What is the cost of obtaining a CE certificate or as it is also called the European certificate, we will consider in this article.
Before moving on to the cost, let's look at what types of permits exist in Europe and what authorities issue them.
The first and most common type of service that certification agencies now increasingly offer (state conformity assessment (certification) bodies in Ukraine are not accredited to issue European-style certificates (CE certificates)) is to obtain a "European declaration of conformity '.
Attention! Unus Finis is only concerned with issuing and issuing CE Certificates (European Certificates), not "declarations"
The cost of obtaining such a declaration is not high and starts from 500 euros, but it is worth considering that this document is issued not by a ratified European body, but by a private laboratory in Europe. This means that, having received such a document, you may encounter a number of restrictions, for example, the sale of goods according to the "declaration" may be limited to a specific region in Europe (for example, only in the city of Paris) and for the sale of your products outside of it (for example, in Prague) you may be asked to undergo additional tests and you will only find out about this when you import the goods into Europe. There were also cases when the customs service of the European Union did not take into account the "declarations" from private laboratories and demanded a "CE certificate" for imported products. A “declaration” can be obtained, for example, for cable products, here the risk is minimal, and the tests made by the laboratory will most likely not raise questions, as for complex electronics or equipment, then you definitely need to choose “certification” in a ratified European body.
A European-style declaration from a private non-ratified laboratory in Europe is a risk of being without the necessary documents at the most crucial moment.
The second most stable and popular type of service both in Europe and in Ukraine is obtaining a European CE certificate from a ratified European body.
Obtaining such a certificate guarantees your company and your products unhindered sales throughout the European Union at all levels, whether it be purchases for public authorities or sales to private hands. Organization of service centers, trademark registration and obtaining EAN. Shelves of any online stores and marketplace, such as the European Amazone or the lidl chain of stores, will become available to you.
The cost of obtaining a "CE certificate" (CE certificate) can be conditionally divided into two parts:
1) Administrative work - 2500 euros
Administrative work includes the evaluation of test reports (if any), the formation of an application for a "CE certificate" (CE certificate), the selection of standards, the preparation and collection of documents for the declared products, laboratory control of tests (if required) communication between the certification body in Europe and much more.
To simplify miscalculations, this amount includes the work of the European body, as well as the services of Unus Finis with a turnkey service
2) Obtaining European test reports - the cost depends on the complexity of the test sample.
Here, this section can also, conditionally, be divided into two parts:
a) The customer has European or Chinese test reports for individual elements or for products as a whole. In this situation, the European body may take into account the available test reports and issue a European certificate (CE certificate) without reports and tests, or require minor additional tests, and not the whole cycle.
In this case, the cost of obtaining a CE certificate will be only its “administrative part”, that is, 2500 euros
b) The customer does not have European or Chinese test reports for individual elements or for products as a whole.
In this case, tests can be carried out both on the territory of Ukraine in the UCRF (with a 100% guarantee of obtaining European protocols, Unus Finis is responsible for the test sample and its performance) and in Europe (the customer is responsible for the test sample and its performance)
Calculation of obtaining a European certificate on the example of a LoRA Hotspot access point:
Radio technologies briefly: LoRA, Wi-Fi b/g/n/ac, Bluetooth, GPS.
Testing and obtaining European-style protocols were carried out in Ukraine at Unified Center Research Facilities (UCRF) . 7 European test reports were received on hand.
The cost of testing in the UCRF was 170,000 UAH (as of May 2022 it was 4950 euros, the rates of the UCRF were not revised, so as of October 2022 this amount was the equivalent of 4050 euros)
We would like to note that the cost of "administrative services" is always indicated in euros, while the cost of testing in Ukraine will be in hryvnia, the cost of testing in Europe will always be indicated in euros.
Thus, the calculations for obtaining a turnkey European certificate (CE certificate) for a LoRA Hotspot access point with Unus Finis will look like this:
2500 euros (administrative work) + 4950 euros (test reports, we take the highest cost at the beginning of the year) = 7450 euros (the cost of the CE certificate)
For comparison, at the request of our company in May 2022, the certification of this access point in Germany amounted to 8100 euros, and the tests in Slovakia amounted to 7600 euros, respectively.
