UK Responsible Person
Anywhere from a few hundred pounds a year to several thousand, depending on who you ask and what they include. The honest answer is that it depends, so this guide explains exactly what it depends on, what a proper quote should cover, and what the cheapest offers quietly leave out.
From the team that acts as UK Responsible Person for cosmetics and medical device brands worldwide. No hidden extras, no invented figures.
A UK Responsible Person (UKRP) is the legally responsible party for cosmetics and medical devices placed on the Great Britain market by a business established outside the UK. The role carries real obligations: holding the Product Information File, notifying products through SCPN, keeping your labels compliant, monitoring legislation and answering to the Office for Product Safety and Standards (OPSS) or the MHRA.
Quotes vary because providers do not all sell the same thing. At one end is an address service: your label carries their name, and that is where the involvement ends. At the other is a regulatory partner that reviews your files, notifies your products, checks your artwork and picks up the phone when an authority calls. Both call themselves a Responsible Person.
The second reason is you. A brand with three finished products, complete CPSRs and clean labels is a small job. A brand with forty variants, safety reports that need updating and artwork that has never been checked against UK rules is not, and a provider who quotes the same for both is either guessing or planning to charge later.
A useful quote therefore does two things: it lists what is included, and it says how the price changes as your range grows. Anything that does neither is a headline number, not a price.
Every product and variant needs its own SCPN notification and its own place in the PIF. Most providers price in bands by product count, and a range of shades or sizes counts as multiple notifications even when the formulation is shared.
If your Product Information Files and Cosmetic Product Safety Reports already exist and pass review, the RP's job is to hold and maintain them. If they are missing, out of date or written for a different market, that work has to be done first, and it is the biggest single swing in the total.
Frequent launches mean more notifications through the year. Legislation monitoring, the part that keeps your products legal after launch, is included by good providers and sold as an add-on by others.
Medical device UKRP work is priced differently again: MHRA registration, device class and vigilance obligations drive it rather than product count. See the devices section below.
The gap between a cheap RP and a proper one is rarely visible on the quote. It shows up later, usually at the worst moment.
Holding a file is not the same as checking it. A PIF with an unsigned CPSR or a missing stability report is still non-compliant, whoever stores it. A good RP reviews every file on onboarding and tells you what is wrong.
The RP is the named contact for OPSS and Trading Standards. If the answer to an information request is silence or a forwarded email, the enforcement risk lands on your brand and your listings.
UK labels need the RP's address, correct INCI listings and warnings, and claims that are legal in Great Britain. A provider who never looks at your artwork is not protecting you from the most common cause of marketplace delistings.
Each of these is cheap to include and expensive to fix after a paused listing, a border hold or a recall. That is the real cost comparison.
At minimum, a UKRP fee should cover the following. If any of these are extras, that is the catch in a low headline price.
Formal designation as UK Responsible Person, with our name and address on your label
Holding and maintaining your Product Information Files, reviewed on onboarding
SCPN notifications for every product and variant you place on the GB market
Monitoring of UK cosmetics legislation, with alerts when a change affects your products
Label and artwork review against UK requirements before print
Vigilance: handling serious undesirable effect reports and authority requests
Taylored includes all six as standard. What changes the price is how many products they apply to and how much work your files need before they pass.
For medical devices the Responsible Person role sits under UK medical device regulations rather than the cosmetics regulation, and the cost drivers change. Device class, MHRA registration, technical documentation review and vigilance reporting matter more than product count.
Class I devices are the simplest case: self-declared, registered with the MHRA through the UKRP, and priced accordingly. Higher classes and sterile, measuring or software devices involve more review and more ongoing obligation.
Enterprise providers tend to quote one fee regardless of class. We think a Class I manufacturer should not pay enterprise money for a straightforward device.
SCPN notification, PIF holding and review, label checks, legislation monitoring and vigilance for cosmetics; MHRA registration and vigilance for medical devices. One partner, both rulebooks.
UKRP cover with Taylored is a fixed annual fee, agreed in writing before you commit. The fee is based on the number of products and variants, which verticals you need, and the state of your documentation when we onboard you. Onboarding work, such as bringing a PIF up to standard, is quoted separately and only if it is needed.
We do not publish a rate card, because a three-product skincare brand and a forty-SKU marketplace seller are not the same job, and a single number would be wrong for one of them. What you get instead is a price for your portfolio in writing, usually within the week, with nothing added later.
If you are comparing quotes because your current RP is slow, charges for every question or cannot answer a technical one, switching is simpler than you have been told. Your documentation is yours, products are re-notified with the new RP's details, and labels change at the next print run.
We run the handover so that cover is continuous and nothing comes off the market in between.
At minimum: formal RP designation, holding your Product Information Files, SCPN notifications, and monitoring regulation changes that affect your products. Label review and vigilance handling should be included too. If any of those are extras, that is the catch in a low headline price.
Mostly product count and the state of your files. A brand with finished CPSRs and compliant labels pays much less than one whose safety work still needs doing, and some providers bury that difference until you have signed. The other variable is what the provider actually does: an address service and a regulatory partner are priced very differently because they are different things.
Yes. Products need re-notifying with the new RP's details and labels are updated at the next print run. We handle switches regularly and sequence them so cover is continuous. See our guide to switching Responsible Person.
An address alone does not make you compliant. The named RP carries legal responsibility for the product and its file; if that RP does nothing beyond lending a name, the obligations are unmet and the risk sits with your brand. Marketplaces and authorities increasingly check whether the RP is real.
Most UKRP services, including ours, are an annual fee set by the size of your range, with one-off onboarding work quoted separately where your files need it. New products added during the year are notified as part of the service or move you into the next band, which we agree in advance.
We act as UK Responsible Person for cosmetics and medical device brands across Europe, North America and Asia, with the PIF reviews, notifications and label checks done by the same consultants who write CPSRs and prepare technical files. You get a fixed annual price, a named contact and no surprises.
