"Lies, damned lies, and statistics" so goes the saying :-) We can make our calculations suit our needs and its very hard to draw a direct comparison between the two different systems of England/Wales & Scotland English/Welsh certs are 7gbp and you cannot look at the details or have them transcribed without buying the certificate, unlike Scotland where you can My point was not the cost but the fact I have never bought a wrong certificate as I am able to confirm its the right one by use of access to the census and civil registration indexes as a main stay With scotlandspeople I am forced to buy searches for totally unconnected people in the hope my target might be among them, once I think I have identified it, I can then buy the image, only then am I likely to know with any certainty if its my target or not I have just totted up roughly what Ancestry subscription has cost me over the last six years, answer approximately 454gbp For that I have been able to use it 24/7 at any time I wished, I have saved thousands of images (*at no extra charge*) in that time and along with my own research have been able to help many others along the way , I just checked my main folder for census images and have in excess of 1,040 there plus many more in other folders Using the same calculation as you used that makes it .44 pence per image if I count only those in my main census folder That does not count the access I have to the full birth marriage and deaths indexes, Scottish census transcripts, WW1 medal cards and service records, directories etc etc (the list is to huge to repeat) at no further cost It kind of knocks scotlandspeople into a cocked hat As I said previously I don't mind paying if I am getting what I pay for, I wouldn't buy ten pairs of trousers in the hope that one pair might fit me because the vendor hid the labels ;-) We will have to agree to disagree on this as I am sure others are heartily bored by it Best wishes Nivard Ovington, in Cornwall (UK) Nivard, We are probably average users of the Scotland's People [ScP] service and it's always seemed to be very good value for money. All Sheena's family were Scottish so we have been very focussed on ScP. Since 2002 I have downloaded 370+ images of which about 200+ were relevant. I have had nearly 700 pages of search hits. Total cost £510. This works out at about £2.50 per image - considerably cheaper than English ones.