How Much Does It Actually Cost to Digitise a Loft Box of Photos, Slides and Tapes in the UK in 2026?
Short answer for an example UK loft box (300 prints, 200 slides, 12 VHS tapes, 4 audio cassettes): the base price is £514.84, and the price after the volume discounts is £452.46. That is the honest number for a mixed family inheritance in November 2026, with each kind of item counted on its own for the discount.
How much does it cost to digitise photos in the UK?
At EachMoment, loose prints are from £0.20 each with the full volume discount (the base price is £0.39); slides are from £0.40 (base £0.79) and negatives from £0.45 (base £0.89) per frame. Discounts of 10% to 50% apply once the value of that kind of item in your order reaches £75, £150, £250, £500, £1,000 or £1,199, provided the Memory Box is back at our lab within 4 weeks of dispatch.
If the photos matter and you would rather not spend weekends at a home scanner, the safer route is to send them to a photo scanning service that prices per print and lets you mix slides, negatives and tapes in the same box. This article walks through how the maths actually works for a UK family archive: the price bands, a worked example line by line, and the "cliff edges" where one extra item lowers the bill. Every EachMoment price comes from the live UK price tables, checked on 3 November 2026.
Key takeaways
- Base prices (UK, November 2026): loose prints £0.39, 35mm slides £0.79, 35mm negatives £0.89 per frame, photo album pages £1.49, VHS and other video tapes £14.99, audio cassettes £14.99.
- Volume discounts are set by the value of each kind of item in your order, not by item count: 10% from £75, 15% from £150, 20% from £250, 30% from £500, 40% from £1,000 and 50% from £1,199.
- The discount needs a quick return: it applies when your Memory Box is received back at our lab within 4 weeks of dispatch.
- No resolution tiers: each kind of item has one price list, so there is no resolution ladder to pay up through.
- Price floor: £0.20 per print (half of £0.39, rounded), £0.40 per slide and £0.45 per negative once that kind of item reaches £1,199 or more at base price.
- Worked example: a mixed 516-item loft box comes to £452.46 after the volume discounts (each kind of item counted on its own), against £514.84 at base price.
What "a loft box" usually contains
A typical inherited box mixes several hundred loose prints in processing wallets, one or two slide carousels, a handful of VHS tapes and a few audio cassettes. The worked example in this article — 300 prints, 200 slides, 12 VHS, 4 cassettes — is a realistic mid-sized box; if yours is bigger or smaller, the maths scales the same way.
Price is only half the question; the other half is what you get back. This slider shows the kind of difference colour correction makes on a faded 1970s print. Correction is included in the per-print price.
Most loft boxes pair the prints with 35mm slides, usually still in a carousel or a yellow processing box. Slides are priced per slide, whatever their condition.
The UK price bands at a glance
All photographic formats share the same discount bands. The table shows the per-item price in each band, from the live UK price table; the band is set by the value of that kind of item in your order.
| Value of that kind of item (at base price) | Discount | Prints | Slides | Negatives | Album pages | Video / audio tapes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Under £75 | None | £0.39 | £0.79 | £0.89 | £1.49 | £14.99 |
| £75+ | 10% | £0.35 | £0.71 | £0.80 | £1.34 | £13.49 |
| £150+ | 15% | £0.33 | £0.67 | £0.76 | £1.27 | £12.74 |
| £250+ | 20% | £0.31 | £0.63 | £0.71 | £1.19 | £11.99 |
| £500+ | 30% | £0.27 | £0.55 | £0.62 | £1.04 | £10.49 |
| £1,000+ | 40% | £0.23 | £0.47 | £0.53 | £0.89 | £8.99 |
| £1,199+ | 50% | £0.20 | £0.40 | £0.45 | £0.75 | £7.50 |
Band prices are rounded to the penny per item; the cart applies the percentage to the value of each kind of item, so a total can differ from the item count times the table price, by more on larger orders.
The worked example: a £452.46 loft box
Here is what the maths looks like on a mixed box, step by step.
The line items at base price: 300 prints × £0.39 = £117.00; 200 slides × £0.79 = £158.00; 12 VHS tapes × £14.99 = £179.88; 4 audio cassettes × £14.99 = £59.96. Subtotal £514.84. The discount is worked out for each kind of item on its own. The prints (£117.00) reach £75, so 10% off: £105.30. The slides (£158.00) reach £150, so 15% off: £134.30. The VHS tapes (£179.88) reach £150, so 15% off: £152.90. The audio cassettes (£59.96) are under £75, so no discount: £59.96. Total £452.46 — a £62.38 saving. That works out at about £0.35 per print and £0.67 per slide.
To reach the £0.20 per print floor, the prints alone have to come to £1,199 or more at base price, about 3,075 prints; slides, negatives and tapes each have their own bands. Output choices sit outside the discount: files are delivered to a private Cloud Album, and a USB costs £19.99 (£29.99 for the Premium USB) if you want one. The Memory Box itself costs £10.
The cliff edges: when one more print lowers the bill
Because the discount applies to the whole value of one kind of item, the total can fall when you add items of that kind. If your prints sit just under a threshold, adding a few more prints can make all your prints cheaper.
The jumps get bigger as the order grows: about £50 at the £500 threshold, £100 at £1,000 and £120 at £1,199. At 1,282 prints you pay £399.98; at 1,283 prints you pay £350.26. At 3,074 prints you pay £719.32; at 3,075 you pay £599.63. Check where your count lands before you seal the box.
How the volume bands actually work
The bands are based on the value of each kind of item in your order at base price, not the item count. All your prints count together, all your slides together, all your video tapes together, and so on; mixing kinds does not raise a band. Three examples:
- 120 slides only: 120 × £0.79 = £94.80 at base. Above £75, so 10% off: £85.32 paid, about £0.71 per slide.
