Search for help with a business plan and you will be offered writers, consultants, advisors, advisory services, mentors and coaches, frequently by the same firm on the same page. The titles are not regulated and they are used loosely, which makes it genuinely hard to work out what you are buying.
The distinction that matters is not the job title. It is which part of the work you are handing over — and paying consultancy rates for typing, or writer rates for strategy you needed, is how people end up disappointed with a perfectly competent supplier.
The three jobs, and what separates them
| Writer | Consultant | Advisor or mentor | |
|---|---|---|---|
| You bring | The strategy and the numbers | The idea and the ambition | The plan, in draft |
| They bring | Structure, prose, presentation | Analysis, modelling, challenge | Judgement and experience |
| Typical output | A finished document | A strategy plus a document | Feedback, not a document |
| Typical UK cost | £300 – £1,500 | £1,500 – £5,000+ | £0 – £150/hour |
| Engagement length | 1 – 3 weeks | 4 – 12 weeks | Ongoing |
The writer
A business plan writer turns what you already know into a document that reads properly. You supply the pricing, the costs, the market view and the funding ask; they supply structure, clarity and the conventions a lender expects to see.
This is the right purchase when your thinking is genuinely settled and the barrier is the writing — which is more common than people admit. Plenty of capable operators can run a business perfectly well and find twenty pages of formal prose completely paralysing.
It is the wrong purchase when your numbers are not yet sound, because a good writer will present your assumptions clearly rather than challenge them, and clearly presented bad assumptions get declined faster.
The consultant
A business plan consultant does the analysis as well as the document. They will pressure-test your pricing, build the financial model, question the market size you have assumed, and tell you when the plan does not work — which is the part you are really paying for.
This is what you want when there is real money at stake, when the sector is regulated, or when you suspect there is a hole in the plan and cannot find it. It costs several times what a writer costs, and for a £250,000 lending decision that difference is trivial.
The catch is that “consultant” is the most abused of the three titles. Plenty of firms advertising consultancy deliver writing. The way to tell is to ask what happens if the analysis shows the business is not viable — a consultant has an answer to that question, because it happens.
The advisor or mentor
An advisor does not produce your plan. They read it and tell you what a lender will think, based on having sat on the other side of the table.
This is the cheapest and most underrated of the three, and often the best value. Much of it is free: the Start Up Loans scheme includes twelve months of mentoring with every loan, Growth Hubs offer free business advice across England, and your own accountant will usually review a plan as part of the relationship.
It works only if you have a draft. An advisor cannot help you with a plan that does not exist yet, which is why this is a second step rather than a first.
Which one you need
Work backwards from your actual blocker rather than from the job titles.
“I know what I am doing but cannot write it down.” A writer, or software. The knowledge is there and only the presentation is missing.
“I am not sure the numbers work.” A consultant, or an accountant. Do not buy writing until this is settled — you would be paying to present a problem rather than solve it.
“I have a plan but do not know if it is good enough.” An advisor. Cheapest option and usually sufficient. Start with the free routes.
“The financials are the problem, not the words.” This is the most common case by a distance, and it is the one the three job titles serve worst. You understand your business; you do not want to pay consultancy rates for someone to learn it; and you need projections that stand up. That is what business plan software is for — you answer questions about your sales, costs and staffing, and the cash flow, break-even and UK tax calculations get built from the answers.
“It is going to a regulator, or an investor, and it has to be right.” A consultant with sector experience. This is not the place to economise.
How to check what you are actually buying
The titles will not tell you, so ask. Five questions do most of the work.
- Is the financial model included, and do I keep it? A PDF you cannot edit is worth much less than a model you can update next year.
- What happens if you conclude the business is not viable? A consultant will tell you what they do. A writer dressed as a consultant will find the question uncomfortable.
- Who does the work? Ask for the name and background of the person writing it, not the firm.
- Have you done this sector before? Ask for a redacted example. Regulated sectors especially.
- How many revisions, and over what period? Funding conversations generate change requests, and a plan you cannot revise cheaply is a problem three weeks in.
What we do, for what it is worth
We sit in two of these three boxes, and it is only fair to be direct about which.
SquarePlan’s software is for the fourth case above — you know the business, the financial modelling is the gap. £39.99 a month, no minimum term, and you own the model and can change it whenever the business changes.
Our writing service is consultancy rather than typing: a chartered accountant with thirty years across UK sectors builds the financials, challenges the assumptions and produces the document. From £499, with the final figure depending on how complex the business is and how much of the financial detail you already have — and if the analysis shows the plan does not work, you will be told.
We do not do advisory as a paid service, because for most people the free routes are genuinely better value — start with a Start Up Loans mentor or your local Growth Hub before paying anyone for an opinion on a draft.
The most common expensive mistake
It is buying a writer when the problem was the numbers.
The document comes back looking professional, the assumptions inside it are the same ones that did not add up before, and the application is declined on the financials. The money is spent, the plan needs redoing, and the writer did nothing wrong — they were asked to write, and they wrote.
Settle whether the business works before you pay anyone to describe it. That order round is cheaper every time.