UK jewellery valuers write their reports in one of three kinds of tool: a dedicated valuation package (GuildPro from the Guild of Valuers & Jewellers, Instappraise, Jewellery Valuer Pro), the appraisal module inside a shop system (The Edge, Jewel360, Clarity & Success), or Word and a spreadsheet. A customer bringing a ring in should expect to pay roughly £60 to £110 for the first item and £30 to £100 for each further one, sometimes with a separate document fee of £65 to £105. Reputable valuers charge for time and research, not a percentage of the value - the National Association of Jewellers says fees "generally reflect the time it takes to analyse and research the jewellery", and several Institute of Registered Valuers members state on their fee pages that charges are not based on the value of the item.

This article covers both halves of the question, because the search does: the software a jeweller uses to produce a valuation, and the fee the customer pays for one. Prices below are as of August 2026 and linked to the vendor or valuer page they came from.

The software, compared

Tool What it is Published price (Aug 2026) UK-specific? Fits with a UK shop's other systems
GuildPro (Guild of Valuers & Jewellers) Web-based valuation writer for valuers; live metal and exchange rates, stone weight calculator, worksheets; every valuation registered to the GVJ e-Register that insurers can query Not published - "subscription and pay as you go options", full price list on request; free trial Yes - Bath-based, 30+ years, built around IRV/JVA valuers Standalone. No stock, till or repairs; export is the PDF report
Instappraise Cloud valuation and quoting platform; valuation types, take-in forms, diamond/gem/watch editors, customer portal, digital signatures $90/month or $72/month on an annual plan, about 100 valuations a month soft limit; free tier to view only; 14-day trial Has an en-gb site and shows GBP metal prices; priced in US dollars; USPAP language is American Standalone, one location per plan
Jewellery Valuer Pro New UK web app built by a practising valuer; working notes, weight estimation formulas, auction research, live bullion, gem reference data £29/month, 30-day trial; "early release" Yes - UK, GBP Standalone, calculation and notes rather than a shop system
GemGuide Appraisal Software (Gemworld) Windows desktop appraisal writer tied to Gemworld's GemGuide price data; plotting, GIA data, metals Start-up package includes install, training and 100 appraisals; then about $1 per appraisal (100 for $95, 250 for $225). GemGuide data itself $245-$500/year No - US pricing data in dollars; Windows only, no Mac, no ARM chips Standalone
The Edge (Abbott Jewelry Systems) US shop system with an appraisal module inside POS, stock, repairs and customer history Not published; third-party review cites about $4,600 for one workstation plus 15-20% a year support No - US; no UK VAT handling Appraisal sits on the customer record with sales and repairs
Jewel360 US cloud jewellery POS; appraisals included from the Core plan Startup plan $199/month; Core and Plus not published; $750 setup fee No - US Appraisal sits with POS and repairs
Clarity & Success UK/German shop system (acquired Bransom); offers a valuations module alongside stock, POS and repairs Not published Yes - UK office; now the largest jewellery-specific system in the UK Integrated with stock and repairs
Milleso Our product, so weigh this row accordingly. Back-office for UK jewellers: stock, till, repairs with customer property, gold desk, VAT regimes, Xero/Sage export Counter £99/month, Trade £249/month ex VAT Yes It is not valuation software. It tracks the customer's piece as customer property while it is in the building and invoices the fee; the report itself is written elsewhere

Two things stand out. Nobody publishes a complete GBP price list for a dedicated UK valuation tool except Jewellery Valuer Pro, and the tools that do handle valuation well are standalone - the valuation lives in one system, the customer, the repair ticket and the till in another.

What does jewellery valuation software actually do?

A valuation report for insurance has to describe the piece so that an insurer can replace it: metal, fineness and hallmark, stone type, measured or estimated weights, colour and clarity, settings, condition, photographs, the basis of value and the figure. The software's job is the repeatable part of that: the stone weight estimation formulas, live metal prices, standard descriptions, the report template and the numbering.

GuildPro adds the part that matters to insurers - every valuation is registered to the Guild's e-Register, which the GVJ says holds "in excess of £3 billion worth of items with over 350,000 customers protected", and insurers and brokers can look a valuation up directly. The Assay Office Birmingham's SafeGuard service has done something similar since 2025, storing digital valuations in a vault run by its technology partner Vaultik. A valuation that an insurer can verify without a phone call is worth more to the customer than one that lives on a letterhead.

Instappraise and Jewellery Valuer Pro are the cloud options. Instappraise is the more complete product (take-in forms, quotes, a customer portal) but it is priced in dollars and its compliance language is American - USPAP is the US appraisal standard, and a UK insurer will not ask about it. Jewellery Valuer Pro is British, cheap and new; at £29 a month it is a calculation and notes tool first, report writer second, and it describes itself as an early release.

GemGuide's software is really a front end to Gemworld's US price guide. It works, it is Windows-only, and its pricing data is for the American market. A UK valuer can use the formulas but should not use the price tables as replacement values for a UK insurance report.

Should the valuation live in the shop system instead?

If you only do a handful of valuations a month, probably yes. The Edge, Jewel360 and Clarity & Success all attach the appraisal to the customer record, so the same screen shows what you sold them, what you repaired and what you valued. That is a real convenience, and it is how the US systems are designed: the appraisal is a sales tool that brings the customer back every few years.

