Most people searching for this have a broken or failing pane and a frame that is fine. The price pages that rank for it agree more than they should, because two of them publish what is in effect the same table, and they are quiet on the questions that decide the bill: is it a unit or a pane, is it an emergency, will insurance pay, and does any regulation apply. This guide sets the sources side by side with their dates and does not average them. If your glass is misted rather than broken, start with our guide to blown double glazing and why it cannot be dried out, then come back for the prices.
Window glass replacement cost by unit size
A double glazed window holds a sealed unit: two panes bonded around a spacer bar and sealed at the edge. You cannot swap one leaf, so a crack in either pane means a new unit, exactly as a misted seal does. That is why the price below is the same whichever reason brought you here.
| Unit size (mm) | Checkatrade, fitted | MyJobQuote: glass / labour / fitted |
|---|---|---|
| 200 x 400 | £55 | £25 / £30 / £55 |
| 500 x 700 | £74 | £34 / £40 / £74 |
| 800 x 1,000 | £117 | £72 / £45 / £115 |
| 900 x 1,200 | £145 | £95 / £50 / £145 |
Checkatrade blown window table, last updated June 2026. MyJobQuote Window Glass Replacement Cost Guide, 3 September 2026, from quotes on its platform; VAT not stated. The two tables are within £2 of each other at every size, so treat them as one data lineage.
That near-identical pair is the backbone of the search results, and it makes the market look more settled than it is. The other sources are wider. MyBuilder (August 2026) puts the average at around £150, a pane at £50 to £350 and a double glazed pane at £100 to £300; on its blown glazing page a small unit is £150 to £400 and a large or bay £400 to £800. A Yorkshire glazier, Glass Tech (January 2026), quotes £140 to £220 for a 60 by 120 cm A-rated, gas-filled unit fitted in Leeds, York or Manchester. Misty Glaze, a London glazier, gives £50 to £175 small, £75 to £200 medium and £125 to £250 large, but those are 2023 prices and exclude VAT, which its search snippet does not show. Georgian bars or leaded designs add 25% to 50% on its figures.
One labelling trap: Checkatrade's summary row says £55 to £300 “per window” for double glazed supply and installation, but the £55 floor is its 200 by 400 mm unit price. It is per unit. A window with three panes can mean three units.
Single glazed panes
Single glazing is simpler: one sheet, held with pins and putty or beads. Checkatrade says a single glazed pane costs around £110 to supply and replace, against around £120 for a double glazed window, and lists supply-only glass at about £25 with DIY pinning and putty at £30. MyBuilder puts single glazing at £50 to £130. Nobody ranking publishes a price by size for single panes or for a putty-glazed sash pane, so treat those ranges as a guide and ask for a quote on the pane you have. If you are weighing single glazed sashes against sealed units in the same frames, our guide to retrofit double glazing in existing frames prices that route.
What the glass type adds
The glass specification changes the unit price; the fitting charge barely moves. MyJobQuote says upgrading a standard unit to energy-efficient, toughened or self-cleaning glass adds around £15 to £60 per typical unit.
| Unit type | Fitted (MyJobQuote) | Supply-only glass (one merchant) |
|---|---|---|
| Standard clear double glazed | £55 to £145 | About £100 per m² for the unit |
| Toughened | £80 to £180 | Adds £24 per m² per pane |
| Obscure or frosted | £70 to £170 | £77 per m² per 4 mm pane, against £50 clear |
| High-performance Low-E | £80 to £190 | Planitherm 1.0 £73 per m² per pane |
| Triple glazed | £90 to £220 | Not published |
| Conservatory side panel | £120 to £250 | Not published |
| Laminated | Not published | 6.4 mm laminate £180 per m² per pane |
Fitted: MyJobQuote, 3 September 2026. Supply-only: Gloucester Windows and Doors online calculator, April 2026, A-rated and argon filled as standard, minimum 0.3 m². MyBuilder puts triple glazing at £200 to £350 fitted.
Toughened and laminated are the two safety glass options a glazier will offer for a door or a low pane, and they are not priced alike. Laminated is the dearer of the two. On the one merchant list that prices both, a unit with one laminated leaf comes to about 2.3 times the clear unit per square metre. That is a single source, and no ranking page gives a fitted laminated price. If your old unit had a Low-E coating, match it: our guide to Low-E glass coatings shows what it does.
