Best Red Team Companies and Service Providers (2026)

The best red team companies are the ones whose operators can reach an agreed objective quietly and then show you, step by step, what your defenders saw and missed. For 2026 that shortlist is Invadel, SpecterOps, TrustedSec, Mandiant, Bishop Fox, Praetorian, CrowdStrike, IBM X-Force Red, NetSPI, Kroll and Black Hills Information Security. They differ less in skill than in shape: covert or collaborative, one operation or a year-long program, a published price or an enterprise quote.

Invadel publishes this list and ranks itself first. Every other firm is described only from its own public pages, checked in November 2026, and no other firm’s prices appear here. Our red teaming services and red team pricing are described with their limits. Still deciding whether you need a red team at all? Read red teaming vs penetration testing and whether you are ready for red teaming first.

Red team companies compared at a glance

Company	Headquarters	Red team model, as described	Purple team stated	Published prices	Best for
Invadel	New York, NY	Covert; full scope or assumed breach	Yes	Yes, from $12,500	A fixed price before the first call
SpecterOps	Not listed	Assumed-breach exercises that train defenders	Yes	No	Identity-heavy estates
TrustedSec	Fairlawn, OH	Six phases, physical entry included	Yes, as a phase	No	Mature programs wanting the full chain
Mandiant	Not listed (part of Google Cloud)	Incident-response-informed, non-destructive	Yes, sold separately	No	Front-line tradecraft
Bishop Fox	Tempe, AZ	Seven formats, including recurring	Yes	No	A menu of formats
Praetorian	Austin, TX	Scenario objectives, two to six weeks	Yes, standalone or follow-on	No	Fraud, OT and executive scenarios
CrowdStrike	Austin, TX	Adversary emulation, or a red/blue exercise where its responders coach yours	Red/blue exercise	No	Live coaching
IBM X-Force Red	Armonk, NY	Adversary simulation, results in a portal	Not stated	No	IBM-standardized enterprises
NetSPI	Minneapolis, MN	Assumed breach, black box, threat-intel-led	Partly	No	Enterprise scale, EU finance
Kroll	New York, NY	Detection and response against set objectives	Yes, within a program	No	Boards, counsel and insurers
Black Hills Information Security	South Dakota	One-year continuous program	Yes, as a phase	No	Pressure all year

“Not stated” means we did not find it on the pages we checked, not that the firm lacks it, so ask.

How we judged red team service providers

Six criteria separate red teaming companies, in the order they change the outcome:

1. Who the operators are. Employees or subcontractors, how experienced, and whether the same people plan, run and debrief. The EU sets a useful benchmark for regulated testing: Delegated Regulation (EU) 2025/1190, Article 7(1), requires that external testers used for threat-led penetration testing field a team led by a manager with at least five years of penetration testing and red team experience, plus at least two more testers with two years each, and that they provide five references and carry professional indemnity insurance. US buyers are not bound by it, but it is a fair bar.
2. Formats and starting positions. Full scope, assumed breach, purple team or a recurring program. One format does not fit every year.
3. Threat-led scenarios. Objectives tied to what your business would lose, with techniques mapped to MITRE ATT&CK so defenders can trace each step to the telemetry that should have caught it. See crafting realistic red team scenarios.
4. Safety and clean-up. Written rules of engagement, an emergency stop, a deconfliction contact, vendor-owned infrastructure torn down at the end, and an inventory of everything left behind. In a CISA red team assessment published in November 2024, initial access came through a web shell left by an earlier third-party assessment. Our explainers on the C2 server and red team tools cover the infrastructure side.
5. What the report measures. Techniques detected, logged but never alerted, and invisible, with time to detect per phase. The same CISA assessment found the organization relied too heavily on host-based endpoint detection and response and did not implement sufficient network-layer protections: a systemic lesson no vulnerability list surfaces.
6. Price and retest. Whether the price is fixed before work starts, and whether proving the fixes costs extra.

The best red team companies in 2026

1. Invadel

Best for: mid-market and growth-stage companies that want a senior red team at a price they can see before the first call.

