SMAS Worksafe Cost: 2026 Fees and What You Actually Get

If a main contractor has emailed you saying "we need you on SMAS before you set foot on site", the SMAS Worksafe cost is the only number you care about. The short version: the entry-level SSIP package starts at £345 a year, and if you already hold SSIP somewhere else you can get a SMAS certificate for a lot less than that. Below are the current published figures, what each package actually buys, and where SMAS sits against CHAS and SafeContractor on price.

TL;DR

SMAS Worksafe lists three packages on its products page: Worksafe (SSIP) from £345 a year, Worksafe Plus (SSIP plus the Smas Standard, formerly PAS 91) from £565, and Worksafe Pro (the Common Assessment Standard) from £725, with the final price set by how many people you employ. If you already hold a valid SSIP certificate with another scheme, SMAS prices deem-to-satisfy (DTS) from £200, which is the single biggest lever on your total accreditation bill. On headline entry price SMAS is the cheapest of the big three — £345 against SafeContractor's £419 and CHAS Standard's £429 — but the gap is under £90, so the scheme your client actually names matters more than the saving. Certification is annual: whatever you pay, you pay it again in 12 months. Several pages on the SMAS site still show older prices (£299 and £317), so always get a written quote before you budget.

What does SMAS Worksafe cost in 2026?

According to the Smas Worksafe products and services page, the three certification packages are priced as follows. These are "from" prices for the smallest businesses — Smas states on its SSIP certification page that prices vary with the size of your business and how many employees you have.

Separately, Smas Worksafe prices its deem-to-satisfy (DTS) route from £200, describing itself as one of the cheapest DTS providers around. DTS is not a lesser certificate — it is a SMAS certificate issued on the back of a full SSIP certificate you already hold with another member scheme.

Why does the SMAS website quote three different prices?

Search for SMAS Worksafe pricing and you will find £299, £317 and £345 on smasltd.com pages at the same time. That is not a trick — it is ordinary website rot, where older landing pages and quote-calculator pages keep historic figures after the main pricing page is updated. The products and services page and the SSIP certification page both carry £345 as of 04/11/2026, and both were updated in October 2026, which makes them the ones to trust.

Is SMAS Worksafe cheaper than CHAS and SafeContractor?

At entry level, yes — but by less than most people assume. Here are the published starting prices for the three schemes small subcontractors are most often asked for, all checked on 04/11/2026.

CHAS publishes its three membership prices on its contractor packages page and notes that costs scale with the size of your organisation. SafeContractor publishes four plan prices from £419 to £549 and states plainly that the subscription is calculated on employee numbers and that a one-off joining fee also applies. All three schemes therefore quote a floor, not a price.

The honest read: at the SSIP-only level the schemes are within about £85 of each other, which is roughly one hour on a commercial job. At the Common Assessment Standard level the gap widens considerably — SMAS Worksafe Pro from £725 against CHAS Elite from £949 — so if a public-sector buyer or a tier-one has asked for CAS, that is where shopping around actually pays. We go deeper on that in our guide to the Common Assessment Standard cost and how to get certified.

Worked example: two main contractors, two schemes, one budget

Say you run a 12-engineer M&E firm. Contractor A, a housebuilder, works off the Smas Portal and wants a SMAS Worksafe certificate. Contractor B, a facilities management outfit, wants CHAS. Both jobs are worth keeping. You have three realistic routes.

1. 1
   Two full assessments. Buy SMAS Worksafe from £345 and CHAS Standard from £429 and sit two separate assessments. From £774 a year, two sets of evidence uploads, two renewal dates. This is the route most people fall into by accident, and it is the one to avoid.
2. 2
   Cheapest full assessment plus DTS. Sit one full SSIP assessment with SMAS at from £345, then use mutual recognition to get a deem-to-satisfy certificate from CHAS. CHAS and SafeContractor both operate DTS routes but neither publishes a headline DTS price, so ask for it in writing before you commit.
3. 3
   Existing certificate plus SMAS DTS. If you already hold CHAS Standard at from £429, add a SMAS DTS certificate from £200 — around £629 total, with one assessment to sit, not two. For a firm that already has one scheme and has just been asked for a second, this is usually the cheapest honest route.

