SOC 2 Cost Calculator

What drives the cost of SOC 2

Five things move your first-year cost the most, and they are the five questions above.

• Team size. The estimate uses three bands: 1 to 25 people, 26 to 150, and larger teams. A bigger team means a bigger audit and more security tools to buy if you do not have them yet.
• Security maturity. If some security controls are already in place, the audit fee and the security tools you still need come down. Starting from nothing raises both, and the traditional route adds a consultant.
• Written policies. Having them already lowers the audit fee. Without them, the traditional route adds a consultant to write them.
• Where you run. More than one cloud, or a mix of cloud and your own servers, adds 15% to the audit fee and 15% to a traditional penetration test quote.
• Your deadline. Needing the report fast adds 15% to the audit fee and 10% to traditional penetration test and tabletop exercise quotes.

What the estimate includes

Every result is a first-year estimate for a Security-only SOC 2 Type 2 report, split into three lines:

• Audit fee: what the CPA firm charges for the examination itself.
• Consultant: outside help to design your security program. SimpleAudit's guided setup replaces it, so with SimpleAudit that figure is $0. It shows only when you have no security program or no written policies.
• Platform and testing: the compliance platform plus a penetration test and tabletop exercises. With SimpleAudit that is Starter at $480 or Essentials at $2,388 a year, a $99 agentic pen test, and tabletop exercises you run yourself in Pro. The traditional route prices an enterprise GRC platform and agency-run testing.

Each line shows two figures. The first is with SimpleAudit: a peer-reviewed boutique CPA firm, a 3-month observation period, an agentic penetration test and the platform. The second is what the traditional route runs for the same line. Totals are rounded to the nearest $1,000.

What it leaves out

• Team time, meaning your own team's hours. You spend them on either route, so they are not priced.
• The security tools you may already have, such as single sign-on, device management and logging. If you need to buy them, they run about $3,600–$12,000 for a team of 1 to 25 starting from nothing. They cost the same on either route, so they are not in the total.
• Later years. The estimate covers your first year only; renewals are not priced.
• Trust criteria beyond Security, such as Availability or Confidentiality. Adding them changes the audit scope and its price.
• A Type 1 report. The estimate prices a Type 2 report.

How to use the calculator

Answer the five questions with your best guess; you can go back and change any answer. When the result appears, compare the two figures on each line to see where the money goes. Use “Share my result” to send the link to whoever signs off on the budget, and it opens the same estimate. Then change one answer at a time, such as your deadline, to see which one moves your total the most.