Once a business realises CSRD (or a customer's carbon data request) applies to them, the next question is almost always: “How much is this going to cost?”The honest answer is: it depends enormously on which route you take. Here's a realistic breakdown of the three main options.
Option 1 — Hiring a Sustainability Consultant
Consultants offer hands-on guidance, help you interpret ambiguous requirements, and can represent you in front of auditors. For a company with genuinely complex operations (multiple sites, complex supply chains, industrial processes), that expertise can be worth paying for.
The tradeoff is cost and speed: consultants typically bill by the day or on a project basis, and a full engagement — from data collection through to a finished report — can run from a few thousand euros for a light-touch review up to tens of thousands for ongoing annual support at a larger company. For most SMBs, that's a disproportionate cost relative to the actual complexity of a Scope 1–3 calculation.
Option 2 — Dedicated Carbon/ESG Reporting Software
Purpose-built software sits between a consultant and doing it yourself: it automates the calculation and report generation, applies current emission factors for you, and doesn't require carbon accounting expertise to operate. Pricing varies widely across the market — some platforms are built for large enterprises and priced accordingly, others (like EmissionPlan) are priced specifically for SMBs: a free tier for Scope 1 tracking, and a Professional plan at €29/month for full Scope 1, 2 & 3 reporting with unlimited PDF exports — or €50 for a single one-off report if you only need it occasionally.
The gap between “a few thousand euros for one report” and “€29 a month” is significant, and for most SMBs without unusually complex operations, the software route produces a comparable result at a fraction of the cost.
Option 3 — DIY with Free Spreadsheets and Tools
The GHG Protocol and DEFRA publish free tools and raw conversion factor data — genuinely free, and thorough if you're willing to learn the methodology yourself. The real cost here isn't money, it's time: manually looking up the correct emission factor for every category, building your own report format, and re-doing all of it again next year when factors update. For a one-off exercise it's viable; as an ongoing annual process it becomes a recurring time cost that's easy to underestimate.
What Actually Determines the Right Choice
- Operational complexity — multiple sites, industrial processes, or a complex supply chain genuinely benefit from consultant expertise.
- How often you need to report — a one-off report for a single supplier request is a different cost decision than annual CSRD compliance.
- Internal capacity — do you have someone who can dedicate real hours to a DIY spreadsheet approach, or do you need something that runs itself?
- Budget for ongoing cost vs one-time cost — software is typically a predictable monthly or per-report cost; consultants are usually a larger one-time or annual engagement fee.
A Practical Starting Point
Most SMBs don't need to commit to any option before seeing what their numbers actually look like. Try our free carbon footprint calculator first — no sign-up, about 5 minutes — and use that as a baseline to judge whether your situation genuinely needs consultant-level complexity, or whether software can handle it end to end.