At 12 engineers you will not be paying the floor price on any of these, because all three schemes band by headcount. The structure of the saving holds, though: one full assessment, one or more DTS certificates on top. Our guide to the cheapest SSIP scheme works through the same logic across more providers, and CHAS vs SMAS Worksafe on cost and assessment compares the two head to head.

When is the £200 deem-to-satisfy route the right buy?

Deem to satisfy is the right buy when a client insists on a specific SSIP scheme you don't hold, and you already hold a valid full SSIP certificate elsewhere. Smas states that DTS takes as little as two minutes to complete and that the resulting certificate is valid for the duration of your full SSIP certification with the other provider.

That last clause is the catch, and it is the bit that costs subcontractors work. A DTS certificate is a dependant: it lives and dies with the parent certificate. SafeContractor spells out the same mechanism on its SSIP page — its certification is issued for a year but is suspended when your original SSIP member certification expires. So if your CHAS assessment lapses in March, your SMAS DTS certificate stops being any use in March too, even if you bought it in September and it looks in-date on the paperwork.

What does the SMAS Worksafe cost not cover?

The fee covers the assessment and 12 months of certification. It does not cover the work of getting your evidence in order, and it does not cover the gaps mutual recognition leaves.

• Your documents. Smas assesses against the 15 SSIP Core Criteria, condensed into 10 questions, and it assesses on evidence: health & safety policy, risk assessments, method statements, training records, insurance. Nobody writes those for you at £345.
• Tiers outside SSIP recognition. Mutual recognition covers the core health & safety module. It does not passport you into Constructionline Gold, the Common Assessment Standard or a client's own PQQ — see what SSIP mutual recognition does not cover.
• Next year. Certification runs 12 months and then you renew, re-confirming anything that has changed. Treat it as a recurring overhead, not a one-off.
• Training courses. SMAS also sells CITB courses such as SSSTS and SMSTS; those are priced separately from certification.

For the mechanics of the assessment itself rather than the fee, see our SMAS Worksafe explained guide, and how SSIP mutual recognition works for the passporting rules.

Frequently Asked Questions

How much is SMAS Worksafe per year?

Smas Worksafe lists its Worksafe (SSIP) package from £345 a year, Worksafe Plus from £565 and Worksafe Pro (the Common Assessment Standard) from £725, checked on 04/11/2026. Smas states the final price depends on the size of your business and your employee numbers, so request a quote rather than assuming the starting figure.

Is SMAS Worksafe cheaper than CHAS?

At entry level, SMAS Worksafe's published starting price of £345 a year is below CHAS Standard's £429 a year, and SMAS Worksafe Pro (£725) is below CHAS Elite (£949) for Common Assessment Standard certification. Both schemes band prices by employee numbers, so the gap at your headcount may differ from the gap between the headline figures.

How much does SMAS deem to satisfy cost?

Smas Worksafe prices deem-to-satisfy certification from £200, which it describes as a fraction of the cost of a full SSIP assessment. You must already hold a valid SSIP certificate with another member scheme to be eligible, and the DTS certificate lasts only as long as that underlying certificate.

How long does SMAS Worksafe certification last?

A Smas Worksafe SSIP certificate is valid for 12 months and must then be renewed, with the business confirming anything that has changed over the year. Smas says it aims to certify applicants in as little as 1–10 days, with one-day turnaround available on the Worksafe and Worksafe Plus packages only.

Do I need Worksafe Pro, or will the basic Worksafe package do?

Worksafe (from £345) meets SSIP, which is what most main contractors ask small subcontractors for. Worksafe Pro (from £725) exists because some public-sector buyers and tier-one contractors require the Common Assessment Standard, which SSIP mutual recognition does not cover — only buy up if a named client has actually asked for CAS.

The cheapest certificate is the one you don't let lapse

This guide has shown you two renewal problems for the price of one: a SMAS certificate that expires 12 months after you buy it, and any deem-to-satisfy certificate you add on top, which quietly dies the day the parent SSIP assessment lapses. Miss the parent date and you have paid £345 and £200 for paperwork a main contractor's portal will reject. TradeComply tracks the renewal date on every accreditation you hold — SMAS, CHAS, Constructionline, the lot — with email and calendar reminders at 60, 30 and 7 days, and keeps your policy, insurance, RAMS and training records in one evidence vault you upload once and reuse for each scheme; the page has the detail. The costings above stand whether or not you ever sign up: one full assessment at the cheapest scheme, deem to satisfy for the rest, and a date in the diary.