If your business makes outbound marketing calls, you may already have heard about the changes being introduced to the way Telephone Preference Service (TPS) and Corporate Telephone Preference Service (CTPS) checking is charged.
Perhaps your existing provider has contacted you about new royalty charges. Perhaps you’re reviewing what TPS and CTPS checking currently costs your business. Or perhaps you’re simply looking for a new TPS checking supplier and want to understand your options.
The important thing to understand is that these new royalty costs have not been introduced by individual TPS checking providers such as Selectabase.
The new royalty charging structure has been imposed directly on TPS and CTPS licence holders, including companies such as Selectabase that provide checking services to other businesses.
As a result, end users accessing the registers through third-party TPS checking providers will now be required to pay their appropriate share towards the cost of the underlying licences through usage-based royalty charges.
So, if you’re considering changing providers to avoid the new royalties altogether, unfortunately it isn’t quite that simple.
However, there can still be significant differences in the overall cost of TPS and CTPS checking, particularly when you compare using a third-party provider with purchasing the licences and managing the entire process yourself.
With Selectabase, TPS and CTPS checking starts from as little as £79 + VAT for 10,000 checks, with significant discounts available for larger users.
And importantly, there’s no need to spend thousands purchasing the licences directly, build your own checking platform or take on all of the ongoing administration yourself.
The ICO recently fined a Glasgow energy company £160,0000 for not checking against the TPS! So it’s important you do this.
Glasgow-based energy company fined £160,000 for making unsolicited marketing calls
What are the new TPS and CTPS royalty charges?
Historically, businesses have been able to access TPS and CTPS checking through authorised third-party licence holders such as Selectabase rather than purchasing full licences themselves.
That third-party model remains.
What is changing is how end-user access contributes towards the cost of those licences.
Under the new royalty arrangements, businesses accessing TPS and CTPS screening through licensed third-party providers will be required to contribute towards the cost of the registers based on their usage.
In simple terms:
If you don’t purchase the TPS and CTPS licences directly, but use a licensed third-party TPS checking supplier instead, you will still be required to contribute towards the licence costs through the new royalty structure.
This is an industry change affecting end users accessing the registers through third-party licence holders – not an additional charge that Selectabase has simply decided to introduce.
That’s an important distinction if you’re currently comparing TPS checking suppliers.
Moving from one licensed third-party provider to another doesn’t remove the underlying royalty obligation.
Instead, businesses should be asking:
Which provider offers me the lowest overall cost and simplest way of managing my TPS and CTPS checking requirements?
What is TPS checking?
The Telephone Preference Service (TPS) is the UK’s statutory register that allows individuals to opt out of receiving unsolicited live sales and marketing calls.
Businesses carrying out outbound telephone marketing need to ensure their calling data is appropriately screened against the TPS.
TPS isn’t exclusively relevant to traditional consumer marketing either. Certain business subscribers, including sole traders and some partnerships, can also register their numbers.
This is one reason businesses carrying out B2B telemarketing shouldn’t automatically assume they only need to consider CTPS.
Depending on who you are calling, both registers can be relevant.
What is Corporate TPS or CTPS checking?
The Corporate Telephone Preference Service (CTPS) is the corporate equivalent of TPS and allows corporate subscribers to register their telephone numbers to indicate that they don’t want to receive unsolicited live direct marketing calls.
For businesses carrying out B2B telemarketing, CTPS screening is therefore an important part of the calling process.
If your business calls a mixture of consumers, sole traders, partnerships and incorporated businesses, you may need to consider both TPS and CTPS screening.
This is why, when you’re comparing TPS checking suppliers, you should establish whether the price being advertised covers:
- TPS checking
- CTPS checking
- Both TPS and CTPS
- Applicable royalty charges
- Bulk screening
- Individual checks
- API access
- Reporting and audit information
A cheap headline price doesn’t necessarily tell you what your business will actually pay.
Why are businesses looking for new TPS checking suppliers?
The new royalty arrangements are naturally causing businesses to review their current suppliers.
If you’ve received an email telling you your TPS checking costs are changing, it’s sensible to compare the market.
But don’t compare providers based solely on the royalty charge.
The royalty element is being introduced at licence-holder level and passed through to end users accessing the registers.
Instead, compare the total cost of actually checking your telephone numbers.
Ask what you’re getting for your money.
Does the provider give you access to both registers?
Can you check numbers individually?
Can you upload larger files?
Is there an API?
Can multiple staff use the service?
Are there additional setup charges?
Do you need additional software?
Are you going to be charged separately for development or integration?
