Picture ringing four firms for the same ten-mile trip on a Saturday afternoon and getting four prices, none of them close. The temptation is to assume three of them are trying it on. Usually none of them are. They are just pricing different things.
The meter and the fixed fare are not measuring the same journey
A hackney carriage on the meter charges by distance and by time. Sit in traffic and the fare climbs. The tariff is set by the council, so the rate is honest, but the total is unknown until you arrive. A private hire office quoting a fixed fare has looked at the same journey, guessed the traffic, added a margin for being wrong, and given you a number that will not change. On a clear road the meter may come out cheaper. In a jam, the fixed fare wins. Both firms were pricing fairly. They were pricing different risks.
Waiting time is where quotes quietly diverge
Say the trip includes a stop at a pharmacy on the way. The first firm quotes the journey and says waiting is charged per minute after the first five. The second quotes a figure that includes 15 minutes of waiting. The third did not ask about the stop and has quoted the direct run. On paper the third is cheapest. On the day, their driver either waits and charges extra, or does not wait and you are booking a second car. The right comparison is never the headline number. It is the number after you have told each office exactly what the trip involves.
The empty return leg
A journey that ends 30 miles outside a firm's area leaves the driver with an empty car and a long drive back to where the work is. That dead mileage has to be paid for by somebody, and the somebody is you. A firm based near your destination will quote lower for the same trip because their driver is heading home, not away from it. This is why long one-way journeys are worth quoting from firms at both ends, and why a return leg booked with a firm at the far end is often the cheapest way to do a round trip.
Time of day, and what it costs the firm
Most councils set higher hackney tariffs for nights, Sundays and bank holidays, and private hire firms follow the same logic with their own surcharges. Christmas Day and New Year's Eve are commonly priced at a multiple of the standard rate. None of this is hidden if you ask, but it is rarely on the front of the quote unless the office is thorough.
Then there are the incidentals: airport drop-off fees, tolls, congestion or clean air charges, and a card surcharge at the odd firm still applying one. A quote that includes all of these will look expensive next to one that includes none, right up until you pay.
How to compare fairly
Give every office the same brief: pickup, destination, date and time, any stops and how long you expect each to take, and whether you want the return. Ask each one whether the price includes waiting, tolls and airport fees, and whether it is fixed or metered. Write the answers in the same order for each. The gap between the four quotes usually shrinks to something sensible, and the one that remains cheapest is often not the one that looked cheapest at first glance.
The 2,635 taxi companies listed on this site include firms at both ends of most long journeys. You can browse firms near your destination as well as near home, or send the full brief out once and have several offices price the same thing.
Next time you get four prices, ask each firm one question: what is not included? The answer usually explains the difference.
