Last Updated on August 20, 2026
The CMA will require practices to show what each part of a health plan costs on its own, and how the advertised saving is worked out. That is a harder job than publishing a price list, and almost nobody is talking about it.
Almost every conversation about the CMA vet remedies is about price lists.
There is a second requirement sitting quietly underneath it that will take most practices longer to satisfy, and it concerns the pet health plan.
The CMA wants plan transparency: the components priced individually, and a clear explanation of how the saving is calculated. If you sell a plan and cannot currently do both of those, this page is the one to read.
Practical guidance from a marketing company, not legal or regulatory advice. The CMA’s Order was in draft when this was written and the detail may change. Check the current position with the CMA and your professional body. Our guide to the rules and the real timetable links the primary sources.
The pattern we found, and why it matters
We read 72 UK vet practice websites in a single day. One finding stood out and it goes directly to this remedy.
Practices are markedly more willing to publish the price of a plan than the price of a treatment.
Eleven practices in our sample published a monthly plan price while publishing no clinical prices at all. Several of those advertised percentage discounts, 25% off consultations, 10% off neutering, 10% off dentals, against base prices they had never disclosed anywhere on the site.
A discount of 25% off an unpublished number is not an offer. It is an invitation to trust the practice about both figures at once. That is precisely the arrangement the transparency remedy is designed to end.
The reverse pattern exists too, and it is rarer. A few practices published a complete clinical price list and no plan price at all, naming their plan tiers without saying what any of them cost.
The two numbers are treated as separate commercial decisions. Publishing the plan price recruits a subscriber. Publishing the treatment price lets somebody compare you. Both are equally easy to put on a page, and practices are consistently choosing one.
What you will have to be able to show
Three things, and only the first is straightforward.
1. The monthly price of the plan. Most practices already publish this. In our sample plan prices ran from about £9 a month for an indoor cat to roughly £50 for a large dog on a premium tier.
2. What each component costs on its own. This is the work. If your plan bundles two consultations, an annual booster, flea and worm cover and a dental check, each of those needs a standalone price a client can see. Which means your clinical price list and your plan page have to agree with each other, line by line.
3. How the saving is calculated. Not “save up to £200 a year”. The actual arithmetic: these components, at these prices, total this, the plan costs that, the difference is the saving.
The uncomfortable part
When you do that sum honestly, one of three things happens.
The saving is real and substantial. Good. Publish it prominently, because it is now evidenced rather than asserted, and an evidenced saving sells considerably harder than a vague one.
The saving is real but smaller than you have been implying. This is the common case. The honest fix is to restate the plan’s value on convenience and budgeting, which is usually why clients actually buy it, rather than on a headline discount the arithmetic no longer supports.
The plan costs more than the components. It happens, particularly on tiers designed around a young healthy animal and sold to an older one. If it is true of your plan, better to find out now, in your own time, than to be shown it by a client with a spreadsheet.
None of these outcomes is a disaster. All three are considerably better discovered in advance.
Does the plan survive transparency?
Probably, and for a reason worth understanding.
Health plans are not primarily bought as a discount. They are bought because a predictable monthly payment is easier to live with than an unpredictable annual one, and because they mean routine care actually happens. Those two benefits survive full disclosure completely intact.
What does not survive is a plan justified only by a saving that cannot be shown. If that is what your plan page currently does, the remedy is not a threat to the plan. It is a prompt to sell it on what it actually does.
The practices in our sample with the clearest pages were already doing this. One Brighton practice shows the standard price and the plan member price side by side on every single line of its price list. A client can see exactly what membership is worth before joining, which makes the plan easier to sell rather than harder, and it satisfies the component-pricing requirement as a side effect.
What to do about it
- List the components. Write down exactly what is in each tier. Practices are often surprised that different staff describe the tiers differently.
- Price each one standalone. These prices must match your clinical price list. If they do not, decide which is right before a client does.
- Do the arithmetic. Components total, minus plan cost, equals saving. Per tier, per weight band.
- Decide what the plan is for. If the saving is thin, say what it does instead. Budgeting and adherence are honest, defensible reasons to buy.
- Put the working on the page. Showing the sum is more persuasive than claiming its result.
Where this sits in the Whito framework
Start stage. This is an offer clarity problem wearing a compliance costume.
A plan you cannot explain the value of is a plan your team cannot confidently sell, which is usually the real reason plan uptake disappoints. The arithmetic the CMA is about to require is the same arithmetic a good sales conversation needs. You were going to have to do it eventually.
Common questions
What does the CMA require for pet health plans?
Plan transparency: the components of the plan priced individually, and disclosure of how the advertised saving is calculated. It sits alongside the price list requirement in the same package of remedies.
Can I still advertise a saving on my plan?
Yes, provided you can show how it is calculated. What the remedy targets is a headline saving with no visible arithmetic behind it, or a percentage discount quoted against a base price that is never published.
Do plan component prices have to match my main price list?
They should, and inconsistency between the two is worth resolving before anyone else notices it. Publishing both is the point at which any mismatch becomes visible.
What if the plan works out more expensive than paying as you go?
Then that is worth knowing now rather than later. Plans are often designed around a young healthy animal and sold to a wider range. Reprice the tier, restate what the plan is for, or both.
Will publishing the components kill plan sign-ups?
There is no UK evidence either way, and anyone claiming otherwise is guessing. The practices in our sample with the clearest component pricing were also among those selling plans most confidently, showing standard and member prices side by side on every line.
Sources
The pattern described here comes from Whito’s audit of 72 UK veterinary practice websites, all read on 19 August 2026. The plan transparency requirement is set out in the CMA’s final report on its veterinary market investigation, 24 March 2026. For the full set of remedies and the timetable, see our guide to the CMA vet rules, and for the practical build, how to build a price list that works.
Correction policy. If anything here is wrong or out of date, email hello@whito.co.uk and we will check it, amend it and note the change with its date.
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