Labour, call-outs and extras
Labour is where quotes split, and even one publisher gives three different figures. MyBuilder's price guide says installation runs £40 to £150 per window, with hourly rates of £50 to £80 in London and £30 to £50 in rural or northern areas. Its glazier directory says most local glaziers charge £15 to £40 an hour. Its double glazing page says £25 to £35 an hour or £200 to £280 a day. The practical point is the split in the size table: on a 200 by 400 mm unit the glass is £25 of £55, on a 900 by 1,200 mm unit £95 of £145. The call-out dominates a small job, so get every cracked or misted unit done in one visit.
Extras on MyJobQuote's list: new beads, gaskets and seals £10 to £30; an access tower £100 to £300; scaffolding £300 to £1,000 or more. Disposal of the old glass is usually included, otherwise £20 to £50. MyBuilder quotes a skip at £100 to £300, which is a lot for one pane, so ask whether it is in the price. To total several jobs at once, the window repair cost calculator prices each fault.
Before you accept a glass quote, ask three things: is it per unit or per window, is the glass toughened where it should be, and is the call-out already in the price. Most of the difference between two quotes for the same pane is in those answers.
Double Glazing Cost Calculator Team
Smashed glass: emergency glazing and boarding up
A smashed pane after a break-in or a storm is a two-visit job. The made-to-measure unit cannot be fitted the same day, so the opening is either glazed temporarily or boarded, then the proper unit goes in on a return visit.
- Emergency glazing: around £100 to £250 depending on urgency, time and materials (MyBuilder glazier directory). One London firm advertises emergency glazing from £75 per window with no extra charge for a 24-hour call-out.
- Boarding up: from about £100, taking one to two hours (Master Locksmiths Association, November 2025). Able Group's Hull branch starts at £130 plus VAT, and its jobs over the past 12 months ranged from £102 to £352, averaging £200.
Ask whether the boarding firm also does the glazing. Glaziers London, for example, does the return glazing at half price after emergency boarding. Clearing the broken pane is a separate line on some quotes: Checkatrade lists removing and disposing of an existing pane at £45 per square metre.
How long it takes
Every sealed unit is made to measure. Two online merchants quote three to five working days for standard glass and seven to ten for toughened, in identical wording, so they may share a supply chain. A London merchant quotes three to five days for standard units and five to seven for toughened or decorative ones, with clear units ready to collect in 24 to 72 hours. Toughened takes longer because it cannot be cut down once it has been toughened, so it must be measured right first time.
Fitting is quick, though the sources disagree on how quick: 30 to 60 minutes per unit on MyJobQuote, one to three hours on Checkatrade's and MyBuilder's blown glazing pages. Both are fitting only, not the wait for the glass.
Does insurance pay for broken window glass?
It depends on the cause and on your policy tier, and some ranking pages overstate it. From the insurers' own pages:
- Storm, fire, vandalism, break-in: buildings insurance typically covers broken windows from insured events like these (Lemonade, May 2026). After a break-in, report it to the police and get a crime reference number first.
- Accidental breakage: a ball or a ladder through the glass needs accidental damage cover. Lemonade says this is not usually included as standard and sells it as an add-on. Admiral offers a glass-and-sanitary accidental breakage level, included on its Gold tier and optional on its base cover. Post Office includes basic accidental damage for fixed panes of glass on Silver and Gold and sells it as an add-on to Bronze.
- Misting: a failed seal is not breakage. It is not covered unless your policy has specific accidental damage cover, and for a misted unit the installer's guarantee is the place to look.
No source gives a share of policies that include glass cover, so read your own schedule rather than assume. On a £55 to £145 unit, the excess may exceed the claim.
The rules: glass-only replacement is not building work
No page ranking for this search quotes the rule, and one tells readers toughened glass is a legal requirement for replacement glass. In England, Approved Document K (2013) settles it at paragraph 0.2b: “The replacement of glazing whilst retaining an existing frame (e.g. as a repair) is not building work, but the supply of the glazing may be subject to consumer protection legislation.”
