So, as of February 2026, a standard setup is now between £45 and £65.

This depends on the condition of the guitar.

So basically, we agree that it’ll be a price in that range, and then I get started. Sometimes it will be £45, sometimes £65, maybe sometimes £55. You get the idea.

Why is this? Well, read on.

First, let’s go back to 1993. I’m in my A-Level year, and in between going to school to do my single A-level class (who even let me do just ONE A-level??) I’m getting the bus to a local guitar tech/luthier to help out and learn.

A setup is £25.

A driving lesson is £10.

A guitar lesson is £10 (i was given the choice between guitar lessons and driving lessons, and thus didn’t pass my test til i was 30 odd 😀 )

A pint of lager is £1.60.

Guitars from the 60s are already highly revered and rare, so even though they’re only 30 years old, we don’t see many of them. Most of what we see were guitars from the very late 70s, 80s and early 90s. At this time, most guitars were made in the USA (Fenders or Gibsons), Mexico (Fender) or Japan – Ibanez, Jackson etc etc. There were lower quality guitars (always have been) from Korea and China etc, but generally speaking we were working on decent quality guitars that were less than 20 years old.

Fast forwards to 2026.

A driving lesson is £30.

A guitar lesson is £30.

A pint of lager is £5.

A guitar setup (if we’re following inflation) SHOULD be around £75.

But it isn’t.

Why not?

Well, I think it’s because the cost of new, cheap guitars from the far east has kept the cost of a setup artificially low. My first second hand guitar off Huddersfield Second Hand Market was an Encore Strat, and it was £60 in 1992. That’s equivalent to around £160 in today’s money. For a second hand crappy guitar! As you’ll know, you can now get a decent (or so people insist) guitar for that – NEW. And millions upon millions of these have been sold. Who’s paying £75 to set up a £100 guitar? Not many people. Therefore a setup for £45 ish seems to be where we’ve ended up.

So there’s that.

Anyway, pricing is always tricky to get right. For every person that’s got a cheap guitar who baulks at the idea of spending even £45 to get it playing nicely, there’s someone with an expensive guitar that loves what I do and tells me I’m far too cheap. One chap said “doesn’t inflation exist at your place??” As you’ll know, the price of everything has gone through the roof over the last 5 years, but my prices have stayed the same.

Anyway.

2025 was an incredibly busy year for me. Like, so busy I’m sometimes working 7 days a week and can barely manage. Ask any business advisor what to do in these circumstances and they’ll always say “put your prices up” – the idea being that you’ll lose some work, so have less to do, but the price increase will mean you make the same money overall.

But I didn’t want to just bang £10 to £20 on my services at random. I wanted to work out what work I’d essentially been doing for FREE. And the standard setup is where the problem for me lies.

Back to 1994 for a second. All the guitars we worked on were less than 20 years old, and were generally USA or Japanese made.

In 2026, those same guitars are now 50 years old or more, and we have a whole raft of cheaply (badly) made guitars from the far east to deal with too. Some guitars are in a right state right out of the factory. Some have had 50 years worth of hammer and bad modifications and haven’t seen a cleaning cloth since Quentin Wilson was on Top Gear.

This can lead to setup that end up being mini restorations with lots of little bits and pieces to attend to that I simply HAVE to do, because I refuse to just do half a job. Let me give you two examples from this week.

Example 1 – PRS SE

So it’s a PRS SE that’s maybe three years old. This is how it goes:

1) Quick electronics check – everything works fine.
2) Strings off.
3) Quick and easy fretboard clean and oil, and fret polish.
4) Clean headstock, back of neck, and the body.
5) Restring.
6) Set truss rod, adjust nut a little, do action and finally the intonation.
7) Play test and put it back in the case. Done!