Our operations are covert and objective-based. Full scope means we earn our way in through phishing, exposed services or leaked credentials; an assumed-breach start begins from a laptop you provide and spends the time on escalation, movement and detection. Prices start at $12,500 for a focused operation, $17,000 for a broader one and $29,000 and up for multi-scenario work. Every tier includes an attack narrative mapped to MITRE ATT&CK, a detection and response timeline, a remediation roadmap, an attestation letter and a free retest of remediated technical findings. Operators are senior in-house employees led by a principal red team operator with more than fourteen years of experience, and onboarding starts within 24 hours of a signed proposal. Read a sample report first.

The honest limitation: we are 14 specialists and we do not do incident response. For simultaneous operations on several continents, red teaming and response from one firm, or a regulator-led test in Europe, look further down.

2. SpecterOps

Best for: identity-heavy estates and teams that want the red team to train their detection engineers.

SpecterOps builds BloodHound, the attack path tool in our BloodHound explainer. Its services include AI red teaming (operations that emulate AI-enabled adversaries against both traditional infrastructure and AI systems), purple team assessments, and attack path assessments across Active Directory, Entra ID, Okta, GitHub and Jamf. Its published view of red teaming starts from an assumed breach, treats the exercise as training for defenders, and recommends a penetration test or purple team first where detection is still being built. Pricing is not published.

3. TrustedSec

Best for: mature programs that want phishing, phone, physical entry and internal expansion in one operation.

TrustedSec, based in Fairlawn, Ohio, runs its red team in six phases: threat modeling, reconnaissance, social engineering and initial access (phishing, voice, SMS and physical), internal expansion, a defensive inclusion phase where it works with your team on detection, and reporting with an executive debrief. It positions the service for mature security programs. Pricing is not published.

4. Mandiant (Google Cloud)

Best for: large enterprises that want tradecraft drawn from front-line incident response.

Mandiant’s Red Team Assessment, now sold through Google Cloud, draws its tactics from Mandiant’s incident response work and uses non-destructive methods toward objectives agreed with you. A December 2025 Google Cloud post describes operators who emulate real threat actors toward business objectives rather than following a script. Mandiant also lists a separate Purple Team Assessment among its technical assurance services: testing and coaching to improve your team’s detection and response against realistic attack scenarios. Pricing is not published.

5. Bishop Fox

Best for: enterprises that want a menu of formats, including recurring red teams.

Bishop Fox, based in Tempe, Arizona, lists seven red team formats: full scope, named threat group emulation, assumed breach, purple team, social engineering, physical, and continuous campaigns that track whether defenses improve. Deliverables include attack graphs and attack timelines. Pricing is not published. See Invadel vs Bishop Fox.

6. Praetorian

Best for: specific objectives such as fraud, OT control or executive mailbox access.

Austin-based Praetorian says its core operators include former NSA and CIA officers. Its red team page lists objectives from financial fraud and VIP mailbox access to ICS and OT control and ransomware simulation, gives a typical duration of two to six weeks, and ends with a technical report and an executive presentation. Praetorian also sells a separate Purple Team engagement, run on its own or as a follow-on that replays a preceding red team’s attack chain with your defenders, and its engineers build detection logic in your existing tools. Pricing is not published.

7. CrowdStrike

Best for: teams that want their responders coached live during the exercise.

CrowdStrike’s Adversary Emulation Exercise is a red team exercise in which the CrowdStrike Services Red Team simulates a targeted attack by a real-world threat actor to test your defenses. Its Red Team / Blue Team Exercise pairs that adversary emulation with training: its consultants attack while CrowdStrike incident responders work beside your staff, on your tools, as the intrusion unfolds. That makes the second a coached exercise rather than a blind test of your SOC (our red team vs blue team explainer covers the terms), which is right for some teams; if the board wants to know whether you would catch an attacker unaided, ask about the Adversary Emulation Exercise instead. Pricing is not published.

8. IBM X-Force Red

Best for: large enterprises that want red team results in the same portal as the rest of their testing.