The trade-off is the quality of the report and the lack of any register. The Edge and Jewel360 are American systems; neither publishes UK pricing, neither addresses VAT margin scheme sales or the scrap gold reverse charge, and neither will register the valuation anywhere an insurer can check. Clarity & Success is the UK-facing shop system with a valuations module, but it does not publish pricing and we could not test the module.

The practical result is that a shop doing valuations seriously usually runs two systems - a valuation writer and a shop system - and reconciles the customer record by hand. That is the honest state of the market.

How much does a jewellery valuation cost in the UK?

Fee pages from IRV-registered valuers, as of August 2026:

Valuer First item or document fee Further items Notes
Valuation Services UK £75 first item £60 each; premium items and diamonds over 1.50ct from £100 Charges "not based on the value of your item"
Jewellery Portfolio (Hatton Garden) £65 document fee Gem-set £60, non-gem-set £30, watches £60, premium watches £90; diamonds over 1ct £75 per carat Same fees for insurance, probate and open market; includes VAT
Surety Valuations £105 report fee Gem-set £100, non-gem-set £63, group of up to 10 low-value pieces £100; 1.5-1.99ct £142 up to 4ct+ £300 Update valuations £40 per normal item plus report fee; no percentage pricing
Assay Office Birmingham (SafeGuard) - £90 per item of jewellery, £110 per watch; retail partner pricing may vary 10 working days standard, 5 express, same day by appointment

So the honest answer for a customer is: a single ring will cost £60 to £110 all in, a small box of five or six pieces £250 to £450, and anything with a stone over a carat and a half more. Some valuers in London charge more than this table; some regional jewellers charge less for a simple gold band. If a valuer quotes you a percentage of the value, ask why - the NAJ's published guidance describes fees as reflecting time and research, and the valuers above say outright that they do not price by value.

For a jeweller offering the service, the fee schedules above are the benchmark. Charge by the item and the work. Publish the schedule. Separate the document fee from the per-item fee so that a customer with one ring and a customer with a drawer of jewellery both see a fair number.

What is the difference between an insurance, probate and open-market valuation?

The same ring gets three different figures depending on why it is being valued, and the report must say which basis it uses.

Insurance replacement. The cost of replacing the piece with an equivalent, new where a new equivalent exists, second-hand or antique where it does not, including VAT. This is the highest figure and the one most customers mean when they say "get it valued". The NAJ recommends updating it every three to five years because metal prices, diamond prices and exchange rates move. A 2019 valuation of a gold chain is badly out of date at 2026 gold prices.

Probate. The open market value at the date of death - what the piece would fetch if sold, not what it would cost to replace. HMRC's form IHT407 tells executors to "enter details of any individual items of jewellery valued at £1,500 or more" and to enclose a professional valuation if they have one; items under £1,500 each go in as a single total. Probate values are typically a fraction of the insurance figure for the same piece, which surprises families who have only ever seen the insurance document.

Open market or private sale. What a willing buyer would pay a willing seller today, used for divorce and family division, capital gains and sales between parties. Close to probate in basis, different in wording and sometimes in date.

A valuer who produces all three will charge the same per-item fee for each (Jewellery Portfolio says so explicitly); the research is similar, only the basis and the wording change. Software that supports "multiple valuation types" is handling this - one description, several bases, the right wording on each report.

Who should write the valuation?

The Institute of Registered Valuers, run by the National Association of Jewellers since 1987, is the UK's register. Members need at least five years in the trade, a recognised gemmological qualification, accredited diamond grading and the NAJ's Foundations of Appraisal Practice, commit to a code of practice and continuing professional development, and sit a professional review every five years. The Guild of Valuers & Jewellers says all its valuers are IRV members or fellows and JVA members. Insurers accept valuations from both, and from the Assay Office.

A jeweller without an IRV member on staff has two options: send the piece to a valuation service (SafeGuard works through more than 700 UK retail locations, which is how Goldsmiths and Beaverbrooks offer it) or bring an independent valuer in on a clinic day. Either way the piece is customer property while it is with you, which is a workshop insurance question before it is a software one.

What we could not verify

  • GuildPro's prices. The GVJ page says subscription and pay-as-you-go plans exist and the price list is available on request. We did not obtain it.
  • Clarity & Success's valuation module. Listed on their site; no pricing and no feature detail published.
  • The Edge's current licence price. The $4,600 figure is from a third-party review without a date; The Edge's own pricing page is a quote calculator.
  • Jewel360 Core and Plus prices. Not published; Startup is $199 a month and appraisals start at Core.
  • Whether the fee schedules above include VAT. Jewellery Portfolio says its fees include VAT; Surety and Valuation Services UK do not say. Assume a 20% difference is possible.
  • Instappraise's company location. The site has a UK domain and GBP metal prices but the sample report is American and pricing is in dollars.

Sources

This is general information, not valuation, insurance or tax advice, and it is not a quotation. Vendor prices and valuers' fee schedules change without notice; check the linked page before you rely on a figure, and take probate questions to the executor's solicitor or HMRC.

Milleso does not write valuations. What it does is log the customer's piece as customer property the moment it comes over the counter, keep it separate from your own stock while the valuer has it, and raise the invoice for the fee from the same record - so the valuation tool can stay a valuation tool.