What the alternatives actually cost
Before something like Echo existed, checking a room meant one of three routes: booking a consultant, licensing professional simulation software, or working it out yourself. No named rivals here — just what each route typically costs and delivers, so you can see plainly what Echo replaces, and just as plainly what it doesn't.
- 1
A room with a problem
Somebody needs a decision about a room. Before Echo, that meant one of three routes: booking a consultant, licensing professional simulation software, or working it out yourself.
- 2
A traditional consultant
- 3
Professional simulation software
- 4
Echo
- 5
Same start, same clock
- 6
What Echo doesn't replace
| AcoustaPLOT Echo | A traditional acoustic consultant | |
|---|---|---|
| Typical cost | £34.99 once, or Studio from £149/mo for every project | Commonly £2,000–£6,000 (UK consultant fees, in GBP) for a single room or building, plus a site visit |
| Time to an answer | About a minute | A booked site visit, then typically one to several weeks for the report |
| Who operates it | You — no acoustics background needed | A qualified acoustic consultant, booked in advance |
| What you get | A branded report, the main ways to fix the room, cost bands for each route | A signed, professionally-produced report — the gold standard where one is genuinely required |
| Tells you if there's nothing to fix | Yes, plainly, when the room already compares well with common targets | Yes — but you've paid the full fee to find that out either way |
| Best for | Classrooms, offices, restaurants, waiting rooms — checking as you go | Contentious, contractual, or planning/building-control work needing a signed figure |
| AcoustaPLOT Echo | Professional simulation software, or a full consultant report | |
|---|---|---|
| Typical cost | Pro from £299/mo, or £119 for one room, once. Ordering opens soon, once our professional indemnity insurance is in place. | Commonly £7,000–£20,000+ (GBP) just to license the software, or £8,000–£25,000+ (GBP) to commission a full multi-room consultant report |
| Time to a result | A ray-traced solve in around a minute | The software: hours to model a room once you know how. A commissioned report: weeks |
| Who operates it | You — the room's shape and materials in, seat-by-seat results out | The software needs a trained acoustic modeller; the report needs the same, booked |
| What you get | A figure per seat, the one reflection ruining a row, a design-submission dossier and a CAD seat-position export | The software: raw modelling capability, nothing produced until someone runs it. The report: a finished, signed document |
| Ongoing use | Every project on the plan, saved rooms, revision history | The software: yours to keep re-running, once you've paid to license and learn it. The report: a one-off for that room |
| Best for | Auditoria, lecture halls and performance spaces — where seat position matters | The same rooms — this is the tier of problem both alternatives exist to solve |
Figures are general UK market indicators for the categories described, not quotes from any specific firm or product — real costs vary with scope, region and the individual job. Software figures are the licensing cost alone and exclude training. Consultant figures are typical published ranges for BB93 school compliance work, as one common, well-documented benchmark.
Free calculators also exist, offered by manufacturers and trade associations. Echo's differences are the written report, the named standard it is checked against, and the brief you can hand to a supplier.
What Echo doesn't replace
For anything contentious, contractual, or tied to a planning or building-control condition, you still need a qualified acoustic consultant to sign off a measured figure — that's true whichever Echo tier you use. Echo exists for everything before that point: routine checks, early design decisions, and the seat-by-seat detail that used to mean licensing consultant-grade software just to find out. See Why AcoustaPLOT for where Echo sits against guesswork and generic panel-selling, and Studio vs Pro for which Echo tier fits your own work.
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