And, most importantly:
How many checks does your business actually need?
Avoid high TPS checking costs by working out what you really use
One of the easiest ways to save on TPS checking costs is to stop thinking in terms of huge annual numbers and instead look at what your team actually does each day.
Start with three simple questions:
How many people are making outbound calls?
How many calls does each person make per day?
Are they calling consumers, businesses or both?
You can then calculate a realistic monthly requirement.
For example:
2 callers x 100 calls per day x 20 working days = 4,000 calls per month
5 callers x 100 calls per day x 20 working days = 10,000 calls per month
10 callers x 100 calls per day x 20 working days = 20,000 calls per month
Suddenly, TPS checking becomes much easier to budget for.
Rather than looking at a huge annual allowance and wondering whether you need it, you can choose a package based on the number of calls your team realistically makes.
At Selectabase, we can help you work this out.
TPS and CTPS checking from £79 + VAT
With Selectabase, 10,000 TPS/CTPS checks start from just £79 + VAT, with significant discounts available for businesses requiring larger volumes.
This means smaller outbound calling teams don’t necessarily need to spend thousands of pounds each year simply to access TPS and CTPS screening.
And for high-volume users, our larger packages can substantially reduce the effective cost per check.
The principle is simple:
Buy an allowance based on what your business actually needs.
If your calling volumes grow, you can increase your allowance.
If you are a very high-volume user, speak to us about bulk pricing.
What if we buy the TPS and CTPS licences directly?
This is where the cost comparison becomes particularly important.
Larger organisations may consider purchasing the appropriate licences directly rather than accessing TPS and CTPS through a third-party supplier.
That’s certainly an option.
But you need to compare the entire cost, not simply the licence invoice.
Full access to the TPS and CTPS licences can cost approximately £3,300 + VAT per year.
That is already considerably more than many businesses would spend using a third-party TPS checking supplier.
But the licence itself is only the beginning.
A TPS licence doesn’t automatically give your sales team a checking system
Purchasing the underlying licence doesn’t necessarily give your sales team a ready-made platform where they can simply type in a telephone number and receive an answer.
You need a way of using the data.
Depending on your organisation, that could mean involving:
- Your internal IT department
- Your CRM provider
- Your dialler provider
- An external software developer
- Your compliance team
You may need to build a system that can receive the relevant data, correctly process telephone numbers, identify matches, handle TPS and CTPS independently, record screening dates and ensure suppressed numbers don’t accidentally enter your calling process.
If you want the checks to happen automatically inside your CRM or dialler, additional development may be required.
How much could TPS and CTPS software development cost?
Software development costs vary enormously, so there isn’t one figure that will apply to every business.
But it is important to factor development time into your comparison.
For illustration, if a developer charges around £75-£125 per hour, 30-50 hours of development could represent approximately:
£2,250-£6,250 + VAT
And that’s before considering future changes, maintenance, testing or troubleshooting.
A relatively simple internal solution may cost less.
A complicated CRM or dialler integration could cost considerably more.
The point isn’t that every business will spend £6,000 developing its own TPS checking system.
The point is that when comparing a £3,300 annual licence with a third-party TPS checking supplier, the licence price isn’t necessarily the true cost of operating the service yourself.
Don’t forget the ongoing maintenance costs
Software isn’t always “build it once and forget about it”.
Systems change.
CRMs are upgraded.
Processes change.
Staff change.
Something that works today may need development or maintenance in the future.
Your business therefore needs to consider who will be responsible for maintaining the system and what happens if something stops working.
Even a few hours of developer or IT time throughout the year adds to the real cost of running TPS and CTPS checking internally.
Then there’s the administration and reporting
Another cost that is easily overlooked is staff time.
Licence holders and providers need to maintain appropriate records around their usage.
Under the new royalty arrangements, detailed usage reporting is required, including information around volumes processed and whether screening relates to TPS or CTPS.
For businesses considering managing the process directly, there are therefore wider administrative and compliance responsibilities to consider.
Someone has to own the process.
Someone has to make sure it is working.
Someone has to maintain the relevant records.
Someone has to deal with reporting and reconciliation.
And someone has to investigate any discrepancies.
That staff time has a cost – even if it doesn’t arrive as a separate invoice.
