Ask three UK locticians what microlocs cost and you’ll get £400, £550 and £750 for what sounds like the same head. None of them is overcharging. They’re pricing on different variables, and until you know which variable you’re being quoted on, the numbers can’t be compared.
This is a breakdown of what UK locticians actually publish, taken from four live price lists in July 2026, and how to read a quote against them. If you want the basics first, what microlocs are and whether they’d suit you, that’s on our microlocs service page.
Four real UK price lists
Not estimates or averages. These are the locticians’ own published figures, and they’re a fair geographic spread.
| Loctician and area | To start | Maintenance |
|---|---|---|
| V-Nus Locs, Reading | Interlock start from £450 (medium-large grid) to £750 (small grid). Braid start from £400. Twist start from £350. Quotes include the first four-hour retightening. | Extensions add roughly £150 to £200, hair not included. |
| Locs by SP, Peterborough | Interlocking start £400 short hair, £600 mid-length, £800 long. Microbraids £200 to £400 by length. Microtwists around £250, long hair only. | £50 up to six weeks of growth, from £60 beyond that. Mobile visits from £25 extra. |
| The Locs Smith, Mitcham, south London | Tiny locs installation £450. Consultation £20, with £10 off if you book. | £150 per retie, booked as a full day. |
| MyMane, Rochester, Kent | Consultation £49, including tester locs. | £90 at four to six weeks, £120 at seven to eight weeks or 500-plus locs, £150 at nine to ten weeks, £210 at eleven to twelve. |
So: roughly £350 to £800 to start, with most people landing between £450 and £650, and £50 to £150 per retightening depending on how fine your grid is and how long you leave it.
Every one of those is a starting price. The real figure gets set at consultation, once someone has looked at your hair.
The four locticians price on four different things
This is the part that makes quotes look random when they aren’t.
Reading prices by grid size. V-Nus Locs charges £450 for a medium-large grid and £750 for a small one. Same head, same method, £300 apart, and the only difference is how many sections they’re cutting the hair into.
Peterborough prices by hair length. Locs by SP quotes £400, £600 and £800 for short, mid and long, because length is install time and install time is what you’re buying.
South London quotes flat. The Locs Smith charges £450 for the install regardless, and puts the variable into the retie instead at £150 a session.
Kent prices maintenance by how long you’ve left it. MyMane’s retightening runs £90 at six weeks and £210 at twelve, which is really a late fee with a friendly name on it.
Line those four up and you can see why comparing headline numbers gets you nowhere. A £400 quote on a coarse grid and a £750 quote on a fine one are not the same purchase.
How to read a quote
Three questions turn a number into something you can compare.
Ask what grid size it’s for. This is the single biggest lever on price and the one least likely to be volunteered. If a loctician can’t or won’t tell you roughly how many locs you’ll end up with, you can’t compare their quote to anyone else’s.
Ask what’s bundled. V-Nus Locs includes the first four-hour retightening in the install price. The Locs Smith charges a £20 consultation and takes £10 off if you book. MyMane’s consultation is £49 and includes tester locs. Two quotes £100 apart can be identical once you account for what’s inside them.
Ask who does the maintenance and what it costs. Some locticians install only and refer the retightening elsewhere. Since maintenance is where the money actually goes, an install price quoted without a maintenance price is half a quote.
What microlocs cost over a year
The install is the headline. The retightening is the bill.
Microlocs need the roots tightened every four to six weeks, which is around ten sessions a year. At Locs by SP’s £60 that’s roughly £620 annually. At The Locs Smith’s £150 it’s over £1,500. On the published figures, a full year of maintenance costs between one and two times the original install.
So the honest first-year total sits somewhere around £1,000 at the cheap end and £2,300 at the dear end. Year two onwards is the maintenance figure alone, indefinitely, for as long as you have them.
That annual number is the one to test yourself against, not the install. Plenty of people can find £450 once and then struggle with £60 every five weeks for a decade.
There’s a way to cut it. Several locticians will teach you to retighten your own roots once your locs have settled, which turns a £620-a-year habit into an occasional tidy-up by someone else. If that’s your plan, raise it at the consultation rather than after.
Where the money goes
Worth knowing what you’re paying for, because the cost of micro locs looks steep next to a retwist until you count the hours.
A full head is a few hundred individual locs, each one parted, sectioned and formed by hand. The Locs Smith books eight to sixteen hours for an install and splits it across two days. On an hourly basis that puts a £450 install somewhere near £30 an hour, which is ordinary skilled-trade money, not a premium.
Location moves it less than people assume. Across the four lists above, Reading, Peterborough, Kent and south London sit within about £100 of each other on a comparable grid. The gap between a coarse grid and a fine one is three times larger than the gap between towns.
What to do with this
Get two or three quotes, and ask all of them the same three questions: what grid, what’s included, and what does maintenance cost. Then compare the first-year total rather than the install price, because that’s the number you’ll actually live with.
When you’re ready to find someone, the microlocs service page lists UK locticians who do this work, and you can filter by city from the directory. For how microlocs pricing compares with the rest of the loc world, the UK loc cost guide covers the full range, and what a retwist costs gives you the traditional-loc comparison.