Energy efficiency follows the same line: Approved Document L paragraph 10.6 says glass-only work in an existing frame is not a controlled fitting, so the new unit does not have to meet a U-value, as our guide to Part L for windows sets out. FENSA's compliance guide says repair work, “for example, sash or glass only replacement”, is outside its scheme. No certificate is issued, which our FENSA guide explains. This is England only; we have not confirmed the Welsh or Scottish wording.
That does not make any glass acceptable. Approved Document K's critical locations are still the right specification: glass in doors and side panels wholly or partly below 1,500 mm from the floor, glass within 300 mm either side of a door, and window glass below 800 mm. There, the glass should break safely, be robust, be in small panes or be permanently protected; for safety glass the marking to ask for is BS EN 12600 Class 3. Approved Document K still names BS 6206 Class C alongside it, but the Glass and Glazing Federation records BS 6206 as withdrawn for testing flat safety glass, so BS EN 12600 is the one to look for. The code of practice behind all this is BS 6262-4:2018, which gives recommendations, not law. A glazier who puts plain annealed glass back into a door is doing the job wrong, even though no inspector will see it.
When replacing the glass is the wrong call
The frame decides. A sealed unit lasts 15 to 20 years and a uPVC frame 20 to 25, so glass in a younger frame is a glass job. If the frame is near the end of its life, the hinges and gaskets are tired, and several units have gone together, new glass buys a few years in a failing window. A full uPVC casement window is £400 to £1,000 fitted, and the side-by-side numbers are in repair or replace your double glazing. And if the fog wipes off from the room side, nothing is broken at all: our guide to condensation on windows explains the harmless kind.
Get quotes for replacement glass or new windows
If the frames are sound, a local glazier is the right call. If they are past their best and you want new windows priced against the repair, tell us what you have and Leads 2 Trade will arrange quotes from installers covering your postcode.
Frequently asked questions
A standard double glazed unit costs £55 for a 200 by 400 mm pane rising to £145 for a 900 by 1,200 mm pane, fitted, on Checkatrade's June 2026 table and MyJobQuote's September 2026 table, which match to within £2. MyBuilder puts the average at around £150 and a double glazed pane at £100 to £300. A single glazed pane is around £110 fitted on Checkatrade and £50 to £130 on MyBuilder.
No. The two panes are bonded to a spacer bar and sealed as one unit, so a cracked inner or outer pane means a new sealed unit. It is the same job, and the same price, whether the unit is cracked, smashed or misted. The frame stays.
MyBuilder's glazier directory puts emergency glazing at around £100 to £250. The Master Locksmiths Association says boarding up costs from about £100 and takes one to two hours. One Hull firm's boarding-up jobs over the past 12 months ranged from £102 to £352, averaging £200. A board is a stopgap: the new glass is made to measure and follows on a return visit.
The unit is made to measure. Two merchants quote three to five working days for standard glass and seven to ten for toughened; a London merchant quotes five to seven for toughened. Fitting takes 30 to 60 minutes per unit on MyJobQuote's figures and one to three hours on Checkatrade's and MyBuilder's.
Storm, fire, vandalism and break-in damage is typically covered by buildings insurance. Accidental breakage, such as a ball through the glass, usually needs accidental damage cover, which some insurers include for glass on mid and upper tiers and others sell as an add-on. A misted unit is a failed seal, not breakage, and is usually not covered. After a break-in, get a crime reference number first.
Not in England. Approved Document K paragraph 0.2b says replacing glazing while keeping the existing frame is not building work. Approved Document L paragraph 10.6 says the same for energy efficiency, and FENSA's compliance guide puts glass-only replacement outside its scheme. No certificate is issued, and none is missing when you sell.
For a glass-only repair in England it is not a Building Regulations requirement, but it is the recommended practice under the code BS 6262-4, and any competent glazier will fit toughened or laminated glass in the critical locations: doors and side panels below 1,500 mm, glass within 300 mm of a door, and windows below 800 mm from the floor.
The glass is the smaller part of a small job. Checkatrade lists a 200 by 400 mm unit at £25 supply-only against £55 fitted, and a 900 by 1,200 mm unit at £100 against £145. The saving is real on a small pane, but the unit must be measured right, and toughened glass cannot be cut down if it is wrong.