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A letting agent’s headline fee is almost never the real cost. Full-management fees in the UK typically run 10–15% of rent (12–18% in London and the South-East), and they are almost always quoted plus 20% VAT — so a "12%" quote is really 14.4% once VAT is added. On a £1,200/month tenancy that is roughly £2,074 a year before you count a single extra fee. This calculator lets you enter your own rent and the quoted percentage, add VAT, and layer in the one-off fees agents tend to mention only in the small print.

The two main service models are full management and let-only (tenant-find). Full management is an ongoing percentage of rent for the life of the tenancy — the agent collects rent, handles repairs and chases arrears. Let-only is a one-off fee, often 2–6 weeks’ rent→, to find and reference a tenant and draw up the agreement; you then manage everything yourself. Let-only looks cheaper up front but leaves the entire compliance and repair burden with you, which is where landlords without a system get caught out.

The fees that quietly inflate the bill are the one-offs and add-ons: a tenant-find or setup fee, an inventory and check-in fee, a check-out fee, a renewal fee each time the tenancy rolls over, and sometimes separate charges for serving notices, arranging safety certificates or handling deposit disputes. Individually they look small; across a year they routinely add 2–4 percentage points to the effective cost. This tool shows the all-in first-year figure and the ongoing annual figure separately, because the first year (with setup and inventory) is always the most expensive.

Since the Tenant Fees Act 2019, agents cannot charge most of these fees to the tenant — but they can still charge the landlord. That shifted the full cost of management onto landlords just as Section 24→ was squeezing mortgage-interest relief, which is why fee transparency matters more than ever. When you compare two agents, compare the all-in effective percentage of annual rent, not the headline management rate — a 10% agent with heavy add-ons can cost more than a 14% agent with none.

The alternative to a percentage-of-rent agent is self-management with software. A tool like LetCompliance replaces the compliance and admin an agent does — deadline reminders for Gas Safety, EICR, EPC and Right to Rent, the statutory move-in pack, rent tracking and arrears flags, and tribunal-ready evidence — for a flat monthly fee instead of a slice of every month’s rent. For a landlord paying £2,000+ a year in management fees, the maths usually favours self-managing the admin and paying a tradesperson directly for the occasional repair.