- 1The price follows the number of consultant days, which company size predicts poorly.
- 2Allow €10k to €15k excl. VAT for an SME, €3k to €8k for a very small business, covering scopes 1-2-3 with an action plan.
- 3Bpifrance’s Diag Décarbon'Action covers 40% of a €10,000 excl. VAT package.
- 4Preparing your data internally reduces the final budget by 30 to 50%.
How much does a Bilan Carbone® cost? The essentials
The range excl. VAT for an SME, the remaining cost with Bpifrance support and orders of magnitude by profile.
Range excl. VAT for a single-site SME, scopes 1-2-3, action plan and presentation to the executive committee. With Diag Décarbon'Action, remaining cost: €6k excl. VAT.
Diag Décarbon'Action, ACT Pas-à-Pas and Diag Éco-conception can be combined for different assignments: over 12 to 18 months, public support can reach €15k to €25k. See the dedicated guide.
Prices found online range from €3,000 to €50,000 excl. VAT. For a Bilan Carbone® carried out by a consultancy, the order of magnitude is €10,000 to €30,000 excl. VAT depending on complexity: €3,000 corresponds to the lowest entry prices (a very small organisation, a simple scope), €50,000 to highly complex assessments for large groups. The gap is explained by 3 things: your company’s operational complexity (data quality, number of sites and depth of scope 3), the level of detail you seek and the provider’s offering (SaaS on your own or a consultancy). This guide explains a consultant’s pricing mechanism, gives the 2026 ranges by profile and reviews the grants. The measures that reduce the budget by 30 to 50% are explained in a dedicated guide.
1How a consultant calculates the price of a Bilan Carbone®
A consultant sells working days. A senior climate consultant’s daily rate is around €800 to €1,200 excl. VAT depending on experience and business structure (independent or consultancy), and varies little between providers, whether the assignment follows ABC’s Bilan Carbone® method or the GHG Protocol. The difference between a €10,000 quote and a €25,000 quote therefore comes from the number of days required, which depends to a large extent on you.
Operational complexity matters more than size
It is often assumed that the larger the company, the more a Bilan Carbone® costs. Yet a company with 2,000 employees whose data are well maintained, with clear management accounting and a responsive CFO, can complete the assignment in 12 consultant days, while an SME with 80 employees, disorganised accounts, untraceable fleet data and an overwhelmed internal contact will need 20. Taken alone, employee numbers predict the actual cost poorly.
The 3 variables that determine the price
When a consultant prices an assignment, they assess 3 things:
The 3 variables that determine the price
The quote comes down to a number of consultant days. Click each variable to see what increases or contains it.
Invoices in 4 software packages, travel in a personal Excel file, purchases without carbon coding. Each follow-up = 1 extra consultant day.
A single ERP, clear management accounting, ledger exported as CSV. The consultant processes the data instead of searching for them.
- Your data quality: energy bills centralised or scattered across 15 departments, management accounting with varying detail for purchasing categories, fleet monitoring or none. The more structured your data, the less time the consultant spends finding and cleaning them, and collection accounts for 60 to 70% of the time on an assignment
- The level of detail sought: an assessment using average spend-based ratios (taking your purchasing expenditure and applying an emission factor per euro spent) costs significantly less than an assessment using physical data for key sources (actual quantities of materials, measured kWh, tonne.km by transport mode). The former gives a useful picture, the latter allows actions to be managed
- Your availability: if your CFO responds within 48 hours and accounting exports arrive in a clean format, the assignment moves quickly. If each follow-up takes 2 weeks and data arrive in dribs and drabs, the consultant increases progress meetings, follow-ups and cross-checks, and the assignment takes longer. A week’s delay on the client’s side often costs an extra consultant day
2Price ranges in 2026
These orders of magnitude reflect what we observe in the market in 2026, across all providers. The ranges are wide because operational complexity varies considerably between companies, even within the same size category.
How much for your size?
Prices excl. VAT for a complete Bilan Carbone® covering scopes 1-2-3 with consultancy support: most assignments fall between €10,000 and €30,000 excl. VAT depending on complexity. The bar represents the upper end of the range.
Very small businesses and start-ups (fewer than 50 employees)
Allow €3,000 to €8,000 excl. VAT. Two routes: SaaS on your own (Greenly, Sweep, Sami) for €1,000 to €5,000/year at this company size: you enter the data yourself, it is quick, but quality depends on the internal contact’s competence. Or a simplified Bilan Carbone® with support from a consultancy (€5,000 to €8,000 excl. VAT): less detailed, but sufficient for a reliable initial picture.
