The reasons standards cost money

When you buy a standard, you pay not only for paper and printing or preparing a pdf file, but also for the many hours - typically over a period of 3 to 5 years in advance, before the final document is published.

The development of standards takes place in nearly 600 standards committees and working groups. The committees have about 3000 experts who spend time and effort to prepare Danish, European and international standards. Danish Standards is the secretariat of standardization in Denmark.

Who pays for the preparation of standards?
In most cases, private businesses, organizations and governments pay for the experts. However, there are significant costs in addition to standardization, for example payment European and international standards bodies membership, extensive travel to meetings, training of Danish experts, etc..

The money for this is partly from grants from the government and partly from the sale of standards and publications. As an independent institution DS does not face requirements to generate a surplus. With a balanced economy, DS must reach the maximum activity regarding new standards, translations, Danish influence on European and international activities, etc..

If standards were free who would fund them?
The authorities in individual countries, or the producers themselves would fund standards. Neither the international community, authorities nor the manufacturers, can afford a 100% financing. But they recognize the importance of standards as a tool to eliminate technical barriers to trade globally and in Europe to create a common platform. Therefore the authorities and interest groups contribute many millions of Euro each year. If we did not receive those contributions in ISO / IEC and CEN / CLC, and thus Danish Standards, standards would cost much more and there would only be produced 10% of the volume we have today.

It's your choice whether you want to use and buy standards!
In most cases standards are voluntary documents. To use them you must pay for them. If you don’t want to use them, you don’t have to buy them. Regulations are statutory and therefore billions of tax money is spent each year to pay for the preparation of laws and maintain them. You also pay taxes to be able to access all laws and related documents free of charge. The use of standards is up to you. The price of a standard is the value it gives you to help with development and completion of technical requirements on health, safety and environment.

You pay for the values
The value of standards is not the words or the number of pages it contains. You pay for the safety the standard gives you, regarding compliance with contract and Directive requirements, the export market it opens for you, the many cost savings because experts have given you the best solutions, compliance and improvements to the environment and much, much more.

Therefore, standards cost money.