Best HPI Check UK 2026: Every Provider Compared

Quick answer: there's no single "best" HPI check for every buyer — MotorCheck and Total Car Check's Gold tier are the cheapest way to get a fully-featured, guaranteed report (£3.99 per report at volume), carVertical is the strongest choice for a car previously registered abroad, and HPI, RAC and the AA's paid check remain the names most closely tied to the £30,000 data guarantee. The rest of this guide sets out exactly what each of the eight main UK providers charges, what's included at each price point, and how to pick the right one for your situation.

Introduction

Type "best HPI check" into Google and you'll get a wall of results that all sound confident and none of which agree with each other. One site tells you HPI is the only name that matters. Another pushes carVertical. A third insists a £3.99 check from a provider you've never heard of covers exactly the same ground. Somewhere in the middle of that noise is a genuine decision you need to make: which report do you actually buy before handing over several thousand pounds for a used car?

This guide answers that properly. We looked at eight UK providers — HPI, carVertical, the AA, the RAC, Total Car Check, CarCheck.co.uk, MotorCheck, and our own service, Carhealth — and checked their live pricing, tier contents, and guarantee terms directly on their own websites in August 2026. Nothing here is estimated or carried over from a comparison table on somebody else's blog.

Two things will become obvious as you read. First, the underlying data is far more similar across providers than the marketing suggests — most UK checks draw on the same small pool of official and industry sources. Second, price and tier structure vary enormously, and the cheapest headline price on a page is very often not the cheapest way to get the report you actually need. A handful of these products advertise a rock-bottom price for a "basic" check that quietly excludes outstanding finance — the single most financially dangerous thing a check like this exists to catch.

Key Takeaways

• "HPI check" is a brand name — HPI Ltd, now owned by Solera — that has become a generic term for any paid vehicle history report, the same way Hoover became shorthand for vacuum cleaners
• Nearly every UK provider draws on the same core sources: DVLA records, DVSA MOT history, the Police National Computer, and the motor finance industry's shared register. The data is broadly similar; price, presentation, and extras are where providers actually differ
• Several providers sell a cheap "basic" tier that strips out outstanding finance, mileage discrepancies, or the data guarantee — always check what the cheapest option actually includes before assuming it covers you
• HPI's headline differentiator is its £30,000 data guarantee, but it isn't unique — MotorCheck, Total Car Check's Gold tier, the AA, and RAC (which resells HPI's own data) all offer the same or a comparable guarantee. Carhealth does not offer one
• At volume, MotorCheck and Total Car Check's Gold tier are the cheapest way to get a fully-featured, guaranteed report — both work out at £3.99 per report in a five-pack
• Prices in this article are correct as of August 2026. Every provider reserves the right to change pricing at any time — always check the live price on the provider's own site before paying

What Does "HPI Check" Actually Mean?

Before comparing providers, it's worth being precise about what you're actually shopping for — because the terminology causes real confusion.

HPI stands for Hire Purchase Information. HPI Ltd was founded in 1938 to help lenders track cars bought on hire purchase agreements, and over the following decades it became so dominant in the UK vehicle-history market that its name stopped meaning "the company" and started meaning "the product category" — in exactly the way Hoover became a generic word for vacuum cleaner. HPI Ltd is now owned by Solera, a US data and software group, and still trades under the "hpi check®" brand.

So when someone tells you to "get an HPI check" before buying a used car, they very rarely mean specifically HPI Ltd's product. They mean: buy a paid vehicle history report from a reputable provider that checks outstanding finance, write-off status, theft records, and mileage discrepancies. HPI is one legitimate way to do that. It is not the only one, and — as this guide sets out — it isn't automatically the cheapest, the most comprehensive, or the best fit for your situation.

That distinction matters because this article is deliberately not a two-horse race. If you've already narrowed your choice down to HPI versus carVertical specifically, our dedicated carVertical vs HPI Check comparison goes much deeper on that particular match-up, especially for imported and European-market cars. What follows here is the wider market: every mainstream UK provider set side by side.