Single-site SMEs (50 to 250 employees)
This is the profile we support most often. Allow €10,000 to €15,000 excl. VAT for a complete Bilan Carbone® covering scopes 1-2-3, with structured collection, presentation to the executive committee, a prioritised action plan and BEGES publication if you are subject to it, over 3 to 4 months. Through Diag Décarbon'Action (a €10,000 excl. VAT package subsidised at 40% by Bpifrance and ADEME), the remaining cost falls to €6,000 excl. VAT, often making it the most economical starting point.
Mid-sized companies and manufacturers with multiple sites (250 to 5,000 employees)
Allow €20,000 to €40,000 excl. VAT over 4 to 8 months. Complexity increases with the number of sites, the diversity of industrial processes and the depth of scope 3: international supply chains, complex freight and hundreds of suppliers. If the company is subject to the CSRD, formal reporting requirements add another layer.
Large groups (5,000+ employees)
The cost rises to €30,000 to €50,000 excl. VAT. At this stage, assessments involve dozens of contributors, multi-country scopes, group consolidation and often coordination with the CSRD, CDP and SBTi. This is not our core business at Celsius: we mainly support SMEs and mid-sized companies.
SaaS or consultancy: what changes for the budget
The choice between SaaS and a consultancy directly affects the budget. SaaS on your own costs €2,000 to €9,000 per year (subscription and implementation): you get a tool and a figure whose quality depends on the internal contact’s competence. A consultancy costs €10,000 to €30,000 excl. VAT as a one-off depending on complexity, for a complete Bilan Carbone® with an action plan and presentation to the executive committee, and a contact who helps engage the organisation. Through Diag Décarbon'Action, the consultancy’s remaining cost is €6,000 excl. VAT, sometimes less than an annual SaaS subscription.
An SME with 100 employees, a complete Bilan Carbone® covering scopes 1-2-3 with an action plan: €10,000 to €15,000 excl. VAT. With Diag Décarbon'Action: €6,000 excl. VAT remaining cost.
3How a Bilan Carbone® works in practice
Many companies ask us what the assignment looks like once the quote is signed. It follows 4 main phases, typically over 3 to 4 months for a single-site SME.
How does a Bilan Carbone® assignment work?
4 phases over 3 to 4 months for a single-site SME. Click a phase for details.
Kick-off workshop, scope selection, identification of data sources, collection schedule.
Organisation chart, site list, annual accounts, a single contact in the CFO’s department.
Collection represents 60 to 70% of assignment time and is the phase that depends most on you.
Phase 1: scoping (weeks 1-2)
We define the organisational boundary (which sites, which subsidiaries), the operational boundary (which scopes), and identify the internal contributors who will supply the data. This is also the time to agree the collection schedule and check eligibility for Diag Décarbon'Action. Good scoping avoids the assignment stretching unnecessarily over 6 months.
Phase 2: data collection (weeks 3-8)
This is the longest phase, and it determines the quality of the final result. The provider sends a collection spreadsheet structured by emission source, and your teams gradually complete it. The data most frequently requested concern energy (gas, electricity and heating oil bills), the vehicle fleet (mileage, consumption), purchases (accounting exports by management accounting code), business travel (travel policy, train/plane tickets) and freight (tonne.km by transport mode). This is the phase where you have the most opportunities to speed up the assignment and reduce costs.
Phase 3: calculation and analysis (weeks 9-12)
The provider models emissions using emission factors from ADEME’s Base Empreinte (or an equivalent). This is where expertise makes the difference: knowing which factor to apply, spotting inconsistencies in the data collected and identifying sources where information is missing or the orders of magnitude are inconsistent.
Phase 4: presentation and action plan (weeks 13-16)
Presentation to the executive committee is the assignment’s key moment. The provider presents results by source, identifies the main reduction measures and builds an action plan prioritised by impact and feasibility. This deliverable turns a diagnosis into an operational strategy, which is why a quote without a presentation or action plan is incomplete.
4Public grants that reduce the remaining cost
A significant share of a Bilan Carbone®’s cost can be covered by public schemes, provided the right application is prepared at the right time. The main scheme is run by Bpifrance and ADEME; other grants may be added depending on your profile and climate roadmap.
Grants that change the equation
3 schemes to reduce the bill. Click each grant to see the remaining cost, eligibility and timeframe.