- 30 slides + 8 VHS tapes: the slides come to 30 × £0.79 = £23.70, under £75, so no discount; the tapes come to 8 × £14.99 = £119.92, above £75, so 10% off: £107.93. Total £131.63. The slides do not count towards the tapes' band.
- 100 prints + 50 slides + 6 VHS tapes: the prints (£39.00) and the slides (£39.50) are each under £75, so no discount; the tapes come to £89.94, above £75, so 10% off: £80.95. Total £159.45 against £168.44 at base price.
The pricing calculator adds the discount automatically as the order crosses each threshold. There is no code to enter, and you can see the bands recalculate live on the slide scanning page and the other per-format pages.
What happens to each item in the box
One question worth asking before you pick a service on price: what will your photos actually go through? Every item is inspected and cleaned before scanning, and each medium goes to the right equipment for it.
Loose prints
Sheet-fed photo scanner
Prints
- Inspected and cleaned before scanning
- Colour correction included
- Priced per print
Mounted slides
Camera-based slide scanner
Slides
- Slides stay in their mounts
- Captured one frame at a time
- Priced per slide
Negative strips
Camera-based strip scanner
Negatives
- Strips captured frame by frame
- Colour and black-and-white
- Priced per frame
Tapes in the same box
VHS recorders and cassette decks
Tapes
- Played in real time
- Video tapes and audio cassettes are counted separately for the discount
- Priced per tape
Hidden costs — what is and is not in the price
A per-print headline is not always the final invoice. Here is what the EachMoment per-item price includes, and what is genuinely optional:
- Included in the per-item price: inspection and cleaning of every item, colour correction and a private Cloud Album you can share with family.
- Box and courier: the Memory Box costs £10; the tracked courier, both ways, is free on orders over £50 and £25 below that.
- Small extra, shown before you pay: mould treatment and repairs to damaged items cost a small extra charge per item.
- Optional: AI enhancement at £0.50 per photo, a USB (£19.99) or Premium USB (£29.99), or a DVD set (£19.99).
- Not charged: blank or unusable items — you only pay for what we can digitise.
Turnaround is around 9–10 weeks, counted from the day your payment clears once your box is back with us; see the turnaround page for current times.
How to estimate your box in five minutes
- Count loose photo packs. A typical processing wallet from the 1980s or 1990s holds 24 or 36 prints; multiply by the number of wallets. For albums, count pages instead — they are priced per page and scanned without removing the photos.
- Count slide trays. A Kodak Carousel tray holds 80 or 140 slides. Count trays, multiply, and add the loose ones in the bottom of the box.
- Count tapes and cassettes. One tape, one price: VHS, VHS-C, Hi8, Video8, Digital8, MiniDV and Betamax all have a base price of £14.99.
- Do the sum. For each kind of item (prints, slides, negatives, video tapes, audio cassettes), items × base price = the value of that kind. Find its band (£75 / £150 / £250 / £500 / £1,000 / £1,199) and apply that discount to that value.
- Check the cliff edges. If you are just under a threshold, see whether adding more items of that kind makes it cheaper. Then sanity-check against the £452.46 example for a 516-item box.
Or type rough counts into the online price calculator and it returns the final figure, including the band each kind of item lands in. If you are weighing up doing it yourself, our guide to the best photo scanners in the UK covers the home options.
Frequently asked questions
How much does it cost to digitise 1,000 family photos in the UK?
1,000 loose prints cost £312.00 at EachMoment: £390.00 at the £0.39 base price, less 20% because that value is above the £250 step, about £0.31 per print. The discount applies when the Memory Box is back at our lab within 4 weeks of dispatch.
At what order size does the volume discount start?
The first 10% discount starts when the value of one kind of item in your order reaches £75 at base price — about 193 prints, 95 slides or 6 video tapes. The 15% band starts at £150, 20% at £250, 30% at £500, 40% at £1,000 and 50% at £1,199. The discount applies to the whole value of that kind of item, not just the part above the threshold.
What is the cheapest price per photo?
£0.20 per print, when the prints in your order are worth £1,199 or more at base price (about 3,075 prints). Slides fall to £0.40 and negatives to £0.45 in the same band, counted on slides or negatives of their own. Below £75 you pay the full £0.39 per print.
Why do slides and negatives cost more than prints?
Slides and negatives are small transparent originals that have to be captured frame by frame on camera-based slide and strip scanners, while loose prints go through a document-style photo scanner. Slides cost £0.79 and negatives £0.89 per frame at base price, against £0.39 for a print.
Does sending photos and tapes together raise the discount?
No. The discount is worked out separately for each kind of item, so putting photos, slides and tapes in the same box does not move any of them into a higher band. 250 prints and 5 VHS tapes cost £162.70 in one box or in two: the prints come to £97.50 at base price and get 10% off (£87.75), and the tapes come to £74.95, just under the £75 step, so they get none.
Bottom line
If you have a loft box of UK family photos, slides and tapes, the worked example above, a mixed box of 516 items, comes to £452.46. Any kind of item whose value reaches £1,199 at base price falls to about half its base price. Run the maths on your actual box, counting each kind of item on its own, and check the cliff edges.
Prices checked 3 November 2026 against the photo, VHS and audio cassette price tables on our site.
Ready to digitise your loft box?
Order a Memory Box, fill it with photos, slides and tapes, and send it to our lab by tracked courier; the box costs £10, and the courier is free on orders over £50 (£25 below that). We send you a price for the items we receive before any work starts.
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