The Eight Providers, Compared at a Glance

Here is the headline pricing for a single check from each provider, checked directly on their sites. Where a provider has more than one paid tier, the "from" price reflects their entry-level paid option — read the sections below before assuming the cheapest number gets you a full report.

A few things jump out immediately. HPI, RAC, Total Car Check and CarCheck.co.uk all sell a cheap entry tier that isn't the full product — you'll need the next tier up to get finance and the guarantee in most cases. MotorCheck and Carhealth don't do this: every paid report is the same full-featured product regardless of how many you buy. And on pure per-report cost at scale, MotorCheck and Total Car Check's Gold tier are tied for cheapest in the entire market.

What Each Provider Actually Includes

HPI (the original)

HPI's own site (hpicheck.com) sells three products. The Basic Check costs £9.99 and is explicitly marketed as a stripped-down option: HPI's own copy states it excludes "mileage discrepancies and write off details," and it is not covered by the £30,000 guarantee. The Full Check — described on the site as HPI's "most popular" — costs £19.99 and covers 80+ data points including outstanding finance, mileage discrepancies, write-off history, and stolen vehicle records, backed by the £30,000 guarantee. HPI's MultiCheck gets you three Full Checks for £29.99 — a genuine 50% saving versus buying three separately, and each of the three retains the full feature set and the guarantee.

If you're checking one car and want the complete picture with HPI's flagship guarantee, that's the £19.99 tier — not the £9.99 one.

carVertical

carVertical's edge is international coverage rather than UK-specific depth — it draws on over 1,000 global sources across more than 25 countries, which matters enormously if the car you're considering was previously registered abroad (a German ex-lease Audi, a Dutch-imported van, and so on). For a UK-only car with no import history, that international reach adds less.

Pricing on carvertical.com/gb is a single check for £37.99, dropping to £25.99 per report for two (£51.98 total) and £20.99 per report for three (£62.97 total). There's no consumer subscription. Every tier carries what carVertical calls a "report return guarantee," but this is not the same kind of instrument as HPI's £30,000 data-accuracy indemnity — it isn't a cash guarantee against a financial loss caused by inaccurate data. If you want the full carVertical breakdown, including exactly what that price gets you, read How Much Does carVertical Cost in the UK?

The AA

The AA actually runs two entirely separate products, and it's easy to conflate them.

AA Cars History Check is free, but only available for vehicles already listed for sale on the AA Cars marketplace — you can't run it against any random UK registration. More importantly, the AA is explicit on its own page that this free check "won't tell you" about outstanding finance, and tells buyers to check the finance situation with the dealer directly. For a check whose entire purpose is usually to catch outstanding finance, that's a significant gap.

AA Vehicle Check (theaa.com/vehicle-check) is the AA's standalone paid product, usable on any UK-registered car. It costs £14.99 for a single comprehensive check, or five checks for £6 each (£30 total) if you're comparing multiple cars. This one does include outstanding finance, insurance write-offs, mileage discrepancies, previous owners, plate transfers, and a VIN/V5C match — and it comes with the same £30,000 guarantee, because the underlying data is supplied by HPI Limited under licence. If you're going to use an AA check, this is the one that actually protects you financially.

RAC

RAC's Vehicle History Check is run by Colewood Automotive Ltd under licence from RAC, and is explicitly "Powered by HPI" — meaning the underlying data is the same HPI dataset sold directly by hpicheck.com, just repackaged with RAC branding and RAC Shop vouchers thrown in.

The Basic Check is £9.98 and includes only a handful of yes/no flags — reported stolen, an insurance write-off marker, imported/exported status, and "has outstanding debt" (RAC's own comparison table notes this is "basic details only" on this tier). It does not include full finance agreement details, mileage discrepancies, MOT history, or the £30,000 guarantee. The Full Check is £14.99 and adds all of that: finance agreement details, mileage discrepancies, MOT history, write-off details, previous owners, CO2 emissions, tax status, scrapped records, total cost of ownership, plate-change history, estimated fuel costs, and the £30,000 data guarantee — plus up to £35 of RAC Shop vouchers.

