A manuscript critique costs £85–£215 for three chapters and a synopsis, or £250–£600 for a full first read. You are buying the honest reaction of someone with no social stake in the answer, which is the one thing nobody close to you can give you.
What it costs
What manuscript critique / first-reader report costs — and what you're actually buying
What good looks like
- Fast turnaround, because the point is to catch problems early
- Specific about where attention dropped
- Willing to say the idea is not working
- Cheap enough that it is not a big decision
What your book will actually cost
Four questions — genre, length, what you have already, what you want at the end — and we send a costed plan for your book.
What you are actually buying
A first-reader report is a fast, early read on whatever exists — usually the first three chapters — answering the question underneath most requests for feedback: is this worth continuing?
Why it costs that
A critique is priced on the reading and the writing of a response — three chapters and a synopsis is a few hours; a full first read of a complete manuscript is a day or more. What you are buying is the honest reaction of someone with no social stake in the answer, which is the one thing nobody close to you can give you.
How to spend less
Buy it on three chapters rather than the whole book, at least the first time. The opening is where an agent, a browsing reader and a sample-reader all decide, so it is the highest-leverage 3,000 words you own — and if the opening is not working, a full-manuscript critique tells you the same thing for four times the price.
What good looks like
- Fast turnaround, because the point is to catch problems early
- Specific about where attention dropped
- Willing to say the idea is not working
- Cheap enough that it is not a big decision
Questions to ask them
- How quickly, and how much will you read?
- Will you tell me if you think I should stop?
Red flags
- A long turnaround, which defeats the purpose
- Encouragement in place of assessment
- Being upsold to a full developmental edit before the first read is delivered
Honestly
A first read is an impression, not an analysis. If you want the structural diagnosis — why something is not working and what to do about it — that is a developmental edit and it costs several times as much.
What Your Book Pro does here
Your Book Pro is a British book-writing platform. You bring a book — an idea, a folder of notes, half a draft, or a finished manuscript written somewhere else — and it gives you the editorial process a publisher would run: a plan, structured feedback, a simulated beta read, a line edit, a proofread, a cover, a blurb and a print-ready file. You can type it, upload it or speak it. The tools sit in one place and work on the same manuscript, so the feedback compounds instead of arriving as twelve disconnected opinions.
These prices are here to be used, not to sell you something — brief a freelancer with them, sanity-check a quote, or work out what you actually need. Where Your Book Pro changes the arithmetic, the page says so; where it does not, it says that too.
A first read is an impression, not an analysis. If you want the structural diagnosis — why something is not working and what to do about it — that is a developmental edit and it costs several times as much.
What it costs
| What you are buying | Typical range | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| First three chapters | £85–£215 | ~2–5 hrs at CIEP £42.66 |
| Full first read with short report | £250–£600 | ~6–14 hrs at CIEP £42.66 |
CIEP suggested minimum rates effective 1 March 2026; Books.by; publishing.co.uk; The Ghostwriters Agency. Dated 9 September 2026.
Get a first read
Get my costed planQuestions people ask
- What's the difference between a critique and a beta read?
- A critique is a professional's judgement on whether the writing works. A beta read is a reader's experience of reading it. Both useful, different questions.
- How much does a manuscript critique cost?
- £85–£215 for three chapters and a synopsis; £250–£600 for a full first read.
- When should I get my first feedback?
- Earlier than most people do — on a complete first draft, or on three chapters if you are unsure the approach is working at all.
- Will it be brutal?
- It should be specific, which is not the same thing. A good critique names mechanisms and locations, not verdicts.