Where the prices and ratings come from
Every tour we list is tied to a product on GetYourGuide, Headout or Tiqets. Once a day we refresh each product’s title, lowest listed price, rating, review count and duration from the platform’s partner feed. Prices on our pages come only from that feed — we don’t type them in by hand, and we round them up to the whole pound rather than quote more precision than the feed gives.
Each page shows two dates: when the page itself was last updated, and when prices and ratings were last checked. Prices change daily with dates, group size and demand, so always treat ours as a guide and confirm the final price on the booking page before you pay.
If a product disappears from a platform or stops taking bookings, our card marks it “currently not bookable” instead of quietly sending you to a dead page.
Private prices, per head
Private tours are priced per group: one guide, one cab, one car. Shared tours are priced per person. Comparing the two headline prices is meaningless, so our calculator divides the private price by your group size and shows where private becomes cheaper per head. We note the group cap from the listing — typically five or six in a black cab, more on foot — because it changes the maths.
How a verdict is decided
Each guide ends its comparison with up to four “calling cards” — best overall, best value, best private option, best with kids — plus a “skip it if” card. The rules:
- Track record first. A tour needs a solid rating over a meaningful number of reviews. A 5.0 from eight reviews doesn’t beat a 4.8 from three thousand.
- Price per head, not “from” price. We compare what your group will actually pay.
- What you get. Entry tickets included or not, real guiding or a recorded commentary, hotel pick-up, group size, cancellation terms.
- Only bookable tours can be picked. If a pick stops taking bookings, its booking link disappears and we replace it at the next page update.
- “Skip it if” names the people a tour or tour type doesn’t suit — for example, cab tours if you want to go inside the sights.
DIY boxes
Some of London’s best experiences are free or cheap without a tour: the Changing of the Guard, a river bus instead of a sightseeing cruise, a self-guided walk with a decent map. Where doing it yourself is better value, we put it in a clearly marked box with the cost and how to do it — even though we earn nothing from it.
No paid placements
No operator or platform can pay to appear on this site, be ranked higher or have a verdict changed. We don’t accept free tours in exchange for coverage. Partner links are labelled, and the order of tours on a page is ours, not the platform’s.
Affiliate disclosure
We earn a commission from GetYourGuide, Headout and Tiqets when you book through some of our links, at no extra cost to you. That’s how the site is funded. When the same tour is sold on more than one platform, we show the cheapest first, whichever platform pays us more.
How we use review data
We use aggregated review data — overall rating, number of reviews and recurring themes — to judge track record. We read reviews to spot patterns (punctual starts, rushed stops, standout guides) and summarise those themes in our own words. We never copy review text, never quote reviewers by name, and never publish a rating or review count we haven’t taken from the platform’s own feed or a source we cite with a date.
Sources and corrections
Operator facts — routes, durations, inclusions, opening times, official ticket prices — are checked on the operator’s or attraction’s own website or another authoritative source, and listed under “Sources” on each page with the date checked. If we can’t verify something, we leave it out.
If you find a mistake, email contact@private-tours.london with the page and what’s wrong. We check every report, correct factual errors promptly and update the page’s date when we do.