"How much is this going to cost us?" — that's the first question every managing director asks about the digital product passport. And most providers answer with: "request a custom quote". We do it differently: in this article we answer with numbers. We'll show you what the first year costs, what the ongoing costs are, what the line items look like — and why the software is usually not the biggest expense, but something that gets far less attention.
Why is it so hard to find a price?
If you search for "digital product passport price", you'll find two things: marketing pages with no concrete numbers, and studies with a truly staggering spread. That's no accident. The EU CIRPASS project's 2024 cost-benefit study, focused specifically on SMEs, states it openly: DPP providers are reluctant to publish figures for commercial reasons — and partly they don't know precisely themselves yet, because some of the delegated acts (the product-group-specific detailed rules) are not yet final.
And the spread really is enormous: depending on the study and the product, the literature mentions initial implementation costs ranging from a few thousand euros to several hundred thousand euros. At first glance that seems uselessly broad — but only until you compare an artisan brand making 12 products with a large enterprise running thousands of SKUs and building full supply-chain traceability. Those are not the same job, so they don't carry the same price. The good news: the SME range is much narrower and much friendlier than the scary top-end figures suggest. Let's break it down.
The four components of DPP cost
Whatever the size of your company, the total cost is always made up of the same four items. If you only look at the software subscription price, you're seeing the smaller half of the bill.
| Cost item | What it covers | Typical magnitude (SME) | One-off or ongoing? |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1. Software / platform | DPP platform subscription or QR-based fee, hosting, data carrier (QR) generation | ~€20–520/month on the market; entry plans even free | Ongoing |
| 2. Data collection (internal working hours) | Gathering product data, requesting supplier data, data cleaning, uploading | 10–40+ working hours per product family in the first round | Mostly one-off, then maintenance |
| 3. Measurement, certification (where required) | LCA / carbon footprint calculation, lab testing, certificates — only where the regulation requires it | ~€1,000–3,000 with database-based estimates; a full LCA costs more | One-off + periodic updates |
| 4. Maintenance | Adding new products, data updates, reflecting supplier changes, version tracking | Roughly 40–50% of the first-year cost per year | Ongoing |
And here comes the key insight that most quotes leave out: the biggest item is typically not #1 but #2 — your own colleagues' working hours as they hunt down data from the ERP, Excel sheets, supplier emails and certificate PDFs. Software prices are being pushed down by competition; the cost of data collection, on the other hand, depends on how well organised your data is right now. That's why two companies of identical size can see a 3–4x difference in real implementation cost — on the very same platform.
Realistic ranges by company size
The table below is a cautious, range-based estimate compiled from market sources (the qualitative analysis of the CIRPASS SME study, plus provider market research such as the Renoon and PassportCraft cost breakdowns). It is not a quote — but it's a good anchor for judging whether an offer you receive is realistic.
| Company size | First year (implementation + operation) | Subsequent years | What drives the cost? |
|---|---|---|---|
| Micro / small brand (<100 SKUs) | ~€2,500–10,000 | ~€1,000–5,000/year | Manual data collection, simple platform, few suppliers |
| Mid-sized company (several hundred SKUs, multiple supplier tiers) | Typically in the ~€15,000–70,000/year range | The lower half of the range once processes are established | ERP/webshop integration, supplier data chain, measurements |
| Large enterprise (thousands of SKUs, batch/item-level tracking) | From tens of thousands up to the hundreds of thousands | Case by case | System integration, LCA programme, multiple sites |
You'll encounter two pricing models on the market: the SaaS subscription (monthly/annual fee, typically tiered by SKU or passport count) and the per-unit fee (typically €0.50–2 per issued passport or QR). With a small SKU count, the subscription is almost always the better deal; for very high-volume products with simple data content, the per-unit fee can be competitive. Run both calculations on your own volumes before you sign.
An important evergreen footnote: the exact data scope is decided per product group in the delegated acts — for batteries it's already fixed (the battery passport becomes mandatory from 18 February 2027), while for textiles and other ESPR categories the detailed rules are still being drafted. We covered the deadlines in detail here. As long as a delegated act isn't final, the measurement item (#3) is the most uncertain — the other three can be planned well today.
Why does the first passport cost more than the rest?
