How much does an air-to-air heat pump cost? UK prices, running costs and the grant

An air-to-air heat pump costs £1,500 to £3,000 supplied and fitted for a single room with a mainstream wall-mounted unit, £2,500 to £4,500 for a premium or designer unit in one room, £3,500 to £7,000 for a two or three room multi-split, and £6,000 to £12,000 or more to heat a whole home from four or five indoor units or a ducted system. Those prices already include 0% VAT, which runs to 31 March 2027.

The £2,500 Boiler Upgrade Scheme grant can, in principle, come off a multi-room system in England or Wales. In practice, as of September 2026, almost nobody has received it yet, and it will rarely apply to a single-room split. The running costs are where an air-to-air unit earns its keep: at the current price cap it delivers heat for around 6.5p per kWh, against 26p from a fan heater or panel heater and about 8p from a gas boiler.

This is the heating-led companion to our general guide on how much air conditioning costs. If the idea that a wall-mounted air conditioner is a heat pump is new to you, start with the air-to-air heat pumps guide. Every running-cost figure below states the electricity rate behind it.

Prices and rates correct as of September 2026. The energy price cap changes quarterly and installer prices move, so check current figures before budgeting.

Air-to-air heat pump cost by scope

The honest answer is a band, because the same unit can cost £1,700 in a back-to-back installation with a 3m pipe run and £2,800 on the second floor of a terrace with a condensate pump and scaffolding. The table pulls together public supplied-and-fitted pricing from UK installers and cost guides checked in September 2026, alongside the unit-only prices you can see on trade retailers' websites.

Budget packages exist below the bottom of the first band. AC Micro-Climate in London, for example, advertises a 2.5kW Gree, Midea or similar system fully installed for £1,350 in its summer 2026 offer, but that price covers 3m of pipework and a straightforward outdoor position, and the firm quotes premium 2.5kW to 5kW units at £2,000 to £2,800. Treat £1,350 to £1,700 as a floor for a simple job with a budget brand, not as what most homes will pay.

At the other end, BestBuilders' September 2026 cost guide puts a Daikin or Mitsubishi Electric single room at £1,800 to £3,200, Panasonic or Toshiba at £1,600 to £2,900, and Samsung or LG at £1,400 to £2,600. Energy Saving Trust quotes about £1,900 to heat a single room and about £3,700 for a three-bedroom semi, which sits comfortably inside our bands.

What the units themselves cost

Knowing the unit price is the fastest way to judge a quote. If a 2.5kW Daikin Sensira sells for £750 online and you have been quoted £3,200 for it in an easy ground-floor room, you are paying around £2,450 for labour and materials, which is over the odds. £2,600 for a Perfera on a first-floor wall with a 12m pipe run is fair.

These are unit-only prices including VAT for the 2.5kW size of each range, as listed on UK trade retailers on 15 September 2026. They move with stock and promotions, so use them as a sanity check rather than a catalogue.

The gap between a budget unit and a premium one is £400 to £1,000 on the unit, which is why a premium single room costs £1,000 or so more installed. The premium units are usually the most efficient too: Perfera and MSZ-LN list SCOPs above 5, where Sensira and DualCool sit around 4, a gap worth roughly 20% on the heating bill.

Multi-split unit prices scale with the indoor units. A Midea two-room kit lists at around £1,640; a branded three-room set with its outdoor unit costs a good deal more, and every extra indoor unit adds £700 to £1,500 installed. Browse the wall-mounted split systems we have reviewed for current prices and verdicts.

What is included, and what moves the price

A supplied-and-fitted quote from a reputable F-Gas registered installer normally includes the indoor and outdoor units, brackets or a ground frame, insulated refrigerant pipework and trunking up to a stated length, condensate drainage, core drilling and making good, an electrical connection, refrigerant charge, commissioning and an F-Gas certificate, and warranty registration. Ask for that list in writing. If the quote does not say how many metres of pipe are included, ask.

The things that push a quote up, roughly in order of how often they appear:

The regional figures come from installer cost guides rather than a survey, so treat them as a rule of thumb.

The unit is rarely the expensive part. The labour and the awkwardness of your walls are.

Why quotes for the same job differ so much

Three installers can quote £1,900, £2,400 and £3,100 for what sounds like the same job, and none of them is necessarily wrong. The usual reasons:

• Different units. One quotes a Sensira, one a Perfera, one an MSZ-LN. Compare SCOP and noise, not just the brand name.

• Different assumptions about the pipe run. One assumes back-to-back, one has measured 9m up and over the roofline.

• Scaffolding or not. Some installers work from ladders where they should not; a proper tower adds a few hundred pounds and is the safer, legal choice.

• Who does the electrics. Some quotes exclude the circuit and say so quietly.

• Warranty and VAT. Manufacturer-accredited installers often charge more but can offer longer cover. And every quote for a permanently fixed heat-and-cool unit in a home should show 0% VAT until 31 March 2027; if one shows 20%, ask why.

Get three quotes, ask each to itemise, and check the installer is F-Gas certified through REFCOM or an equivalent. A cheap quote from someone who is not is a false economy and, for the refrigerant work, an illegal one. Our installer directory lists certified local firms.

How much does an air-to-air heat pump cost to run?

This is the number that decides whether the outlay is worth it, and it is straightforward once you think in pence per kWh of heat delivered. A modern R32 wall split has a seasonal coefficient of performance (SCOP) of 4 to 5: over a heating season it delivers 4kWh to 5kWh of heat for every 1kWh of electricity. A fan heater, panel heater, oil-filled radiator, infrared panel or storage heater delivers exactly 1kWh of heat per kWh of electricity.

