What SOC 2 really costs a startup
A first SOC 2 typically costs a startup $15,000 to $50,000 in year one. The audit fee alone is roughly $7,000–$20,000 for a Type 1 and $12,000–$40,000 for a Type 2; the rest is readiness tooling, an optional penetration test, and gaps in your security stack.
The largest cost is not on any invoice: 100 to 300 hours of founder and engineering time. The audit fee recurs every year.
Published pricing for SOC 2 barely exists, because most of the cost sits with an audit firm that quotes per engagement. The ranges below are what a 5–50 person B2B SaaS company should plan for. Treat them as planning figures for budgeting, not quotes — scope, region and how prepared you are move them substantially.
The line items
| What | Typical range | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Audit fee (Type 1) | $7,000 – $20,000 | The CPA firm's fee. Varies with scope, number of criteria and how organised you are. |
| Audit fee (Type 2) | $12,000 – $40,000 | Higher than Type 1 because the auditor samples across a whole observation period. |
| Readiness tooling | $0 – $30,000 / year | The widest range on this list. Enterprise compliance platforms sit at the top; focused tools for small teams sit near the bottom. |
| Penetration test | $4,000 – $15,000 | Not strictly required by SOC 2. Usually bought because customers ask for it in security questionnaires. |
| Security tooling gaps | $0 – $10,000 / year | MDM, a password manager, vulnerability scanning, log retention — whatever you do not already have. |
| Background checks | $30 – $100 per person | One-off per hire, not per audit. |
| Your own team's time | The largest line, and unbilled | Typically 100–300 hours for a first audit, concentrated on one or two people. |
Why the same audit costs one company $8k and another $35k
Four things move the number, and you control three of them.
1. Type 1 or Type 2
A Type 1 tests design at a point in time. A Type 2 tests operation across a period, which means sampling — more auditor hours, a bigger fee. Which one you need is usually decided by the customer who asked.
2. How many Trust Services Criteria are in scope
Security is mandatory and is the whole report for most startups. Adding Availability, Confidentiality, Processing Integrity or Privacy widens the testing and the fee. Add a category only when a customer contract actually names it.
3. How complex your environment is
One cloud account, one production database and twelve employees is a cheap audit. Three clouds, an on-premise box someone still SSHes into, and contractors in four countries is not.
4. How prepared you are when fieldwork starts
This is the one that quietly doubles the bill. Auditors charge for their time. Every round of "can you send that again, with a date on it" is billable, and a disorganised evidence handover can add weeks. Turning up with a complete, dated, labelled evidence pack is the single biggest discount available to you.
The cost nobody budgets for
The audit fee is the visible number. The real cost of a first SOC 2 is a founder or senior engineer losing a meaningful part of a quarter to it — commonly 100 to 300 hours, and rarely spread evenly. That time goes to chasing screenshots, writing ten policies from scratch, tracking down who still has production access, and translating criteria into decisions.
At a loaded engineering cost of $60–$100 an hour, 200 hours is $12,000 to $20,000 of real money that appears in no invoice. This is why readiness tooling can pay for itself even at the top of its range: it is competing with the internal hours, not with the audit fee.
A realistic first-year budget
For a 15-person B2B SaaS company doing Security-only, going straight to Type 2:
- Lean: roughly $15,000–$25,000 all in — a smaller audit firm, a focused readiness tool, no pen test, and a founder who does the work.
- Typical: roughly $30,000–$50,000 — mid-market audit firm, a compliance platform, a pen test because a customer asked.
- Heavy: $60,000+ — a big-name audit firm for logo value, an enterprise platform, a vCISO engagement, multiple criteria in scope.
Year two is cheaper on tooling and time but the audit fee recurs. SOC 2 is an annual commitment, not a purchase — the report has no formal expiry, but customers stop accepting one older than twelve months.
Where the money is actually saved
- Scope down. Security only, unless a signed contract says otherwise. Every extra criterion is permanent recurring cost.
- Get quotes from three firms. The spread between audit firms for identical scope is genuinely large, and small firms are not worse — the report is signed by a licensed CPA firm either way.
- Do a Type 1 first only if a deal needs it now. Otherwise go straight to Type 2 and skip a fee.
- Arrive organised. Dated, labelled evidence mapped to requirements is what keeps fieldwork short. This is the whole argument for preparing properly rather than improvising.
- Do not buy an enterprise platform for a fifteen-person company. Much of what it prices for — multiple frameworks, an auditor portal, SSO, dedicated CSM — is not what is standing between you and a report.
What you are actually buying
Worth saying plainly: SOC 2 does not make you secure. It produces an independent report that lets an enterprise buyer's procurement team tick a box, which unblocks deals that are otherwise unclosable. That is a commercial purchase, and it should be justified by the pipeline it unlocks. If nobody has asked you for it yet, the honest answer is usually to wait until somebody does.
Questions people ask
How much does SOC 2 cost for a startup?
Plan for $15,000 to $50,000 in the first year for a 5-50 person B2B SaaS company with Security-only scope. That typically breaks down as $7,000-$20,000 for a Type 1 audit fee or $12,000-$40,000 for Type 2, plus readiness tooling, an optional penetration test at $4,000-$15,000, and 100-300 hours of internal time that appears on no invoice.
Is SOC 2 a one-time cost?
No. The audit fee recurs annually. A SOC 2 report has no formal expiry date, but customers generally stop accepting one older than twelve months, so the examination is repeated each year. Tooling and internal time usually fall substantially after the first cycle.
Why is a SOC 2 Type 2 audit more expensive than Type 1?
A Type 1 tests whether controls are designed appropriately at a single point in time. A Type 2 tests whether they operated effectively across an observation period, which requires the auditor to sample evidence throughout that period. More testing hours means a higher fee.
Can I get SOC 2 without a compliance platform?
Yes. Nothing in SOC 2 requires software. Teams do it with a spreadsheet, a shared drive and discipline. Tooling is competing against your own hours rather than against the audit fee, so the question is whether 100-300 hours of founder or engineering time is worth more than the subscription.
Does SOC 2 require a penetration test?
No. SOC 2 expects a vulnerability management process, and most auditors accept automated scanning plus evidence that findings were remediated. Penetration tests are usually bought because customers ask for one in security questionnaires, not because the framework demands it.
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