How Much Is It to Put a Personalised Number Plate on a Car?
The market for custom number plates is growing exponentially every year. In the UK, personalised number plates are now a whopping £2 billion industry!
As a trusted supplier of personalised number plates, one of the questions we at Bespoke Plates get asked is this: how much is it to put a personalised number plate on a car?
In this article, we will outline the key costs involved when you buy a custom number plate for your vehicle.
How much is it to put a personalised number plate on a car?
So, how much is it to put a personalised number plate on a car?
Well, let’s break the costs down:
- If you want to take a registration number off a vehicle, to keep the number to use later, or to assign it to another vehicle, you must apply to do so. This costs £80. You must have the log book (V5C) for the vehicle.
- You can buy your private registration number from the DVLA, or from a private seller.
- If you want a custom number plate (such as a 3D or 4D plate), you can buy this from a number plate manufacturer (such as us at c).
- To install your custom number plate on your vehicle, you can carry out the installation yourself, or find a professional installation service (we provide this here at Bespoke Plates).
Buying a Personalised Number Plate from Bespoke Plates
Here at Bespoke Plates, you can buy:
- a 3D number plate from £40.00
- a 4D number plate from £50.00 to £70.00
- an electric car number plate from £30.00 to £65.00
- a standard printed number plate for £30.00
Fixing accessories from Bespoke Plates
If you have purchased a road-legal number plate, you can stick on your number plate yourself, using our fixing accessories here at Bespoke Plates.
We offer a number plate holder, screw pack, and sticky pads, which you can use to fasten your plate securely to your vehicle.
Click here to read our installation tips in our blog articles:
If you don’t feel comfortable installing your number plate yourself, our expert technicians here at Bespoke Plates can carry out a professional installation for you. Get in contact with us and see how we can help you today.
As a legally recognised supplier and installer of custom plates and private plates, we can guarantee your plates will abide by the specifications of the law and will advise you if your design falls outside of the specifications.
How to buy a Custom Number Plate from Bespoke Plates
At Bespoke Plates, our process is very straightforward:
- Head to our website, and choose between 3D or 4D plates under the ‘build your plate’ tab.
- Enter your registration for a preview of the plate.
- Specify whether this will be a legal plate or a show plate.
- Choose your style.
- Select whether your plate will be for the front and back of your car or just one of them.
- Select your size.
- Select additional customizable options.
- Have it delivered to your home
How do I decide between a 3D plate and a 4D plate?
Are you considering buying a 3D or 4D number plate for your vehicle? Both are attractive options, thanks to the eye-catching way in which the lettering and numbers stand out.
To decide which one is more appealing to you, let’s take a look at the difference between 3D and 4D number plates:
3D number plates
- Characters placed by hand
- Acrylic plate – polyurethane letters
- Rounded, raised characters with a wet, gel-like look
4D number plates
- Characters placed by hand.
- Characters are thicker and more rectangular.
- Acrylic plate – acrylic letters are laser cut and made from acrylic sheets.
- Rectangular and deep raised characters.
- You can also get 4D plates which have a ‘wet’ look, which are made in the same way as 3D letters, but with a thicker profile.
- 4D number plates are more expensive than 3D plates.
At Bespoke Plates, each order can be made entirely customised to your requirements, with different finishes and depths available to choose from.
When designing your 4D plate, you can choose aspects of your 4D number plate, such as:
- Style – Select from 4D 3mm, 5mm, or gel letters. All are applied using a high-strength adhesive. Check out our product gallery to see how our 4D number plates look.
- Legal or Show Plate – Either a legal or a show plate. Show plates are not legal to use for daily driving, because they are for decorative or promotional purposes only.
- Plate Type – Choose if you require both sets of plates, front & rear, or one side only.
- Tinted – Add a tinted look to your plate by selecting this extra.
- Border – Choose whether or not you would like a bordered design.
- Side Badges – Choose if you would like a Union Jack or Scotland side badge.
The legal requirements for a personalised number plate in the UK
The UK has strict laws about what your number plate should look like on your vehicle.
Firstly, private plates must have either a V750 certificate or a V778 retention document to prove you have legal ownership and the right to use the bespoke design.
The V750 is the document that assigns the actual registration mark to the new owner. This document will be needed for assigning a plate and for selling in the future.
The V778 is the retention document needed to keep ownership of a private plate and to be able to use it legally on the roads. Valid for ten years, it only needs to be renewed if the plate is not currently assigned to a vehicle.
Also, your number plate must meet the following conditions:
- be made from a reflective material – for the purpose of road safety
- black display characters on a white background (front plate)
- black display characters on a yellow background (rear plate)
- not have a background pattern – so as not to distort the readability of your plate
- be marked to show who supplied the number plate – to assist with thefts and sourcing queries
- be marked with a British Standard number – this is ‘BS AU 145e’ for plates fitted after 1 September 2021
- The characters must not be removable or reflective. If your number plates were fitted after 1 September 2021, they must also be a single shade of black.
Your personalised number plates can also:
- have 3D (raised) characters
- display certain flags, symbols and identifiers
- display a green flash, if you have a zero-emission vehicle
As you can see, the instructions are clear, encompassing both 3D and 4D number plate designs within the approved list. Further recommendations also state the British standard number should be permanently marked, non-retroreflecting, a single colour, and be no less than 3mm x 10mm in size.
At Bespoke Plates, our team will guide you in creating your number plate, so that it is perfectly legal for use on the road.
Read more articles like this
To learn more about choosing a personalised number plate, click here to read our blog articles and helpful pages on:
- Private Plate Rules and Regulations
- Do Custom Plates Raise Insurance?
- Can You Clone a Number Plate?
- Can I Drill My Number Plate?
- Are Custom Number Plates Illegal?
- How Much Is The Fine For Illegal Number Plate?
- Can You Create Your Own Number Plate DVLA?
- What’s Better: 3D OR 4D Number Plate?
About Bespoke Plates
As one of the established number plate makers in the UK, we at Bespoke Plates have all the options you can ask for. From 3D plates, 4D plates, standard number plates, and gel plates, we offer outstanding craftsmanship with every plate we produce.
We are an approved license vendor, so we can guarantee that your modification abides by the DVLA rules, whilst offering same-day collections and full fitting service.
So, what are you waiting for? Browse our options today to get the plate that speaks to you, and speaks for you, with Bespoke Plates.
To get in touch and discuss the full fitting service we offer with our plates, you can talk to one of our friendly team members by:
- Email – info@bespoke-plates.co.uk
- Phone – 0333 006 7878
- Visit in-store –36A Broughton Street, Manchester, England, M8 8NN.
We hope this article has answered the question ‘how much is it to put a personalised number plate on a car?’
Want to read more about all things custom number plates? Check out our blog here.