The hidden costs of managing TPS and CTPS yourself
So, rather than simply comparing the cost of a Selectabase checking package with the price of a licence, consider the complete picture.
| Potential cost | Managing directly |
| TPS & CTPS licences | Approx. £3,300 + VAT per year |
| Initial software development | Potentially £2,250-£6,250+ |
| Implementation and testing | Additional cost/staff time |
| CRM/dialler integration | Potential additional cost |
| Ongoing development | Additional cost |
| IT support | Internal or external cost |
| Usage monitoring | Staff time |
| Reporting | Staff time |
| Compliance administration | Staff time |
| Troubleshooting | Staff/developer time |
Depending on the complexity of your systems, the first-year cost could potentially run into several thousand pounds beyond the licence fees themselves.
By comparison, a business requiring 10,000 checks could start with Selectabase from just £79 + VAT.
What do you avoid by using Selectabase?
Selectabase already has the TPS and CTPS checking infrastructure in place.
That means you don’t have to start from scratch.
Depending on the service you choose, you can access TPS and CTPS checking without having to:
- Purchase full TPS and CTPS licences directly
- Build your own checking platform
- Develop your own user interface
- Create your own bulk checking system
- Maintain the underlying screening infrastructure
- Manage licence-holder reporting yourself
- Spend internal IT time maintaining a bespoke solution
- Pay developers every time something needs changing
You simply choose the appropriate checking allowance and use the service.
How much could using Selectabase save?
Let’s take a business requiring around 10,000 checks.
Rather than committing to approximately £3,300 + VAT for direct TPS and CTPS licences before development, Selectabase packages start from:
£79 + VAT for 10,000 checks.
For businesses requiring larger volumes, significant bulk discounts are available, reducing the effective cost per check.
This means the savings can be substantial, particularly for small and medium-sized businesses that simply don’t require the volume necessary to justify purchasing full licences themselves.
For larger businesses, the calculation changes – but so does our pricing.
If you’re processing hundreds of thousands or millions of numbers, speak to us.
We can look at your actual usage and provide a package based on the volumes you genuinely require.
Comparing TPS checking suppliers? Ask these questions
If you’re looking for a new TPS checking supplier, don’t just ask:
“How much do you charge per 1,000 checks?”
Ask:
- Does this include TPS and CTPS?
- How are the new royalty charges handled?
- Are there additional charges on top?
- Can we upload spreadsheets for bulk checking?
- Can individual members of staff check numbers?
- Is API access available?
- Are there setup charges?
- Are there minimum commitments?
- Will we need to develop anything ourselves?
- What reporting will we need to complete?
- Can our allowance grow with us?
- Are there discounts for larger volumes?
Those questions give you a much clearer idea of what your TPS checking service will actually cost.
Can I avoid the new TPS and CTPS royalty charges?
If your business is legitimately accessing TPS and CTPS screening through a third-party licensed provider, the new royalty structure means end users will be required to contribute towards the underlying licence costs.
So switching supplier isn’t about finding somebody who can make the royalty obligation disappear.
Instead, the opportunity is to find a provider that can keep your overall TPS and CTPS checking costs as low as possible.
That’s an important difference.
A provider may have a cheap headline checking price but charge separately for other elements.
Another provider may require large minimum volumes.
Others may not provide the functionality your business requires.
Look at the total cost and what you actually receive for it.
TPS and CTPS compliance still matters
Ultimately, TPS and CTPS checking isn’t simply an administrative exercise.
Businesses carrying out live direct marketing calls need to understand and follow the rules that apply to telephone marketing.
That includes appropriately screening calling data against TPS and CTPS and maintaining sensible processes around suppression and consent.
Trying to reduce your TPS checking costs should therefore never mean cutting corners.
Instead, the objective should be:
How can we carry out the checks we need, properly, while keeping the cost and administration as low as possible?
That’s exactly where using an established third-party TPS checking supplier can make sense.
Looking for a new TPS checking supplier?
If the new royalty changes have caused you to review your existing TPS checking provider, now is a good time to compare the overall cost of your current service.
Whether you’re:
- Looking for a new TPS checking supplier
- Looking for ways to save on TPS checking costs
- Trying to avoid high TPS checking costs
- Comparing TPS and CTPS checking providers
- Reviewing the new TPS and CTPS royalty charges
- Considering buying TPS and CTPS licences directly
- Looking for Corporate TPS checking
- Looking for standard TPS checking
- Looking for a TPS and CTPS checking API
- Or simply unsure how many checks your business actually needs
Speak to Selectabase.
With costs starting from as little as £79 + VAT for 10,000 checks, plus significant discounts for bulk users, we can look at your current usage and help you understand how much you could potentially save.
Rather than paying for an allowance you don’t need, we’ll help you calculate your requirement based on the number of people making calls and the number of calls they realistically make each day.
Get in touch with Selectabase to see how much we could save you.
Email: [email protected]
Call: 01304 383838
