Do we need Outcomes Star or SROI or one of those?

England and Wales: This page covers choosing a framework in full. It is practice, not law. Scotland: the same position, with no difference in principle — the frameworks and their prices are UK-wide. Northern Ireland: the same position, with no difference in principle.

Outcomes Star: the price list

Cost is the first thing to compare, because the lists of measurement tools trustees are shown leave it out. Outcomes Star, social return on investment and IRIS+ are not legal requirements in England and Wales, Scotland or Northern Ireland. No funder-wide rule names one either.

A funder may make a named tool a condition of one specific grant. That binds that grant only. This step assumes you have already chosen your indicators, so each option can be judged against that set.

Outcomes Star is the one that catches charities out. It is a licensed, paid product owned by Triangle Consulting Social Enterprise Ltd.

Triangle’s own training page says, verbatim: “all Outcomes Star licence holders must complete our core training programme.” That “must” is Triangle’s condition of the licence, not a legal duty. But if you adopt the Star, you cannot skip it.

Triangle’s published prices (its own note: all figures exclude VAT):

• Account fee: £255 a year.
• Practitioner licence: £41 a year, for each person who uses the Star with service users — however many people each one sees.
• Open core training: £245 a person.
• In-house core training: £980 for four people; £1,200 for five to eight; £1,320 for nine to twelve; £1,630 for thirteen to sixteen.
• Refresher training: £1,320 for a full day, or £665 for a half day.
• Training your own licensed trainer: £2,500 in the first year, then £1,250 to renew.

These prices apply from 2026-01-01. They have risen year on year, so check Triangle’s page on the day you budget.

What six practitioners would pay

For a charity with six practitioners using the Star, the cost is a four-figure commitment in year one. In its first year it pays three things:

1. the account fee
2. six practitioner licences
3. in-house core training for a group of five to eight

Add those three lines from Triangle’s price list and you have the year-one cost, before VAT. We do not print a total. It is not a single figure on the price list, and it moves whenever any line moves.

From the second year, the account fee and the six licences recur. That is a much smaller figure, but it is every year, and it comes before any refresher training or any new practitioner who needs training.

That commitment is often made because a list of “tools you could use” did not mention it was licensed at all.

Who Outcomes Star is for, in Triangle’s words

Triangle’s own site says the Star works best for long-term, holistic keywork that addresses several areas of a person’s life. Examples include homelessness, recovery, mental health and family support. Its page is called “Is Outcomes Star right for you?”. None of this is an attack on Outcomes Star: Triangle is not overselling it.

If that describes your work, the Star may be worth its price, and the training is part of why. If you run a short course, a drop-in or a one-off activity, the tool’s owner is telling you it is probably the wrong one. The listicles that recommend it to everyone are the problem, not Triangle.

Social return on investment: the method is free, the assurance is not

Social return on investment (SROI) is a method for putting a monetary value on the change you make. Social Value International publishes the method and its guide free.

It needs real resource. You consult the people affected, agree what changed, and value it with financial proxies. The guidance repeatedly warns that it is easy to do badly.

You can have an SROI report assured by ISV, the UK body formerly called Social Value UK. Its published fees:

• Standard assurance: £1,350, plus VAT.
• Fast-track assurance: £1,650, plus VAT.

Now read what assurance is. ISV’s own description calls it a principles-based assessment, and says, verbatim: “It does not include verification of stakeholder engagement, data, and calculations.”

So an assured report has been checked for whether it applied the method properly. It has not been checked for whether its numbers are right. A charity that pays for assurance and then reports its figures as verified has misunderstood what it bought. Assurance is optional, and most reports in the public database are not assured.

Can an SROI ratio be compared between charities?

No — on the reasoning of SROI’s own standard-setters, comparing ratios between organisations is a misuse. SROI reports usually end in a ratio: so many pounds of social value for each pound spent. It is the most repeated claim in UK charity impact marketing, and the one most often misused.

Social Value UK’s published position is that you should not use the ratio to compare different organisations, even in the same field. They work with different people, with different needs, and make different judgements in reaching their figure. Two ratios compare only if the studies used the same scope, the same stakeholders and the same adjustment rules — which they rarely do.

A caveat on the sourcing. We could not read that position on a live page. The article it comes from no longer resolves: Social Value UK’s old website now redirects to ISV, and the article did not survive the move. The wording is reproduced consistently in several independent places, but we have not seen it at its source.

