If you can only pay to go inside one, make it St Paul's Cathedral. It is £4 cheaper for an adult, it stays open roughly two hours later in the day, and the climb up the dome is part of the standard ticket. Pick Westminster Abbey instead if the monarchy is what brought you: coronations, royal tombs and Poets' Corner are not at St Paul's and never will be.
The two are often treated as interchangeable, because both are enormous, both are Anglican, both charge about £30 and both close to sightseers on Sundays. In practice they are different sorts of visit. One is a national mausoleum you walk through at floor level. The other is a piece of architecture you climb.
The detail on each is in our guides to St Paul's Cathedral and Westminster Abbey. What follows is the comparison, with the money, the hours and the stairs.
What each building is actually for
Westminster Abbey is the church of the monarchy. Every coronation since 1066 has happened there, around 30 kings and queens are buried there, and its south transept holds the graves and memorials of more than a hundred writers. You go to look at who is underneath the floor.
St Paul's is the cathedral of the diocese of London and Sir Christopher Wren's masterwork, rebuilt after the Great Fire of 1666. Nelson and Wellington lie in the crypt, but nobody comes for the tombs. They come for the dome: the view down into the church from inside it, and the view out over London from the top.
That difference decides most arguments about which is better. If a list of names moves you, go to the Abbey. If a building does, go to St Paul's.
Photo: Sanjay ach · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Wikimedia Commons · resized
Price, hours and what a ticket covers
| St Paul's Cathedral | Westminster Abbey | |
|---|---|---|
| Adult | £27 (£29.70 with the optional donation) | £31 |
| Senior 65+ or student | £24 | £28 |
| Child | £10.50 (ages 6-17); under-6s free | £14 (ages 6-17); under-6s free |
| Sightseeing days | Monday to Saturday | Monday to Saturday |
| Usual hours | Doors from 8.30am, last entry about 4pm, sightseeing ends 30 minutes later | 9.30am to 3.30pm weekdays; 9.30am to 3pm Saturday |
| Sundays | The three galleries open 12.30pm to 2pm, to 25 October 2026; adults £13.50 | Worship only, free of charge, and no sightseeing |
| Included | Cathedral floor, crypt, all three Dome Galleries, multimedia guide, free guided tours on the day | Church, Cloisters, Chapter House, Pyx Chamber, multimedia guide |
| High-level extra | Included in the ticket | The Queen's Diamond Jubilee Galleries add £5 for an adult and nothing for under-18s |
| Largest bag allowed | 45 by 30 by 25 cm | 40 by 30 by 20 cm |
| Nearest station | St Paul's on the Central line, roughly 3 minutes away | Westminster, roughly 4 minutes away; St James's Park, roughly 6 |
St Paul's opens a full hour before the Abbey and shuts about an hour later. If your day is already crowded, that extra time is worth more than the £4 price difference. The Abbey has to be a morning; St Paul's can be an afternoon, and we take the Abbey's short day apart hour by hour in when to arrive at Westminster Abbey.
The family arithmetic runs the other way
On single adult tickets St Paul's wins comfortably. On family tickets the answer depends on how many children you have, because the two places count families differently. St Paul's sells one family ticket covering two or three children. The Abbey sells a ticket for one adult and one child at the same price as an adult on their own, which you buy more than once.
| Group | St Paul's | Westminster Abbey | Cheaper |
|---|---|---|---|
| Two adults | £54 | £62 | St Paul's, by £8 |
| Two adults, two children aged 6-17 | £64.50 | £62 (two family tickets) | Abbey, by £2.50 |
| Two adults, three children aged 6-17 | £64.50 | £76 | St Paul's, by £11.50 |
| One adult, two children aged 6-17 | £37.50 | £45 | St Paul's, by £7.50 |
With exactly two children, the Abbey is the cheaper church. Two of the Abbey's one-adult-and-one-child tickets cover a family of four for £62, against £64.50 at St Paul's. Add a third child and the sum flips hard, because the St Paul's family ticket takes three children for the same price while the Abbey charges another £14. Prices are for September 2026 and neither place charges a booking fee.
Disabled visitors and one companion go free at both. Students and over-65s pay a reduced rate at both, and both ask for identification. Children under six are free at each, although neither building is designed for a pushchair in every corner.
528 steps, and what to do if you cannot face them
The climb is the reason most people choose St Paul's, and it is also the reason some people should not. There is no lift to any of the three galleries. Counting up from the floor it is 257 steps to the Whispering Gallery, inside the dome; 376 to the open-air Stone Gallery; and 528 to the small one right at the top, the last stretch on a tight spiral stair. The cathedral's own advice is to stay on the ground floor if you have a heart or breathing condition, if stairs are difficult, or if either heights or tight spaces trouble you. A child may not climb without an adult beside them.
There is no lift to the top of the dome, and no refund if you turn back. Plenty of visitors stop at the Whispering Gallery, which is the famous one, and that is a perfectly good visit. But if stairs are out of the question, a large part of what you are paying £27 for is closed to you.
This is where the Abbey quietly wins for some visitors. Its own high-level space, the Queen's Diamond Jubilee Galleries, occupies a 13th-century gallery some 16 metres up, and a lift takes you there. It costs £5 extra for an adult and nothing for under-18s, it is fully accessible, and it gives you the long view down the length of the church without a single step. For wheelchair users and anyone with tired knees, that changes the comparison completely; our guide to accessible London has the wider picture.