- Scope
- Bilan Carbone® scopes 1-2-3 + action plan + executive committee presentation
- Eligibility
- Fewer than 500 employees, including micro-enterprises, at least 1 year of operation, no GHG inventory for 5 years
- Timeframe
- 2 - 4 weeks after Bpifrance approval
These 3 grants concern different assignments and can be combined: over 12 to 18 months, public support can reach €15k to €25k.
Diag Décarbon'Action (Bpifrance)
This is the main scheme for SMEs. The principle: a €10,000 excl. VAT package subsidised at 40% by Bpifrance and ADEME, leaving a cost of €6,000 excl. VAT. Companies with fewer than 500 employees are eligible, including micro-enterprises, across all sectors, provided they have been operating for at least 1 year and have not carried out a GHG inventory in the last 5 years. Application in 30 minutes, a high acceptance rate, start 2 to 4 weeks after approval.
Other schemes that can be combined
Other grants can be combined with the Diag for different assignments. ADEME’s ACT Pas-à-Pas funds up to 80% of support for a low-carbon strategy, capped at €30,000, provided a GHG inventory has already been completed. Bpifrance and ADEME’s Diag Éco-conception covers 60 to 70% of an eco-design process or product LCA for companies with fewer than 250 employees. Over 12 to 18 months, combined funding can represent €15,000 to €25,000 in public grants.
5What the assessment brings
The return on investment of a Bilan Carbone® is rarely measured formally, but it is real and appears in several ways. For direct gains, the energy optimisation (heating, lighting, processes) identified during the assessment generally pays for itself in 12 to 24 months, and the orders of magnitude show that energy and fleet sources are often the first opportunities for action. Introducing a travel policy after the assessment generates immediate savings. Structured carbon data also directly support responses to tenders that score environmental performance, as every public procurement contract must do since 22 August 2026.
Indirect gains are more diffuse but just as significant. Climate has become a factor in attracting employees, particularly young graduates who closely examine their employer’s environmental commitment. Banks and investors increasingly request carbon data for green financing and ESG criteria. Anticipating regulatory requirements, CSRD, BEGES and clients’ scope 3 data requests always costs less than facing them in an emergency.
6Three things to check before signing a quote
Beyond the advertised price, certain elements regularly cause the actual budget of a Bilan Carbone® to overrun, either because they are absent from the quote or because they turn the deliverable into an unusable document. Three points warrant systematic checks.
Check that scope 3 is included in the scope
This is the most frequent mistake. A €3,000 Bilan Carbone® limited to scopes 1 and 2 often covers only 10 to 20% of your actual footprint, too little to manage a reduction strategy. Scope 3 (purchases, freight, travel) accounts for most emissions of a service company. Check the scope before signing.
Failing to include your teams’ internal time
The provider’s quote covers only their own days. Yet your CFO, purchasing, HR and logistics teams will be involved in supplying data: allow 3 to 5 days of internal work spread across the assignment. If your management accounting is insufficiently detailed, for example with a "purchases" account that mixes everything together, the breakdown must be reconstructed source by source. This is rarely mentioned in quotes and is often the most time-consuming phase.
Ensure the quote includes a presentation and an action plan
A Bilan Carbone® that stops at the figure often ends up in a drawer. The action plan, prioritised by impact and feasibility with quantified reduction targets, enables subsequent action. If the quote includes neither a presentation to the executive committee nor an action plan, it is incomplete. Also check your eligibility for Diag Décarbon'Action: it can mean a €4,000 grant.
At the end of the assignment, you receive a complete assessment report (results by source, a prioritised action plan and a reduction pathway) and a tracking spreadsheet to update your data each year.
7Key takeaways
Once the mechanism is understood (consultant days × daily rate), a Bilan Carbone® budget becomes predictable and partly controllable.
- The price depends far more on the number of consultant days than on your company’s size. 3 variables determine it: data quality, desired detail and your teams’ responsiveness
- For an SME with 50 to 250 employees, allow €10,000 to €15,000 excl. VAT for a complete Bilan Carbone® covering scopes 1-2-3 with an action plan, and €6,000 excl. VAT remaining cost with Diag Décarbon'Action
- You can reduce the budget by 30 to 50% by preparing your data and coordinating your teams internally
- Before signing a quote, check that scope 3 is included, that a presentation to the executive committee and an action plan are planned, and that your eligibility for Diag Décarbon'Action has been examined
For an eligible SME, Diag Décarbon'Action reduces the bill to €6,000 excl. VAT, often making it the most sensible starting point. Outside the Diag, the time spent preparing your data before launch directly affects the number of days billed.
