holding a quote, the comparison to make is its first year total against £1,548 or £1,188.
What usually gets charged on top of the monthly fee?
On Skiplog, nothing. There are two plans, £129 a month or £1,188 a year for the same product, and the 60-day free trial comes with either. Both plans carry the same list of what is included and the same three published limits, so there is no module to add on and no extra tier to climb into. When you compare a quote against that, the thing worth establishing in writing is whether its monthly figure is the whole figure the way these two are, and whether reporting your receipts to Defra sits inside it.
Is waste software priced per user, per vehicle or per site?
All three exist in this market, and the unit matters more than the rate. Per vehicle or per named user pricing suits a growing fleet and penalises a small yard that simply needs its records kept. Skiplog is priced per site: each plan publishes the same three limits, one site, unlimited waste transfer notes, unlimited registrations tracked. There is no per-user line and no per-vehicle line, so the figure does not move with the number of loads you take in or the number of registrations you keep an eye on.
Monthly or annual: what is the difference in money?
Monthly is £129 a month, paid month by month, cancel whenever you like. Annual is £1,188 for the year, which is £99 a month billed once. Twelve monthly payments come to £1,548, so the annual plan is £360 less over a year and the monthly plan buys you the freedom to stop. The annual plan is meant for a yard that plans a season ahead; the monthly is there for a yard that wants to pay as it goes.
Does the price cover reporting receipt of waste to Defra, or is that extra?
It is in both plans, at no separate charge. Skiplog is built to export the receipt rows in Defra's own template column order from the notes your weighbridge already wrote, checking each row against Defra's upload rules first and exporting only the rows that will pass, with the fix named on each row that will not. After you download a batch it asks whether you have uploaded it, stamps those loads as reported, and keeps the Defra reference against each one. If Defra rejects a load you can mark the rejection with its date, which sets the correction deadline, and a correction to a load already accepted is flagged as something to report again.
What does the price actually include?
Both plans carry the same thing: digital transfer notes with waste type, EWC code, weight, carrier and destination, plus the received-load fields Defra asks for; offline capture that saves on the device first and shows a queued, syncing or synced status on every note; receipt-of-waste rows ready for Defra's spreadsheet; the quarterly EA return as a ready-to-submit CSV in the column layout you set; carrier, broker and dealer registration tracking with expiry reminders and the dates in your own calendar; and a site dashboard with notes logged, tonnage by waste type and a compliance overview. Nothing in that list is a paid add-on. Skiplog is built to help you meet the record keeping and reporting requirements, which is not the same as guaranteeing a compliance outcome: the records are only as good as what gets typed at the weighbridge, and the formats are Defra's to change.
Is there a cheaper route than paying for software at all?
There is a government waste tracking service, and whether you need paid software on top of it is a reasonable question to ask before you spend anything. We answer that one properly on its own page rather than here, because it deserves more than a line. The short version is that paid software is worth money only where it removes clerical work you are otherwise doing by hand, load after load and quarter after quarter.