The MultiCheck at £29.97 is worth reading carefully. Per RAC's own terms and conditions, it's "a package of vehicle checks containing two or more checks" — one used immediately, the rest issued as vouchers valid for 730 days. At £29.97 versus £14.99 for a single Full Check, two checks through MultiCheck cost almost exactly the same as buying two Full Checks separately (2 × £14.99 = £29.98). The genuine upside isn't a discount — it's the bigger £55 shop voucher allowance and having a spare check banked for later.

Total Car Check

Total Car Check runs two tiers, and the gap between them is the sharpest example in this whole comparison of why the cheapest number on the page can mislead you. Silver costs £3.99 (or 5 for £9.99, working out at £1.99 each) and includes a written-off check, a £10,000 data guarantee, and general DVLA-level data — but, per Total Car Check's own tier description, it does not include an outstanding finance check. Gold costs £9.99 (or 3 for £14.99, or 5 for £19.99 — down to £3.99 per report) and adds outstanding finance, vehicle valuation, salvage history, and steps the guarantee up to £30,000.

In other words: if you buy Silver because it's the cheapest thing on the page, you will not be checking for outstanding finance — arguably the single most important thing a paid check exists to catch. Gold is the tier you want, and at five-report volume it's £3.99 each, which ties it for the cheapest fully-featured, guaranteed report in this entire comparison.

CarCheck.co.uk

CarCheck.co.uk positions itself as the UK's biggest free vehicle-data site, and the free lookup genuinely is generous — make, model, colour, MOT history, tax status, mileage records, and CO2/emissions data, all for nothing. But the categories that matter financially — stolen check, finance check, damage/write-off history, service history, and the factory options list — sit behind a paywall on every free report we pulled, shown only as blanked-out placeholder rows.

The Basic premium tier costs £6.99 and covers ads history, mileage, plate changes, owner history, and valuation — but explicitly excludes damages, stolen check, service history, finance check, and the option list. The Premium tier at £14.99 is the one that includes everything: damages, stolen check, finance check, service history, valuation, and the option list. Buying two Premium reports brings the price down to £9.99 each (£19.99 total, discounted from £29.98).

One caveat worth flagging plainly: unlike HPI, RAC, the AA, or MotorCheck, CarCheck.co.uk's own marketing doesn't specifically name the DVLA, DVSA, the Police National Computer, or a named finance register as its data sources for the paid checks — its site describes categories ("stolen check," "finance check") without detailing provenance the way the other providers do. There's also no £-value data guarantee here — only a "find a more comprehensive report and we'll refund you" competitive promise, which is a different thing entirely from a financial-loss indemnity.

MotorCheck

MotorCheck (part of Motor Data Ltd, also operating in Ireland) is the one provider in this list that doesn't play the "cheap stripped tier" game at all. Every paid product — the £9.99 Single Check, the £14.99 Bundle 3 (£4.99 each), and the £19.99 Bundle 5 (£3.99 each) — carries an identical feature list on MotorCheck's own pricing page: vehicle identity, finance check, mileage check, write-off check, scrapped check, stolen vehicle check, keeper and plate changes, colour changes, MOT history, tax status, manufacturer recalls, and a vehicle valuation. MotorCheck states that every report comes with a £30,000 data guarantee for non-trade buyers.

That makes MotorCheck one of the two cheapest ways in the entire market to get a fully-featured, guaranteed report at volume — tied with Total Car Check's Gold tier at £3.99 per report in a five-pack.

