What are reasonable tenant fees from letting agents – £600?

I give tenants a "moving in quotation" which details exactly what the tenancy will cost them. In fact I tell prospective tenants that even if they do not let with us to take the "moving in"quotation to the High St agents and ask them to do the same. I have already had one irate agent asking me why I do this. I tell them that it is to show transparency on fees - and embarass the rip off agents charging £500 plus for tenants letting fees. Its not rocket science is it?

The question is 'what is reasonable?'
Well I reckon it takes me a full days work to meet with a prospective tenant a couple of times, get referencing check forms completed and submitted, review the results, check them on social media websites, visit their current home, draw up a tenancy and meet with the tenant again.
It takes best part of a day to draw up a proper inventory, but once done it only takes a couple of hours to properly check it before a tenant moves in and another couple when they leave.
So about a day and a half's work all in.
On top of this it costs me about £60 to advertise on Rightmove and Zoopla and £30 for credit and referencing checks.
I manage my own properties and the only charge I pass on to prospective tenants is the £30 referencing charge, but if I was using an agent I would expect them to have to allocate at least a couple of days per tenancy. So after their overheads and leaving room for profit I reckon £500 is not unreasonable, all in.
The trouble is that they tend to charge this sort of sum to the landlord, and then again to the tenant and then ask for a 'finders fee' and then repeat fees every 6 months or so. I suspect they expect to bank in excess of £1000 by the time they have fleeced both parties.
Ask the agents what fees they charge the Landlord. It would seem to me that £500 between the tenant and the Landlord would be ample.

Reasonable, is the reference charge must be high enough that only people that truly wish to rent the property will go ahead. It should also cover the full cost of the tenant decides to pull out.

I also like the tenant having to pay for the independent checkout inspection, but then explain that we if can agree between ourselves, there would be no need for it.

(It is a real shame that agent charges are so hidden, otherwise landlords could ask for more rent each month in exchange for not making the charges.)

Thanks for all your comments so far. So in the end my son has gone with the property as he needed to move in quickly, and the area/property was just right. The agent in this transaction has been outrageous, not just for the fees, which he did manage to get some reduction for, but also that the contract they produced was full of basic mistakes and in other parts just plain wrong. E.g. written around the wrong deposit protection agency, and demanding a further £500 admin fee from the tenant before referring any deposit disagreement to the deposit agency for resolution. We met the landlord at the property when he moved in, who was really genuine and seemed completely unaware of the issues and tenant costs faced with the agent. As Jessie says - fleecing both sides - hopefully the landlord who has 3 other properties will think about his choice of agent next time around. Will be referring him to this excellent site as I think the only reason he uses an agent at all is a lack of awareness in how/where to find his next tenant and run basic checks etc.. I think over Christmas I'll be summarising all the issues and sending a complaint to TPOS (they are members), ASA, Shelter and the local MP, not that it'll probably achieve anything, but if no one complains they'll never change.

No point complaining to shelter or the local MP, but add trading standards to your list, as they are meant to enforce the laws about clearly displaying all charges.

Mark,

As hiding the charges is clearly meant to mislead, would your “no fee” criminal banister be interested in taking this on?

We always let people know what our fees are up-front. We NEVER take a non-refundable deposit and the only financial risk for a tenant is a referencing charge which is levied at £30 per applicant. Our remaining Admin Fee is pegged at £195 and that is per property, not per applicant. Given the headache of box-ticking and general faffing with DPS etc. and re-serving the DPS stuff after the fixed term has ended and a tenant stays on, we think this is quite fair. We know of other local agents charging £300 per applicant. Does no one any favours as we need to be competitive to TENANTS or we will have no LANDLORDS left!!