The argument does not rest on that article alone. Social Value International’s own Principles are live and read. Principle 5 says, in as many words: “Do not overclaim.” Using your ratio to rank your charity above another is the overclaim. Work out what you can honestly claim puts any figure you report through the same test.

IRIS+: free, but built for impact investors

IRIS+ is free, but it is built for impact investors, not for a charity measuring its own work. It turns up in framework lists because it costs nothing. Its owner, the Global Impact Investing Network, calls it “a free, public good”.

It is a catalogue of metrics and a way of sorting them, for fund managers doing due diligence across a portfolio. It is not a way for one small charity to measure its own outcomes. If someone has pointed you at it, you have been mis-advised. We could not find out whether any UK small charity uses it for self-measurement.

The options side by side

The table compares each option by owner, cost and who it is built for.

Framework	Owner	Cost	Built for
Theory of change	Not proprietary; NPC publishes the most widely used UK method	Free	Any charity. The starting point this guide recommends.
Logic model	Not proprietary; the W.K. Kellogg Foundation guide is the classic	Free	A simpler, more linear version of a theory of change.
NPC’s guides	NPC	Free; NPC also sells consulting	UK charities “new to this or [with] limited budgets or capacity”, in NPC’s words.
Outcomes Star	Triangle	Licensed per practitioner, with compulsory paid training	Long-term, one-to-one keywork across several areas of life.
SROI	Social Value International; ISV in the UK	Method free; assurance paid	Organisations with the resource for proper consultation and valuation.
Five Dimensions of Impact	Impact Frontiers	Free	Investors and enterprises. Useful ideas, written for investment decisions.
IRIS+	Global Impact Investing Network	Free	Impact investors, not charities measuring their own work.

The honest default, and how to decide

For most small charities the answer is a theory of change and a few indicators you will collect in practice. That costs nothing but time. It is this guide’s view, not a rule, and the indicators step shows the reasoning behind it.

If you are still weighing a named framework, put it to the trustees as a decision, and record it in the minute with:

• the framework, and why — what it measures that your own indicators would not
• the full cost — every line from the owner’s price list, the year-one figure and the recurring one, with VAT stated, ready for your annual budget
• the fit — what the owner says the tool is for, and whether your work matches
• the alternative — what you would do instead, and what that costs

A minute that records the full cost is the only form in which the trustees can be said to have chosen. A tool adopted without one was not chosen; it was drifted into.

With the choice made, set your baseline for each outcome indicator. Then design how you will collect the data.

Common mistake: adopting Outcomes Star without budgeting for the licence and the training

A great deal of sector content lists Outcomes Star among “tools you could use”. That content does not say the Star is licensed, priced per practitioner per year, and carries compulsory core training.

The result is an unbudgeted year-one commitment that recurs every year before refreshers. Triangle’s own “Is Outcomes Star right for you?” page is honest about who it suits. The lists that recommend it to everyone are not.

Common mistake: being pointed at IRIS+ because it is free

It is free, and it appears in framework lists next to charity tools. But it is built for impact investors: a metrics catalogue for due diligence across a portfolio. A small charity pointed at it has been mis-advised.

Common mistake: reading “independently assured” as “the numbers were audited”

“Assured” sounds like “audited”. It is not. ISV’s own description says assurance “does not include verification of stakeholder engagement, data, and calculations”. It checks whether the Principles were applied, not whether the figures are right. Assurance is good practice and optional; it is not a legal test.

Common mistake: choosing SROI so you can publish a ratio to compare with other charities

Social Value UK’s position is that ratios should not be compared between organisations. We could not read that at its source, because the article no longer resolves. Principle 5 of the Social Value Principles, “Do not overclaim”, is live and carries the argument alone. This is good practice, not law.

Worked example

Tollgate Youth CIO has one employee and a few sessional workers. It runs a short confidence course for young people. A consultant advises it to adopt Outcomes Star.

The treasurer reads Triangle’s price list first. Tollgate would pay the account fee, a licence for each person using the Star, and the compulsory core training. Every line is in Triangle’s price list. That is before any refresher.

Then the manager reads Triangle’s own “Is Outcomes Star right for you?” page. The Star works best for long-term, holistic keywork. A short course is what the owner says it is not for.

The alternative is a theory of change and a few indicators, at no cost.

The outcome: a minuted decision not to adopt a licensed framework. The minute records the cost avoided, by reference to Triangle’s price list, and the reasons. None of this is a legal requirement — the choice is between conventions.