Carhealth

Carhealth's report costs £14.99 for a single check, £19.99 for two (£10 each, a 33% saving), or £39.99 for five (£8 each, a 47% saving) — no subscription, and every tier is the same full product. There's no stripped-down "basic" version that quietly drops finance or write-off data: every report checks DVLA registration data, DVSA MOT history, the Police National Computer, insurance write-off and salvage records, and outstanding finance, and adds a plain-English AI-generated summary of the risks and value on top of the raw data — a layer none of the other providers in this comparison currently advertise.

In the interest of the same fairness we're applying to every other provider here: Carhealth does not offer a £30,000 (or any) cash guarantee against inaccurate data. Our policy is a refund policy, not a data-accuracy indemnity — if no data is found for a vehicle, we refund you in full on request; unredeemed codes from a bundle can be refunded within 14 days of purchase; and the standard 14-day distance-selling cancellation right applies even after your report has been generated, because we don't ask you to waive it in exchange for instant delivery. That's a genuinely useful safety net, but it is a different thing from HPI's, RAC's, the AA's, or MotorCheck's guarantee, and we'd rather you know that clearly than discover it later. If a data-accuracy guarantee specifically is the deciding factor for you, HPI, RAC, the AA Vehicle Check, MotorCheck, or Total Car Check's Gold tier are the providers to choose instead.

What Each Tier Includes: Finance and Write-Off Checks

This is the table that actually matters when you're choosing based on price. It shows whether outstanding finance and write-off status — the two checks that carry the biggest financial risk if missed — are included on the cheapest paid tier, or only unlocked on a pricier one.

The pattern is clear: HPI, RAC, Total Car Check, and CarCheck.co.uk all have a cheap entry tier that either drops the finance check entirely or reduces it to a bare flag. If you're tempted by a headline price under £10 from any of these four, check that specific tier's feature list before you pay — it may not be doing the one job you bought it for.

The Data-Guarantee Question

HPI's £30,000 data guarantee gets quoted constantly as the reason to pay for the "original" brand, and it's a genuine differentiator worth understanding properly — because most buyers who've heard of it don't actually know what it covers.

What it is: if the data in your report turns out to be wrong or incomplete, and that inaccuracy costs you money, the guarantee compensates you — up to £30,000 for losing legal title to the vehicle entirely (for example, buying a stolen car), or up to the lower of £15,000 or 50% of the vehicle's market value for a missed insurance write-off that reduces its value.

What it actually requires, based on the full terms published by RAC (whose guarantee is the same underlying HPI product, just resold): you must run the check before buying, supply the vehicle's VIN and the V5C serial number and issue date at the time of the check, verify that the vehicle's details match the V5C in person, and — if buying privately — buy from the registered keeper at the address on the V5C. The guarantee runs for two years from the check, excludes trade purchases and salvage-auction purchases, doesn't cover vehicle condition or safety recalls, and won't pay out if you bought the car more than 30% below market value or without a valid MOT. Basic Check tiers, across every provider, are excluded from the guarantee entirely.

That's a meaningful list of conditions — not a reason to dismiss the guarantee, but a reason to actually follow the checklist (VIN, V5C, verify in person, buy from the registered keeper) if you want it to mean anything when you need it.

To make that concrete: imagine you run a Full Check on a car priced at £12,000, follow the checklist above, and buy it — only to discover six months later that it was actually a Category S write-off that hadn't been recorded when you checked. Under the terms published by RAC (the same underlying HPI guarantee), your claim would be capped at the lower of £15,000 or 50% of the vehicle's market value — so £6,000 in this example, not the full £30,000 headline figure. The £30,000 cap applies specifically to the more severe scenario of losing legal title entirely, such as unknowingly buying a stolen vehicle. Understanding which scenario you're actually protected against, and to what amount, matters more than the headline number alone.

