ISO 20000-1 cost: what you pay for certification

The certificate fee is only one line in the budget. ISO 20000-1 certifies a service management system for IT services, so most of the cost sits in building and running that system, not in the audit itself.

Four items decide the total. Their size depends on your headcount, the number of services in scope and how much of the system already exists.

1. 01

   Audit fees

   The certification body charges for the initial audit and for every audit after it. On the classic route these are on-site days.

2. 02

   Consulting

   Many providers hire an external consultant to write the service catalogue, the SLAs and the process descriptions. This is optional, but common.

3. 03

   Internal effort

   Your service desk lead, your operations team and management spend hours on documentation, a management review and an internal audit.

4. 04

   Recurring costs

   Surveillance audits in between and a recertification audit at the end of the cycle repeat the audit fees.

The classic route means an on-site audit by a certification body. Certification bodies price by auditor days, and the days depend on staff numbers, sites and the scope of services. The figures below are indicative ranges for a small or medium IT service provider, not quotes.

For the first certification, with a document review and an on-site audit, audit fees in the range of CHF 5,000 to 12,000 are realistic. Travel costs and the auditor's report are usually charged on top. A provider with several locations or a large service portfolio will land above that range.

Ask for a written offer that covers the full three-year cycle. Some bodies quote the first audit cheaply and charge more for the years that follow.

• Compare the certification routes

External consulting for a first ISO 20000-1 project is indicatively priced between CHF 8,000 and 30,000. The low end fits a provider that already works with documented processes or ITIL practices. The high end fits a team that starts with an empty service catalogue.

Internal time is harder to see on an invoice, but it is often the larger cost. Plan indicatively for 100 to 300 working hours spread across several people, over a few months. The main blocks are these:

Service catalogue and SLAs

Define which services you deliver, to whom, and with which agreed service levels. Customers must be able to recognise their own contract in it.

Incident, problem and change

Write down how tickets are handled, how recurring faults are analysed and how changes and releases are approved. Existing ticketing tools can carry most of this.

Capacity and availability

Show that you monitor capacity and plan for it, and that availability targets are measured against what you promised.

Evaluation and improvement

Internal audit and management review (clause 9) and a record of improvements (clause 10) are needed before any audit.

A classic ISO 20000-1 certificate runs for three years, but the certification body does not leave it alone in between. A surveillance audit is held in each of the intervening years. Indicatively, expect CHF 2,500 to 6,000 per surveillance audit for a small or medium provider.

At the end of the cycle a recertification audit follows. It is shorter than the first audit, but it is not free: indicatively CHF 4,000 to 10,000. Added to the first certification, a three-year cycle without consulting easily reaches the low five figures. With consulting it climbs well beyond that.

Internal costs recur as well. The service catalogue needs updating, incidents and changes have to be recorded properly all year, and an internal audit and a management review are due every year.

Zertify replaces the on-site audit with an online self-assessment for ISO 20000-1: 36 yes/no questions. 13 of them are mandatory requirements of the standard and must all be answered yes. Of the other 23 questions, at least 16 need a yes to pass. The certificate is issued by G6 Agency AG under licence from SICE, and SICE reviews every assessment before issue. After you pass and pay, the certificate arrives within 4 hours.

The price is CHF 799 (€799) in the first year, then CHF 529 (€529) per year including the yearly online re-audit. The certificate is valid for 3 years. Billing is an automatic yearly subscription. You can cancel at any time in your customer account, effective at the end of the current year, and the certificate then ends with the paid year. Swiss and Liechtenstein customers see prices including 8.1% VAT. You do not need an account to buy.

If you certify several standards, you get 20% off for two and 30% off for three or more, also on the yearly fee. Every certificate has a number and a QR code, so a customer's purchasing department can check it on the public verification page.

• ISO 20000-1 certification at Zertify
• See all prices
• Start the free self-assessment

The table sets the indicative ranges of the classic route against the fixed Zertify prices. The classic figures are orientation only and change with every offer.

• Guide to certification cost
• Certification without an on-site audit
• ISO for small and medium businesses