Example 2 – A Telecaster In a Shit State  Well Loved State

1) Quick electronics check – all pots crackle and switch is intermittent.
2) Remove electronics plate to clean switch and pots.
3) Badly soldered wires just fall off because someone’s done a crap job
4) Repair wiring
5) Clean pots and switch
6) Replace electronics plate.
7) Screws are stripped so won’t tighten properly
8) Dowel and glue holes
9) Wait.
10) Put screws back in.
11) Remove strings
12) All six of the string ferrules in the back just fall out all over my desk
13) Glue each one back in.
14) Wait.
15) Notice that the nut has also fallen off.
16) Retrieve nut from under my bench.
17) Glue in place.
18) Scrape 20 years of chud and fingerpoo off the fretboard with a blade whilst trying not to throw up.
19) Douse in naphtha and scrub furiously with a cloth.
20) Bit more scraping.
21) More cloth-ing.
22) I can see the actual wood!
23) Oil fretboard.
24) Polish frets (can’t complain here – the dremel makes it easy regardless of the amount of corrosion on them).
25) Notice that both strap button screws are loose so go to tighten them – the threads are stripped.
26) Dowel and glue both holes.
27) Wait.
28) Screw the strap buttons back in securely.
29) Clean the headstock, back of neck and body.
30) Toothbrush all manner of cack out from around the pickups and bridge.
31) Install new strings and tune up.
32) Truss rod is miles out of adjustment – and the adjuster is at the body end…
33) Slacken strings.
34) Remove neck.
35) Adjust truss rod (using The Force to decide how much)
36) Reattach neck.
37) Tune to pitch and check truss rod again – looking ok now.
38) Check nut – it’s ok. Was probably miles too high when it was new, but the slots have actually worn themselves down over the years until they’re actually nice and low.
39) Go to adjust action. Bridge saddle grub screws are rusty and seized.
40) Spray with penetrating fluid.
41) They all free up apart from the low E saddle (cuz that’s where your sweaty hands sit)
42) Slacken low E string.
43) Remove saddle from the bridge and put it in the vice.
44) Using pliers, back the seized grub screws out of the saddle and replace with new ones.
45) Replace the saddle and re-thread the string.
46) Adjust action.
47) Adjust intonation.
48) One of the intonation screws is stripped so the saddle just goes all the way forwards.
49) Rummage through my parts box for a replacement.
50) Chase the threads in the saddle with a tap (an engineering tool that makes threads – not a kitchen tap)
51) Put the new screw in
52) Pray..
53) It holds! Hurrah!
54) Finish setting the intonation
55) Plug it in for a play test – realise the jack socket is loose.
56) Tighten nut – whole cup starts to spin.
57) Remove nut and cup, add lock washer and reassemble.
58) Tighten.
59) Play test. All good.
60) Guitar goes back in its case.

As you can see, these two jobs are far from the same.

So I had a few options once I’d decided to do something about this.

When a job goes south and gets tricky because your guitar is a shambles that should have you prosecuted by the RSPCG (Royal Society for Prevention of Cruelty to Guitars), I could just text you to tell you it’s gonna cost extra for all the messing about tidying various bits. This seems reasonable, but on a practical level, it’s not. Firstly, if you were to say “I don’t want to pay extra” then what do I do? Just leave the strap buttons loose and pray the guitar doesn’t fall off the strap and burst your big toe like a sausage like it did with my mate Richard in about 1995? Nope. I can’t do half a job. I’d rather not touch the guitar at all.

Secondly, as people sometimes take a few hours to reply to texts on a workday, even if they said yes, go ahead (which if I’m being fair to my lovely clients, they probably would anyway), I could end up with four of five guitars laying around in various states of completion, awaiting confirmation texts that allow me to proceed.

I’m also not doing that.

Haven’t got the space.

So here’s my idea.

We agree before I start that a setup will be between £45 and £65. That extra £20 is like a potential insurance policy to cover you for all the extra stuff, should it arise.

Of course, you may ask yourself “you could just *say* all the guitars have been a royal pain and charge everyone £65”, and sure, I could do that, but you could ask the dozens of people who ask for a Full Beans setup and get told it doesn’t really need one because the guitar is generally quite clean and won’t benefit from one. That’s me being honest and turning down £40 and I do it all the time.

Speaking of the Full Beans (an £85 setup with extra cleaning for those super filthy guitars) you might look at what I’ve written above and think “well, wouldn’t i just get the equivalent of a Full Beans for £65 now?” No. FB setups include removal of tuners and bridges, and I don’t do that on general setups, regardless of how filthy they are.

So there we are.

For the 5th year on the bounce, my prices will stay the same apart from setups, which are now between £45 and £65.

PLUS strings.

Always plus strings.