Using Ofgem's price cap for 1 July to 30 September 2026 (electricity 26.11p/kWh, gas 7.33p/kWh, direct debit, Great Britain average):

From 1 October 2026 the electricity rate moves to 26.32p/kWh under October's price cap, which changes the SCOP 4 figure by a twentieth of a penny. It makes no practical difference to any of the sums below. The gas rate rises more, to 7.97p, which nudges the gas figure up to 8.9p per kWh of heat.

Worked example: one living room

Take a living room that needs 3kW of heat for six hours on a cold evening, which is 18kWh of heat a day.

The 2,000kWh season is our illustrative figure for one well-used main room from October to March; a draughty room or a bigger house will be higher. The point is the ratio: replacing resistive heating with a SCOP 4 unit cuts the cost of that room's heat by three quarters, and a SCOP 5 unit by four fifths. Against storage heaters the saving is around half, and that ignores the heat storage heaters leak in the small hours and the day-rate top-ups most people end up using.

Worked example: whole home

For a modest, reasonably insulated three-bedroom home using 8,000kWh of heat a season, again our illustrative figure:

Against gas, air-to-air wins on the unit rate but not by a landslide: £130 to £230 a year on this house. If you already have a working gas boiler, an air-to-air system is worth it for the rooms you struggle to heat, for the cooling in summer, and for coming off gas eventually, rather than as a pure money-saver. If you are on panel heaters or storage heaters, the saving is £500 to £1,600 a year on this house, and the maths is not close.

Real bills depend on insulation, room temperature, hours of use and how cold the winter is; SCOP falls as the outdoor temperature falls, so a January cold snap costs more per kWh than a mild November. Put your own room and hours into our running cost calculator, and read heating with air conditioning for how to run a unit efficiently.

Running costs correct as of September 2026 at the Ofgem cap rates stated. The cap changes quarterly.

The £2,500 grant and 0% VAT

Two pieces of government support apply to air-to-air heat pumps, and they work very differently.

0% VAT is simple and it is already in every price above. HMRC's VAT Notice 708/6 zero-rates the supply and installation of energy-saving materials in homes until 31 March 2027, and it says plainly that most air conditioning units are air source heat pumps, provided they are permanently fixed. Portables do not qualify, and neither does buying a unit online and having it fitted separately. From 1 April 2027 the rate reverts to 5%, so a £5,500 multi-split fitted after that date will cost about £275 more.

The Boiler Upgrade Scheme grant is £2,500 off the cost and installation of an air-to-air heat pump in England or Wales, deducted from the installer's quote up front. The Boiler Upgrade Scheme (Amendment) Regulations 2026 opened applications on 28 April 2026. The conditions, in Ofgem's words, are that the system must replace an existing fossil fuel or electric heating system, must be installed by an MCS-certified installer using an MCS-certified product, and must be sized to meet the full space heating needs of the property. One grant per property, residential buildings only, and it cannot replace an existing low-carbon heating system. The separate air-to-water grant is £7,500 (£9,000 for eligible off-gas-grid homes from 21 July 2026); air-to-air is not in that uplift.

Two practical points follow. First, a single split heating one room does not meet a home's full space heating needs, so the grant is really aimed at multi-splits or ducted systems that replace the whole heating system, typically storage heaters or panel heaters. Second, the scheme is not fully working yet. MCS said in April 2026 that installer certification bodies were still gaining UKAS accreditation and that technical supervisors need RACHP Level 3. On 1 September 2026 Daikin became the first manufacturer with air-to-air products on the MCS Product Directory, 65 multi-split and Multi+ combinations. The ECIU reported in July that around 45 vouchers had been applied for and no installations completed, and Energy Saving Trust's page still said in September that air-to-air grants "aren't available yet".

So the grant is real and legal, but as of September 2026 very few households, if any, have received it. Do not pay a deposit on the strength of a promised grant until the installer can show you their MCS certification for air-to-air and the product on the MCS directory. Our air-to-air heat pump grant guide tracks the scheme and explains how to apply.

What the grant does to the price

The middle row is the interesting one. A three-room multi-split at £3,000 after the grant, saving roughly £400 to £500 a year against storage heaters on the night rate alone (three rooms, about 6,000kWh of heat, at the rates above) and more once day-rate top-ups are counted, pays for itself in six to eight years. Without the grant it is 11 to 14 years, close to the life of the equipment, which is why the grant matters so much for storage heater homes.

Lifetime cost over 10 to 15 years

An air-to-air unit installed properly and serviced should last well over a decade, which is why 15 years is a fair horizon. Servicing is £100 to £200 a year according to installer price lists, though many owners settle for a filter clean themselves and a professional service every other year.

Taking the single living room example, 2,000kWh of heat a season at July to September 2026 rates and prices held flat:

The mainstream split beats the fan heater by around £2,200 over 15 years, and the fan heater provides nothing in summer. The premium unit's efficiency does not quite pay back its extra £1,000 on one room's worth of heat; you buy it for the looks, the quietness and the cooling, and the gap closes the more rooms and hours you heat.

Electricity prices are the biggest unknown. Every 1p on the unit rate adds about £5 a year to the SCOP 4 room and £20 to the fan heater, so higher prices widen the gap in the heat pump's favour.

More in the heating guides hub, including replacing storage heaters with an air-to-air heat pump.