The honest summary: a £30,000-style guarantee isn't an HPI exclusive. Four other providers in this list — RAC, the AA's paid check, MotorCheck, and Total Car Check's Gold tier — offer the same or a comparable indemnity, usually because they're either reselling HPI's own data or running an equivalent scheme themselves. carVertical, CarCheck.co.uk, and Carhealth don't offer this specific type of guarantee. If having one is a hard requirement for you — say, you're spending five figures on a car — that narrows your shortlist to five providers, and it's worth choosing on that basis rather than assuming it's an HPI-only feature you have to pay a premium for.

Where Does the Data Actually Come From?

This is the part of the market that gets least explained, and it's the key to understanding why these reports look more different than they really are.

Every UK-focused provider in this comparison — HPI, RAC, the AA, Total Car Check, MotorCheck, and Carhealth — draws on essentially the same small set of core sources:

• DVLA records — registration details, keeper count, tax and SORN status, and V5C data
• DVSA records — the full MOT test history, including mileage recorded at each test, advisories, and pass/fail results
• The Police National Computer, via the industry-shared stolen vehicle register — for theft markers
• The insurance industry's shared write-off register (historically known as MIAFTR, now often folded into wider industry databases) — for Cat A/B/S/N write-off history
• The motor finance industry's shared register, contributed to by banks, PCP providers, and hire purchase lenders — for outstanding finance

No single UK provider owns these databases outright; they're licensed from the same industry bodies and lenders that every legitimate provider pays to access. That's precisely why running the same registration through HPI, RAC, MotorCheck, and Carhealth on the same day will very often surface the same underlying flags. What differs is how each company packages that data — the write-up, the layout, whether you get a plain-English summary or a wall of raw codes, whether a valuation is bundled in, and of course the price.

carVertical is the deliberate exception, and it's worth understanding why rather than assuming it's simply "different." Its core strength is aggregating over 1,000 international sources across 25+ countries, which means it can surface meaningful history on a car that spent its early life registered in Germany, the Netherlands, or elsewhere in Europe — history that UK-only providers simply cannot see, because DVLA, DVSA, and the UK finance register only start recording a vehicle from the point it's first registered here. For a UK-born car with no import history, that international reach adds relatively little. For an imported car, it can be the single most useful thing you buy. We go into this trade-off in full in HPI Check vs DVLA vs MOT Check Explained and in the head-to-head carVertical vs HPI comparison.

CarCheck.co.uk sits slightly outside this pattern too, in a different way: its own marketing doesn't specifically name DVLA, DVSA, the PNC, or a finance register the way the other UK-focused providers do. That doesn't mean the underlying data is wrong — but it does mean you're taking more on trust about where a "stolen check" or "finance check" result actually originates, compared with providers who state their sources plainly.

What Actually Differs Between These Checks

Given that the underlying UK data is broadly shared, the genuine differences between providers come down to a shorter list than the marketing implies:

• Price for a single check — from £3.99 (Total Car Check Silver, though this excludes finance) up to £37.99 (carVertical)
• Price per report at volume — MotorCheck and Total Car Check's Gold tier both reach £3.99 per report in a five-pack; carVertical stays comparatively expensive even at its cheapest three-pack rate of £20.99 per report
• Whether there's a genuinely free tier — CarCheck.co.uk's free lookup is the most generous (full MOT history, tax, mileage, and spec data), though it excludes every financially sensitive category; the AA's free check only works on cars already listed on AA Cars, and even then explicitly skips outstanding finance
• Report readability — HPI, the AA, and RAC present fairly traditional tick-list reports; Carhealth adds a plain-English AI-written summary on top of the raw data; carVertical adds a chronological "key events" timeline
• Extras — HPI throws in a bundle of unrelated lifestyle content (books, podcasts, documentaries) worth £50,000 by its own reckoning, which has nothing to do with the vehicle check itself; RAC and the AA both bundle shop vouchers; MotorCheck and Total Car Check's Gold tier include a market valuation as standard; carVertical includes a market-value estimate too
• The data guarantee — present at HPI, RAC, the AA's paid check, MotorCheck, and Total Car Check's Gold tier; absent at carVertical, CarCheck.co.uk, and Carhealth

None of these differences make one provider objectively "best" for every buyer — they make different providers the right choice for different situations, which is the point of the decision framework below.

