Updated for 2026 pricing
SOC 2 Compliance Cost Calculator
SOC 2 is rarely a single invoice. The auditor's fee is usually less than half of what you actually spend. Enter your situation below to get an itemised range covering auditor fees, automation tooling, penetration testing and the internal hours nobody budgets for.
Your situation
Band: 26–100 employees
1 = SOC 2 only. Add HIPAA, ISO 27001, PCI DSS and similar to widen scope.
Type 1 tests design; Type 2 tests operation over time.
Be honest here — it drives the internal-hours line more than anything else.
Vanta, Drata, Secureframe, Sprinto and similar.
Estimated cost
Estimated first-year SOC 2 Type 2 cost
$45,300 – $90,300
26–100 employees · 1 framework in scope · with automation platform
| Cost line | Low | High |
|---|---|---|
| Auditor fees (CPA firm)Covers the observation window plus report issuance. Repeats annually. | $14,000 | $26,000 |
| Compliance automation platformAnnual subscription. Most vendors price per employee band and per framework add-on. | $10,000 | $18,000 |
| Penetration testNot strictly required by the AICPA, but requested by nearly every enterprise buyer reviewing your report. | $6,000 | $14,000 |
| Internal time (readiness + audit support)180–380 hours at a blended $85/hour fully-loaded internal cost. | $15,300 | $32,300 |
| Total estimated first-year cost | $45,300 | $90,300 |
How this estimate is built
Every number above comes from a published model, not a vendor quote. Auditor fees are anchored to 2026 CPA firm pricing for service organisations: roughly $5,000–$25,000 for a Type 1 and $10,000–$60,000 for a Type 2, scaling with headcount, number of trust services criteria in scope, system complexity and the number of frameworks the same firm covers in one fieldwork pass.
Compliance automation platforms are modelled at $8,000–$30,000 per year, which is where most published and user-reported list prices land for startups through mid-market. Multi-framework add-ons push you toward the top of that band. Penetration testing is modelled at $4,000–$30,000 depending on scope and attack surface — see the pen test estimator for a scope-specific figure.
Internal time is the line most teams leave out and then get surprised by. We cost it at a blended $85 per fully-loaded internal hour and estimate 90–640 hours depending on maturity, multiplied by 1.6 when no automation platform is in place because evidence collection becomes manual. If your engineers cost more than that, scale the line accordingly.
Ranges are wide on purpose. A quoted price depends on which firm you use, whether you bundle readiness with the audit, how many trust services criteria beyond Security you include, and how clean your systems inventory is when fieldwork starts. Read the full methodology for sources and the assumptions behind each band.
What actually drives your SOC 2 bill
- Observation window. A three-month Type 2 window costs less in fieldwork than a twelve-month window, but enterprise buyers increasingly expect the longer period.
- Trust services criteria. Security is mandatory. Each of Availability, Confidentiality, Processing Integrity and Privacy adds fieldwork and evidence.
- Systems in scope. One product on one cloud account is cheap. Three acquired products on three clouds is not.
- Readiness state. Failing controls discovered during fieldwork trigger re-testing, which is the most expensive way to find a gap.
Keep estimating
Comparing frameworks or vendors? These pages use the same modelling approach.