B Corp readiness · 05 of 09
4 min read
The real cost: the audit, the five-year cycle, and why we raise it first
There is a version of this conversation that happens at the end, after the assessment, when somebody finally mentions the audit fee. We have it at the beginning instead, and this piece is that conversation.
What you are actually paying for
Three separate things. A submission fee. An annual fee that scales with turnover. And a third-party audit fee set by the assurance provider, not by B Lab™. The third is the one people do not see coming, because it does not appear on a price page. It is quoted by the provider against your size and your complexity, which means you cannot know it until you ask.
It is a cycle, not a purchase
Certification runs on a five-year cycle with an additional audit in year three. So the honest question is not whether you can fund one audit in one good year. It is whether the business can carry the cycle without the decision quietly distorting what you make and how you price it.
Why we will not quote you a number
Indonesian pricing sits with the regional team and it moves. We link out to the current figures and never print one we cannot date, because a stale number in a sales conversation is worse than no number at all. Every figure about B Lab on these pages carries the date we checked it, and if you find one without a date, that is a mistake and we want to know.
How long it takes
B Lab estimates two to six months from submission to certification, with the audit itself running one to fifteen days by company size (B Lab published certification process information, modified 20 November 2025). Preparation before submission is the longer part by a distance, and preparation is the part we work on with you.
The question we ask at the start
Do you already know roughly what the audit and the cycle cost. If the answer is no, we tell you before you buy anything from us. A brand that meets every eligibility rule and cannot fund an audit has still learned something worth knowing, and learning it in the first conversation is both cheaper and kinder than learning it in the last one.
The essentials
- Three fees: submission, annual by turnover, and a provider-set audit fee.
- Five-year cycle with an extra audit in year three. Budget the cycle, not one audit.
- We link to current figures and never print a number we cannot date.
Primary sources
- B Lab published certification process information, modified 20 November 2025. Checked 17 August 2026
- B Lab Standards V2.1, Release 2, 25 August 2025. Checked 17 August 2026
Written against B Lab Standards V2.1, Release 2 of 25 August 2025. B Lab released V2.2 on 20 February 2026, and the affected topics are being re-read against it before any of this is sold. Every figure about B Lab on these pages carries the date we checked it. Last checked 17 August 2026.
Where we stand
Mula is not affiliated with, endorsed by, accredited by, or certified by B Lab. B Corp™ and B Lab™ are trademarks of B Lab. Mula helps a brand get its own evidence in order. Mula does not assess, does not certify, and cannot predict an audit outcome. We never show the B Corp™ logo, because it belongs to companies that hold the certification. Where other frameworks are named on these pages, Mula is not affiliated with their standard setters or certification bodies either.
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