How much could you save with havelo? A guide to UK letting agency fees

If you've ever looked at your monthly rent statement from a letting agency and wondered where it all goes, you are not alone. UK letting agencies bundle their charges across so many lines that the true cost of full management is genuinely hard to see. This post pulls those lines apart, gives you ballpark numbers and shows where software like havelo can replace each one.

Want the bottom line first? Jump straight to the savings calculator and plug in your own numbers.

The standard agency fee structure

Most UK letting agencies offer three service levels:

1. Tenant-find only: they market the property, vet applicants and hand you the keys. You manage everything after move-in.
2. Rent collection: tenant-find plus they collect the monthly rent and send you a statement.
3. Full management: everything above plus repairs, compliance, deposit handling and end-of-tenancy work.

The headline percentage you see on agency websites (typically 8% to 15% of monthly rent) is just one slice of what you actually pay. The full bill usually includes:

• A percentage of monthly rent (the headline figure)
• A one-off tenant-find fee
• Inventory and check-in fees
• Renewal fees on every new tenancy
• Markup on contractor invoices
• Sometimes a deposit-protection fee, a "professional photography" fee and a Section 21 admin fee

Typical UK fee ranges (2025/26)

These are the numbers we see most often when landlords come to havelo from agencies. Yours may be higher or lower (London tends to be at the top end, the North often at the bottom).

The headline percentage is roughly half of what most landlords pay across a full year once tenant-find, renewals and contractor markup are included.

A worked example

Let's take a 3-property landlord in the Midlands with average monthly rent of £1,000 per property and full-management agency fees of 12%.

Year-1 cost with a typical full-management agency:

• Monthly fee: £1,000 x 3 x 12% x 12 months = £4,320
• Tenant-find on one property (one tenancy turns over per year): £1,000 x 75% = £750
• Inventory + check-in + check-out on that property: £350
• Renewal fees on the other two: 2 x £100 = £200
• Contractor markup on, say, £2,000 of repairs at 15%: £300

Total: roughly £5,920 per year.

Year-1 cost with havelo Pro (£29/mo):

• Monthly subscription: £29 x 12 = £348
• Tenant-find: you do it yourself through havelo's applicant flow (free) or pay £40 per applicant for a paid third-party reference. Even with three references each on the one turnover, that's £120.
• Inventory: free templates inside havelo, time cost only.
• Renewal: free, generated from your AST templates.
• Contractor markup: zero, you pay your contractors directly.

Total: roughly £470 per year.

That is a saving of about £5,450 a year on a small portfolio. On 10 properties at a similar profile the saving runs into five figures.

Try the maths on your own portfolio

Move the sliders below to plug in your real numbers. The calculator picks the havelo plan that fits your property count automatically.

The calculator deliberately under-counts. It shows the recurring agency fee versus a havelo subscription, and excludes the one-off tenant-find fees, inventory charges, renewal fees and contractor markups in the table above. Add those back in and the real saving is usually larger.

What you actually trade away

To be fair to agencies, you are paying for something. The honest list:

• Convenience during emergencies. An agency picks up the phone at 11pm when a boiler fails. You can replicate this with havelo's Approved Repairers feature (contractors are auto-dispatched from a pre-vetted list with spend caps), but the first time something fails you do still need to be on it.
• Local knowledge for tenant-find. A high-street agency knows what 2-bed flats are letting for this week on your road. You can get the same answer from a 10-minute SpareRoom or Zoopla scan, but it is a job you have to do.
• Distance buffer. Some landlords specifically do not want their tenants to know who they are. Havelo's tenant portal supports this (your name is never disclosed to applicants who didn't get the place, and the landlord identity is only revealed once a tenancy is offered), but a full-management agency does add an extra layer.
• Insurance. Some landlord insurance policies discount when a property is professionally managed. Check your policy, the saving is usually less than the cost.

What havelo replaces directly

Per agency line item:

• Monthly management fee: replaced by your havelo subscription. Same compliance reminders, same maintenance log, same tenant communications.
• Tenant-find: replaced by the Applications module. Send a one-tap link, applicants fill in employment, income, references and ID, you compare candidates side by side and approve in one click.
• Inventory + check-in: replaced by templates in the Documents module plus tenant-uploaded photos in the portal.
• Renewal fees: replaced by free renewal generation from the AST template.
• Section 21/8 admin: replaced by the Legal Cases module (status timeline, grounds picker, costs tracker).
• Contractor markup: removed entirely. You pay your contractors directly through invoices logged against the maintenance request.

Common questions

Will I have to chase rent personally? Usually no. Tenants pay by standing order to your account directly. Havelo logs the expected payment dates against the lease and flags missed payments. If you do need to chase, the AI assistant will draft you a polite arrears letter with the right wording.

What about evictions? Havelo's Legal Cases module tracks Section 21 and Section 8 cases through to bailiff. For contested cases you should still get a solicitor (we can suggest landlord-specialist firms) but the audit trail and compliance check happens inside the app.

What if I have an HMO or a holiday let? Same principles, you just need to make sure your compliance schedule includes HMO licence renewals and (for holiday lets) the FHL tax tests. Havelo handles both.

Ready to swap?

Every account gets a one-time free month of the top-tier Portfolio plan. No credit card needed. Start your free month here or run your own numbers in the calculator above.

This post is general information for UK landlords, not financial advice. Agency fees vary widely. Use the calculator with your real numbers, and check your existing agency contract for any tied-in periods or exit fees before switching.