Laid out side by side, the extras look like this:

Common Mistakes When Comparing These Prices

A few traps come up repeatedly when people shop around on price alone, worth flagging explicitly:

• Assuming the cheapest tier is the full product. HPI's £9.99 Basic Check, RAC's £9.98 Basic Check, Total Car Check's £3.99 Silver, and CarCheck.co.uk's £6.99 Basic tier all look like the headline price for that provider — none of them include a full finance check, and none carry the top-level guarantee. The number people usually quote as "how much is an HPI check" (£19.99) is the Full Check, not the Basic one.
• Confusing the AA's two products. "The AA has a free car check" is true and false at the same time — true for cars already listed on AA Cars, and even then it explicitly skips outstanding finance. The AA's genuinely comprehensive product is the separate £14.99 standalone Vehicle Check.
• Treating "MultiCheck" as a volume discount. RAC's £29.97 MultiCheck costs almost exactly the same as buying two Full Checks separately — the benefit is bigger shop vouchers and a banked spare check, not a lower per-report price. HPI's own MultiCheck, by contrast, genuinely does halve the per-report cost.
• Forgetting bundle codes can expire. RAC's spare MultiCheck vouchers are valid for 730 days from purchase; Carhealth's unredeemed bundle codes are refundable within 14 days if you decide not to use them. Check the small print before assuming a five-pack is "use whenever."
• Assuming a lower price means worse or less reliable data. For the UK-focused providers in this list, the underlying sources — DVLA, DVSA, the PNC, the finance and write-off registers — are shared across the market. A £3.99 fully-featured MotorCheck or Total Car Check Gold report draws on the same category of official data as a £19.99 HPI Full Check; the price gap reflects business model and margin, not a different or lesser dataset.

How to Choose: A Quick Decision Framework

Whichever you choose, a paid check is only ever a data check — it cannot tell you about the physical condition of the car, whether the clutch is on its way out, or whether the timing belt was actually changed on schedule. That still requires a viewing, a test drive, and ideally an independent inspection. Our companion guide Is an HPI Check Worth It? goes through that cost-benefit case in full if you're still weighing up whether to spend the money at all.

A Note on Pricing Accuracy

Every price, tier name, and guarantee detail in this article was checked directly on the relevant provider's own website in August 2026. Providers change pricing, tier contents, and promotional discounts regularly — several explicitly reserve the right to do so in their own terms and conditions — so treat the figures here as a snapshot rather than a permanent price list. Before paying for any of these reports, glance at the live price on the checkout screen to confirm nothing has moved since this was written.

Where we checked each provider's live pricing:

• HPI — hpicheck.com and home.hpicheck.com
• carVertical — carvertical.com/gb/pricing
• The AA — theaa.com/vehicle-check and theaa.com/used-cars/aa-cars-history-check
• RAC — rac.co.uk/buying-a-car/rac-car-data-check and its published terms and conditions
• Total Car Check — totalcarcheck.co.uk and totalcarcheck.co.uk/Prices
• CarCheck.co.uk — carcheck.co.uk's own report checkout flow
• MotorCheck — motorcheck.co.uk/pricing
• Carhealth — our own pricing page and refund policy, both live on this site

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the best HPI check?

There isn't a single "best" — it depends on what you're checking and what you value most. For the cheapest fully-featured, guaranteed UK report, MotorCheck and Total Car Check's Gold tier are currently tied at £3.99 per report when bought in a five-pack. For a car previously registered abroad, carVertical's international database is the strongest option. If a £30,000 data guarantee is non-negotiable, your shortlist is HPI, RAC, the AA's paid Vehicle Check, MotorCheck, or Total Car Check's Gold tier.

Is an HPI check the same as a car history check?

