An analysis of the prices quoted by providers (vs the actual prices you’ll end up paying)
This article is not intended to discuss or judge the efficacy, efficiency, effectiveness or fairness of the the travelling testing requirements imposed by the UK government.
I do however hope that if someone involved in designing policies that ultimately lead to these schemes comes across this article it would help them design, to the extent that is possible, a better scheme in the future.
If you’re just here for the list of providers, scroll down.
The backstory
This summer I had a life event which took place in the UK and my family, mainly based in various European countries, made an effort to attend. Fortunately, most of my family members held a European Vaccination Passport and resided in "Amber countries", which meant that, at the time of the event, everyone (around 10 people) entering the UK needed to take a "Day 2 Test" only.
Now, the UK Government has tried to make everyone's life easier by creating a testing provider directory with information about pricing, type of testing (on-site, at home, etc.) and provider contact details.
Upon going through the list, I soon realised that despite the Government's efforts the directory's information was somewhat deficient, in the sense that most providers quoted prices that were only true for a very small subset of the population (e.g. you would only be able to pay the price quoted if you lived in a specific location in the UK).
I realised that I had two options if I wanted to make an informed decision (economists are very dramatic in this way);
- going through a reasonable number of providers in the list one by one to find out which provider offered the most competitive pricing (an expensive price discovery journey in terms of time and effort, although I had to book Day 2 tests for circa 10 family members) or
- Pick one that met my expectation of "fairly priced", even though I did not have sufficient information to know what “fairly priced” actually meant, and, of course, continue going about my life knowing that I had made an uninformed decision (I already told you we’re very dramatic).
You guessed right, I had to know!
As I went through the list I couldn’t help but feel a bit annoyed about the fact that some providers were using dubious techniques to try to capture a larger share of the market. Instead of complaining about it — which I admittedly did — I decided to collect the data, analyse it and make the information public in the hope that someone out there finds this information useful.
Methodology
I sorted the providers for Day 2 testing from cheaper to expensive. I then recorded the provider’s details and price shown on the Government website and tried went into the provider website to check the actual price.
I recorded all the price discrepancies and from this information constructed the results shown below.
The dataset looked something like this:
Results
In the graph below I show the price quoted vs the actual price I would have to pay for the Day 2 Testing.
Defining pricing categories: I have considered any provider quoting a price <£29.99 to be labeled as “Cheap”, between £30 and £49.99 “Average” and >£50 “Expensive”.
All the dots on the blue straight line are “honest” providers, meaning that the price quoted is the same as the price you are actually charged when trying to purchase their test on the web. You can see that only one of the “cheap” providers is “honest” while just over half of the expensive providers are either “honest” (or “beyond honest”, meaning that they advertise a price on the Government web that is above their actual price).
How it started and how it ended: As you can see nearly all the providers that appeared “Cheap” based on quoted prices ended up resulting “Expensive” in terms of actual pricing (see defining pricing categories above).
Some of the providers did honour the price quoted but only for clients in very specific regions or circumstances. The way to read the table below is that 5 providers actually sold you tests at the price they quoted if you lived in Hastings.
Press enter or click to view image in full size
Conclusion
If it looks too good to be true, it probably is! However, if you’re quoted around £45 or above, there is a fair chance that there aren’t any hidden costs.
A few things to note:
- I’m just presenting public data available at the time of the analysis (mid-August 2021); conclude what you will!
- Prices and providers may change with time, I’m not keeping this list updated
- I don’t have any data to attest to the reliability of the service provided by any provider
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