Market experience shows that the first product's passport costs 3–5 times more than the ones that follow. That's not a vendor trick — it's logical: in the first round you pay all the "tuition" that gets reused afterwards:
- Data template: you only have to figure out once which fields you need, where the data comes from and who's responsible — for the second product it's already a ready-made recipe.
- Supplier channels: the first data request to a supplier is clunky; by the second, they already know what you expect and in what format. (It's worth building this deliberately — our article on supplier data collection covers exactly this.)
- Internal process: who uploads, who approves, when it gets updated — with the first product you're building a process; with the rest you're just running it.
- Measurement methodology: if you calculate a carbon footprint, choosing the methodology and data sources is one-off work; for further products you simply apply it.
The practical takeaway: don't mentally spread the first product's cost across your entire portfolio, because you'll get a distorted picture. And conversely: if an offer prices linearly per product, ask why the unit cost doesn't fall with volume.
The trap of "free" open source
Sooner or later someone in the company will say: "But there are open-source DPP reference implementations — those are free!" That's a half-truth. The code really is free — but getting it live, secure and maintained is engineering work: hosting, access management, data model customisation, QR/GS1 integration, keeping up with evolving standards, operations. Industry estimates put taking a reference implementation to production-ready typically at €50,000–200,000 in development and operations spend — in other words, this is the playing field of large enterprises with in-house development teams, not SMEs. "Free" here means: the licence is free; the working system is not.
How to cut the cost — five practical moves
- Start with the data you already have. At most companies, 60–70% of the data a DPP requires already exists — it's just scattered across the ERP, technical data sheets, certificates and supplier declarations. The first step isn't data production, it's a data inventory. (Our preparation checklist is a good starting point.)
- Step up granularity gradually. You don't need item-level passports right away: start at model level (one passport per product type), and only move to batch or item level where the regulation or the business value justifies it. You can read about the differences between levels in the anatomy of a product passport article.
- Structure your supplier data requests. Excel files ping-ponged over email are the most expensive data collection method there is. A form-based, link-driven request cuts away a substantial share of the labour cost.
- Don't pay upfront for uncertainty. Where the delegated act isn't final yet, it's worth waiting for the precise requirement before commissioning expensive measurement items (a full LCA) — building your data foundation, however, is work that pays off already today.
- Calculate in TCO, not licence fees. The real question behind your decision: how much money plus internal working hours will you spend in total over three years. A cheaper platform that leaves more manual work with you can end up more expensive overall.
Consultant, in-house build or SaaS?
There are three routes you can take, and each has its place — just not at the same company size:
- Consultant + custom project: worth it if your supply chain is highly complex and you're tying the DPP into your ERP/PLM with deep system integration. Pricing is project-dependent, typically from the top of the mid-market range upwards. For an SME it's often a sledgehammer to crack a nut.
- In-house build / open source: see above — a €50,000–200,000 order of magnitude plus ongoing developer capacity. It's rational if you want to turn the DPP into a strategic, differentiated product rather than a compliance task.
- SaaS platform: for the vast majority of SMEs this is the cost-effective route: a predictable monthly fee, zero development, and standards tracking (GS1, EU registry, formats) is the provider's job. What stays with you is the work only you can do: your data.
If you're still at the basics, the what is a DPP? article sorts out the picture in five minutes — after that, this calculation falls into place much more easily.
How does Veridyn help?
Veridyn is built precisely on the insight that an SME's real cost is the data work, not the software — so we save you time exactly where it costs the most:
- Category-schema editor with no coding: we've already paid the "tuition" of building the data templates — you fill in ready-made, regulation-aligned schemas, so even your first passport doesn't cost 3–5 times more.
- Supplier portal via a no-login link: it replaces the most expensive item — chasing supplier data — with a structured request.
- Model-, batch- and item-level passports + QR and GS1 Digital Link: the system natively supports the "step up gradually" strategy above — you change levels when it's worth it.
- Public passports in 24 EU languages, version history, document upload, REST API: these keep the maintenance item (#4) low, and you don't have to pay separately for webshop integration.
- Free starter plan, transparent pricing: with us you don't need to request a quote — the plans are public on our pricing page, and the entry tier is free. Before you pay anything, take a look at the live demo.
In the end, your exact cost depends on a single thing: how ready your data is. You can find that out in three minutes — the free DPP readiness test shows you how much work you have left and where to start. And once you can see the picture, after registering you can put together your first passport today — without paying anything.