Not exactly, though the terms are used interchangeably in everyday speech. "HPI check" technically refers to HPI Ltd's specific branded product. "Car history check" or "vehicle history check" is the generic category — any paid report that checks outstanding finance, write-off status, theft records, and mileage against the same industry and government databases. Every provider in this comparison sells a car history check; only one of them is literally HPI.

How much is an HPI check?

HPI Ltd's own Full Check — the tier that includes finance, mileage discrepancies, write-off history, and the £30,000 guarantee — costs £19.99 as of August 2026. HPI's cheaper Basic Check is £9.99 but excludes mileage discrepancy and write-off detail and isn't covered by the guarantee. Three Full Checks together cost £29.99 through HPI's MultiCheck.

Is an HPI check worth it?

Generally, yes — the cost of any reputable paid check (typically £5–£20) is small compared with the potential loss from buying a car with undisclosed outstanding finance, a hidden write-off, or clocked mileage, any one of which can run into thousands of pounds. We cover the full cost-benefit case, including when a check genuinely isn't necessary, in Is an HPI Check Worth It?

Is there a free HPI check?

Not a genuinely free full one. GOV.UK provides free MOT history, mileage records, and tax/SORN status. CarCheck.co.uk's free lookup adds vehicle spec and general data on top of that. The AA's free AA Cars History Check works only on vehicles listed on its own marketplace and explicitly excludes outstanding finance. None of these free options include the paid-database checks — outstanding finance, insurance write-off, and stolen markers — that carry the real financial risk. Our full breakdown is in Is There a Free HPI Check?

Which provider has the best data guarantee?

HPI, RAC, and the AA's paid Vehicle Check all offer the same £30,000 guarantee, because RAC and the AA both resell HPI's underlying data under licence. MotorCheck offers an equivalent £30,000 guarantee independently. Total Car Check offers £10,000 on its Silver tier and £30,000 on Gold. carVertical, CarCheck.co.uk, and Carhealth do not offer this type of cash guarantee against inaccurate data.

Can I check several cars cheaply if I'm comparing multiple listings?

Yes — most providers offer a per-report discount for buying more than one check at once. As of August 2026, the cheapest options at volume are MotorCheck and Total Car Check's Gold tier (£3.99 per report in a five-pack), followed by the AA's Vehicle Check (£6 per report for five) and HPI's MultiCheck (£9.99 per report for three). Carhealth's five-pack works out at £8 per report.

Do all these checks use the same underlying data?

For the UK-focused providers — HPI, RAC, the AA, Total Car Check, MotorCheck, and Carhealth — largely yes. They all license from the same core sources: DVLA, DVSA, the Police National Computer, the insurance industry's shared write-off register, and the motor finance industry's shared finance register. carVertical is the exception, with a genuinely different international dataset spanning 25+ countries. CarCheck.co.uk is less specific about its exact data sources than the others.

Is a cheaper vehicle check less reliable than an HPI check?

Not necessarily, for a UK-registered car. Because MotorCheck, Total Car Check, RAC, the AA and Carhealth all draw on the same category of official UK sources — DVLA, DVSA, the Police National Computer, and the shared finance and write-off registers — a cheaper fully-featured report is checking the same underlying facts as a pricier one. Where price genuinely correlates with something real is tier structure, not brand: a £3.99 "Basic" tier that excludes finance is less reliable for its purpose than a £9.99 tier that includes it, regardless of which company is selling either one. Compare tier contents, not just the badge on the report.

Whichever provider you land on, the one habit worth building is simple: never buy a used car without running some form of paid history check first, and always run it before you hand over money, not after. If you want to see exactly what a full, AI-summarised report looks like before you decide, you can run a free check to get started, or head straight to Carhealth's £14.99 vehicle history check for the complete picture. If you're coming from an HPI-specific search and want to see how our report stacks up feature-for-feature against theirs, our HPI check alternative page sets that out directly.