Penetration Testing Cost for UK Veterinary Practices and Groups (2026)

A penetration test for a UK veterinary practice or group typically costs £1,100 to £25,200 in the UK market. The low end is a short test of one practice’s internal network. The high end is a corporate group estate covering the perimeter, group networks and cloud-hosted clinical data. The price is the number of testing days multiplied by a day rate of £1,100 to £1,400.

What does a penetration test cost for a veterinary practice?

Most practices and groups fall into one of five scopes, typically costing between £1,100 and £25,200 in the UK market. What you pay depends on which systems are tested and how they connect to laboratories, insurers and other sites, because that sets the number of testing days. The table shows the typical range for each scope.

Scope	What is tested	Days	Typical UK cost
Single practice, internal network	One site and one Active Directory domain: the practice management server, workstations, consulting-room devices and the boundary to clinical equipment	1 to 3 days	£1,100 to £4,200
Pet owner portal and booking	One owner-facing portal for bookings, clinical history and repeat-prescription requests, including owner-to-owner isolation	5 days	£5,500 to £7,000
Video triage or consultation app	A remote consultation app on iOS and Android, covering consultation identity, meeting links, attachments and data held on the device	8 to 10 days	£8,800 to £14,000
Owner portal with claims and laboratory connections	The portal above, plus the APIs that send claims to pet insurers and receive laboratory results	11 to 14 days	£12,100 to £19,600
Corporate group estate	The group’s internet-facing services, networks across branches and laboratories, and one cloud environment holding clinical data	10 to 18 days	£11,000 to £25,200

These are market ranges, worked out from typical engagement lengths and UK day rates of £1,100 to £1,400. They are a guide for budgeting. The pricing page shows the engagement lengths for each type of test, and the quote form gives an exact fixed price for your scope.

What drives the price?

The number of testing days drives the price, and the scope drives the number of days. On a veterinary estate, four things move the day count: how many connections the practice system has, how many sites are joined together, how owners log in, and how much of the work can be done outside clinic hours.

• Connections from the practice system. Each link to a reference laboratory, an in-house analyser feed, a payment provider or a pet-insurance claims portal is an interface to test, and each adds time when tested in its own right.
• Number of sites. A single practice has one network. A group has branches, laboratories and back-office networks, and the separation between them is tested too.
• Owner access. Proxy access for shared ownership, multiple pets on one account and prescription-request approvals each add a boundary to check. See web application penetration testing.
• Cloud-hosted records. A cloud environment holding the practice management platform is a separate review, by account or subscription.

Tester grade is not a pricing factor, and neither is the size of the testing company or the practice. Two quotes for the same scope should differ mainly in the number of days. If one quote is much lower, compare the day counts first.

What is included, and what costs extra?

A quote should cover scoping, testing, the report, a walkthrough of the findings and a retest. Ask every company you approach to confirm each of those in writing, because retests and out of hours work are the two items that most often appear later as extra charges.

With EJN Labs, the quote is a fixed price for a defined scope. It includes:

• Testing by UK-based, CREST-certified testers.
• Findings in a client portal as they are confirmed, each with a CVSS score.
• The report on the last day of testing, and a walkthrough call.
• Free retests until findings are resolved.
• Out of hours slots, with no out-of-hours, callout, cancellation or rescheduling fees.

What changes the price is a change of scope: a laboratory link added after the quote, a second portal, or more sites than the ones described. If the scope grows, you get a new fixed price before any extra work starts.

How do you get a quote, and what will you be asked?

Send the list of systems you want tested and say who has asked for the evidence. A testing company needs a few facts about each system to count the days. Having them ready is the fastest way to get a firm price, and it makes quotes from different companies comparable.

1. Which practice management system you use, and whether it is hosted by the supplier or by you.
2. Whether owners log in anywhere: a booking portal, a history view or a repeat-prescription form.
3. Which outside systems connect in: reference laboratories, pet-insurance claims, payment providers, video consultation.
4. How many sites there are, and whether branches, laboratories and back-office systems share a network.
5. Who asked for the test, and the exact wording: a cyber insurance form, a corporate group’s supplier review, or a referral partner.
6. Any dates to avoid, such as a renewal deadline, a branch refit or a busy season.

Where does the request usually come from?

For a practice it is usually a cyber insurance form. No law names a penetration test for veterinary practices. One published cyber proposal form asks whether you conduct penetration tests of your network at least annually. Requirements vary by insurer and policy, so read your own form. Our guide to cyber insurance renewals that ask for penetration testing goes through the detail.

How EJN Labs approaches pricing for veterinary practices and groups

EJN Labs is a CREST-accredited UK penetration testing company with a dedicated veterinary and animal health service. We scope each system by what it does and who uses it, count the days, and give you one fixed price for the defined scope.

We test practice management systems, pet owner portals, laboratory result feeds, payment and pet-insurance claims workflows, group networks and cloud-hosted clinical data, keeping practice staff and pet-owner access separate throughout. Safe testing windows are agreed around clinic opening hours, and we use non-production environments with synthetic owner and clinical data wherever possible.

Testing is safe by default on production, with no denial of service. Retests are free until findings are resolved, so the price you agree covers the evidence that issues were fixed as well as the evidence that they were found.

Frequently Asked Questions

How much does a penetration test cost for a veterinary practice?

Typically £1,100 to £25,200 in the UK market. An internal network test for a single practice of 1 to 3 days is £1,100 to £4,200. A pet owner portal of 5 days is £5,500 to £7,000. A corporate group estate of 10 to 18 days is £11,000 to £25,200. These ranges use UK day rates of £1,100 to £1,400.

Why do laboratory and pet-insurance connections add to the price?

Because each connection is an interface that has to be tested in its own right. Claims-amount tampering, result integrity and owner-to-owner data leakage are separate checks. Adding the APIs to an owner portal moves the scope from 5 days to 11 to 14 days.

Is a retest included in the price?

It depends on the company, so ask for it in writing. With EJN Labs, retests are free until findings are resolved, and there are no out-of-hours, callout, cancellation or rescheduling fees. The quote is a fixed price for a defined scope.

How long does a penetration test take for a veterinary practice?

Between 1 and 18 testing days for the scopes in the table above. An internal network test for one practice is typically 1 to 3 days, an owner portal is 5 days, and a corporate group estate is 10 to 18 days. EJN Labs delivers the report on the last day of testing.

Can testing be done without disrupting the clinic?

Yes. Tell the testing company your opening hours and any procedure-heavy days when you ask for the quote. EJN Labs agrees safe testing windows around clinic hours, offers out of hours slots at no extra charge, and tests safe by default on production, with no denial of service.

Get a fixed price for your practice

Tell us which systems are in scope and who has asked for the evidence. Request a fixed-price quote and we will come back with the number of days, the price and the earliest start date.

Related: Veterinary Practice Cyber Insurance: Do You Need a Penetration Test?, Best Penetration Testing Companies for UK Veterinary and Animal Health, penetration testing for UK veterinary and animal health, penetration testing cost in the UK, internal network penetration testing and cloud penetration testing.