If it is simply the view over London you want rather than the climb, several rooftops cost nothing at all. Our list of the best free viewpoints in London includes one with a clear line to the dome itself.
Hearing the choir at either, for nothing
Both buildings hold free daily services that anybody may attend, and at both the one to aim for is the sung evening service. The published pattern at each is the same: 5pm from Monday to Saturday, and 3pm on Sunday. Neither is ticketed, seating is not reserved, and you go through the same security check as a paying visitor.
Two small differences are worth knowing. At St Paul's the Sunday afternoon continues with a 4.30pm recital after Evensong. At the Abbey, Sunday has a free organ recital in the Nave at 5pm. Both cathedrals publish the week's music in advance, and on some weekdays the 5pm slot is said rather than sung, so it is worth a glance at the schedule before you choose your evening.
A service is not a substitute for a visit. You stay in one place, you cannot photograph anything, and you will not see the chapels or climb anything. What you get instead is the building doing its job, which a ticket does not buy. If that is the part you care about, our round-up of classical music in London lists the other churches with daily choirs, and our list of London for nothing gathers the rest.
Sunday, and the mistake people make
Neither opens for sightseeing on a Sunday. This is the single most common planning error in Westminster, and it ruins more weekend itineraries than the weather does.
St Paul's offers one partial way round it. Through the warmer half of 2026, up to 25 October, it sells a Dome Sundays ticket at £13.50 for an adult, opening the three galleries between 12.30pm and 2pm. It covers the climb only, not the floor or the crypt, and cameras stay in pockets downstairs on a Sunday. It is a genuine option if Sunday is the only day you have. The Abbey has no equivalent.
If your trip lands on a weekend, build the itinerary around it. Our three-day itinerary puts both churches on weekdays for exactly this reason.
Both in one day: the only order that works
You can do both in a day, but only in one direction. Start at the Abbey at 9.30am, because it shuts first. Give it two hours, eat somewhere in Westminster, then move east to St Paul's, which will still be admitting visitors until about 4pm.
The move between them is part of the pleasure. Walk over Westminster Bridge, turn left along the South Bank past the London Eye and the theatres, and cross back over the Millennium Bridge with the dome straight ahead. It takes roughly 45 minutes at a strolling pace and it is the best free walk in central London; our walking guide to the bridges follows the same water. If your legs have had enough, the Tube does it in about fifteen minutes.
Reverse the order and the day collapses. Leave the Abbey until the afternoon and you arrive with an hour left, which is not a visit. If you only have one day in London, pick one of the two and see the other from the outside.
The neighbourhood that comes with the ticket
An Abbey ticket puts you in the middle of official London. The Palace of Westminster is across the road, the Elizabeth Tower is in every photograph, Whitehall runs north to Trafalgar Square, and St James's Park starts at the other end of the block. It is busy every day of the week and there is nowhere cheap to eat.
A St Paul's ticket puts you in the City of London, which behaves differently. Weekday lunchtimes are crowded and pricey; at the weekend the streets empty out, which is why we would give the whole district a Saturday. From the cathedral steps it is a few minutes to the Millennium Bridge, Tate Modern and Shakespeare's Globe, all on the far bank, and about the same distance to Southwark Cathedral, which charges nothing at all.
If you are working through London's paid landmarks and trying to decide which ones earn the money, we run the same comparison for two royal castles in Tower of London or Windsor Castle.
Frequently asked questions
Is St Paul's or Westminster Abbey better value?
St Paul's, for most visitors. An adult pays £27 against £31, the ticket includes the dome climb and free guided tours, and the building is open longer each day. The Abbey charges £5 extra for its high-level galleries, although under-18s go into those free.
Which one should I choose if I only have time for one?
Choose St Paul's unless royal history is your reason for visiting London. Coronations, the Coronation Chair, the royal tombs and Poets' Corner exist only at Westminster Abbey, and no amount of architecture at St Paul's replaces them.
Can you visit St Paul's or Westminster Abbey on a Sunday?
Neither opens for ordinary sightseeing on a Sunday. St Paul's does sell a separate Dome Sundays ticket at £13.50 for an adult, good for the three galleries over a ninety-minute window at lunchtime, running until 25 October 2026. Sunday services at both are free and anyone may attend.
Which is better for children?
St Paul's usually, because climbing 257 steps to whisper at a wall is something children remember. The Abbey is cheaper for a family of exactly four and free for under-18s in its galleries, but it is a quieter, more reverent visit with a lot of reading.
Can I see both in the same day?
Yes, if you start at the Abbey when it opens at 9.30am and move to St Paul's after lunch. The reverse order fails, because the Abbey's doors shut to visitors in the middle of the afternoon while St Paul's carries on for roughly another hour.
Sources
- St Paul's Cathedral - Ticket types and prices (checked September 2026)
- St Paul's Cathedral - Planning your visit (checked September 2026)
- St Paul's Cathedral - Dome Sundays (checked September 2026)
- St Paul's Cathedral - Our service schedule (checked September 2026)
- Westminster Abbey - Opening times and prices (checked September 2026)
- Westminster Abbey - Frequently asked questions (checked September 2026)
- Westminster Abbey - Services and times (checked September 2026)