How Much Does SOC 2 Cost? A Realistic Budget Breakdown

"How much does SOC 2 cost?" is the second most common question after "what is it". The honest answer: there is no single price, because SOC 2 is not a product but an audit whose scope you define yourself. The cost structure, however, is entirely predictable. This article breaks SOC 2 cost into its components, gives realistic ranges for small and mid-sized businesses and explains where you can save and where you should not.

What makes up the cost of SOC 2

The full budget consists of four blocks:

1. CPA audit fee — what the independent auditor who issues the report charges.
2. Readiness — gap analysis, policies, control implementation, evidence collection, audit support.
3. Tooling and technical costs — MFA, password management, vulnerability scanning, monitoring, penetration testing, training.
4. Your team's time — the most frequently underestimated line.

1. The CPA audit fee

Only a licensed CPA firm in the United States can issue a SOC 2 report. The fee depends on report type, number of TSC criteria, company size, infrastructure complexity and the firm's reputation. For small and mid-sized businesses the typical ranges are:

Big Four firms cost several times more, but for most SaaS customers a report from any licensed CPA firm with SOC 2 experience is sufficient. Customers check the content of the report and the auditor's licence, not the logo.

Remember that Type 2 is renewed every year, so it is a recurring expense rather than a one-off. Repeat audits are usually 10–25% cheaper than the first if the scope does not change.

2. Readiness cost

Readiness is the most variable part of the budget because it depends on where you start. A company with tidy access management, change tickets and regular backups needs far less work than a team where "everyone has admin because it is faster".

Readiness cost is driven by:

• Scope: one product or the whole company, a single cloud platform or hybrid infrastructure.
• Number of criteria: Security only, or also Availability, Confidentiality, Privacy.
• Current maturity: existing policies, processes, centralised identity management.
• Headcount: it affects training, background checks and access reviews.
• Engagement model: full turnkey support or advisory with your own team doing the implementation.

BALTUM prices readiness after a short preliminary scoping exercise. That way you do not pay for work you do not need and you avoid surprises mid-project.

3. Tooling and technical costs

Some controls require tools the company may not yet have. A typical list:

• Password management and MFA across all corporate systems.
• Device management (MDM): disk encryption, screen lock, endpoint protection.
• Vulnerability scanning and patch management.
• Centralised logging and incident alerting.
• A security awareness training platform and phishing simulations.
• Penetration testing: not formally mandatory, but expected by most auditors and customers; for an SMB roughly from a few thousand dollars depending on scope.
• Optionally, a compliance automation platform (Vanta, Drata, Secureframe and similar). It simplifies evidence collection but replaces neither the consultant nor the auditor, and it carries its own annual subscription.

Many companies already have much of this stack. In that case the cost is configuration rather than procurement.

4. Your team's time

Even with full external support, your people will need to be involved: the CTO or head of infrastructure to agree the controls, DevOps engineers to configure environments, HR to implement screening and offboarding, management to approve policies. For a small company this usually amounts to several person-weeks spread over a few months. Plan for it so the project does not stall because key people are busy.

Sample budget for a typical SaaS company

Imagine a product on a single cloud platform, a team of 30–60 people, Security + Availability in scope, aiming for Type 1 followed by Type 2 six months later. The first-year picture looks roughly like this:

• Type 1 audit — lower-to-middle part of the $8–20k range.
• Type 2 audit (six months) — lower-to-middle part of the $15–40k range.
• Readiness — depends on scope; quoted individually after scoping.
• Tooling and penetration test — from a few thousand dollars depending on the existing stack.

Subsequent years are cheaper: what remains is the annual Type 2, control maintenance and evidence refresh. Whether you need both reports or can go straight to Type 2 is covered in SOC 2 Type 1 vs Type 2.

How to reduce SOC 2 cost without hurting the outcome

1. Narrow the scope. Include only the systems and products your customers actually care about.
2. Start with the Security criterion. Additional criteria can be added in the next cycle.
3. Do a gap analysis before selecting an auditor. The fewer exceptions the auditor finds, the fewer extra hours they bill.
4. Combine frameworks. If European customers ask about ISO 27001 and US customers about SOC 2, one control set serves both; see the SOC 2 + ISO 27001 package and the comparison SOC 2 vs ISO 27001.
5. Do not buy unnecessary tools. First check what your existing stack already covers.

Where not to cut corners

• Auditor independence. The consultant who prepares the company cannot issue the report; the standard requires it. "All-in-one" offers from a single party should raise a flag.
• Policy quality. Unadapted templates do not survive an auditor interview.
• Observation period. A three-month Type 2 is cheaper, but many customers will not accept it.

What you get for the money

SOC 2 is best viewed as a sales investment. A single closed enterprise contract often pays for the entire first year, and less time spent on security questionnaires frees up the team. You also gain genuinely organised security processes, which reduces incident risk. For the fundamentals see what SOC 2 is.

Want a quote tailored to your company? Fill in the short form describing your product, infrastructure, team size and customer requirements, and we will prepare a readiness scope estimate and indicative timeline. Request a cost estimate.