X-Force Red lists adversary simulation as one of its offensive security lines, aimed at validating detection and response at scale, from advanced adversary tactics to social engineering. Findings sit in its Red Portal and route into ticketing workflows. Pricing is not published.

9. NetSPI

Best for: enterprises and EU-regulated financial firms that need threat-intelligence-led testing at scale.

NetSPI lists three red team operations: assumed-breach scenario-based testing, which it calls a hybrid of pentesting and purple-team-style work, black box testing, and threat-intelligence-led testing supporting DORA and TIBER-EU. NetSPI and Synack completed their merger on October 5, 2026 and say each still delivers its own platform, services and agreements. Pricing is not published. See Invadel vs NetSPI.

10. Kroll

Best for: regulated enterprises where counsel, insurers and the board all approve the vendor.

Kroll, headquartered in New York, describes red teaming as a test of how an organization detects and responds to a simulated threat actor with defined objectives, such as data exfiltration, and as a deeper assessment than a typical penetration test. A Kroll program can combine red team, social engineering, penetration testing and purple team work. Its cyber practice sits inside a financial and risk advisory firm that also offers 24x7 incident response. Pricing is not published.

11. Black Hills Information Security

Best for: teams that want a year-long continuous red team rather than one operation.

Black Hills Information Security, based in South Dakota, sells ANTISOC, a one-year continuous red team program: operators emulate recently disclosed attacks, move from initial access to post-exploitation, run purple team sessions to build detections, and report through tickets in real time, with quarterly debriefs. Pricing is not published.

A note on the Synack Red Team

Synack’s page ranks for this search, but the Synack Red Team is its community of more than 1,500 vetted researchers testing through Synack’s platform: continuous crowd testing, not a covert red team operation. See Invadel vs Synack.

AI red teaming providers: a different service from adversary simulation

“AI red teaming” usually means attacking an AI system itself: prompt injection, jailbreaks, data leakage and unsafe tool use in an LLM application or agent. That is a test of one application, scoped and priced like a penetration test. The red teams above are adversary simulations against a whole organization. Some firms sell both, so say which one you mean when you ask for a quote.

These firms on the list describe an AI testing service on their own sites, checked on November 11, 2026:

Company	What its own page says
Invadel	AI penetration testing and LLM red teaming, mapped to OWASP and MITRE ATLAS, from $4,500
SpecterOps	AI red teaming that replicates how AI-enabled adversaries operate against your environment (services)
CrowdStrike	AI Red Team Services: evaluations of LLM applications against the OWASP Top Ten risks
NetSPI	AI/ML pentesting: LLM testing and jailbreaking
Bishop Fox	AI/LLM security testing, which it says is often called AI red teaming

Note the difference inside that table: SpecterOps describes emulating attackers who use AI, while the others describe testing your AI application. For the rest of the list we did not find a dedicated AI testing page on the pages we checked, so ask. Our own service is AI and LLM red teaming at a fixed price, with a free retest.

Red team companies for financial services

For a financial firm the first question is which rule applies. EU entities designated for threat-led testing need a provider that meets the DORA standards quoted above; NetSPI lists DORA and TIBER-EU support. Most US frameworks ask for penetration tests instead, so a red team is a choice a US bank makes once its testing and monitoring are mature. Our page on penetration testing for banks and credit unions covers the US side.

For a fund the objective is usually trading systems, investor data or a wire. We describe red team testing for hedge funds on its own page.

Which red team provider fits your situation

Your situation	What to buy	Where to start
No penetration test in the last year, or no monitoring	A penetration test first	The best penetration testing companies, or our internal network test from $6,000
SOC and EDR in place, never tested against a quiet attacker	A covert red team, assumed-breach start	Invadel, SpecterOps, Bishop Fox
You want detections fixed, not graded	A purple team	Our purple team assessment (quoted), SpecterOps, Bishop Fox, Praetorian, Mandiant
You want responders coached during the attack	A red/blue exercise	CrowdStrike
You want pressure all year	A continuous red team	Black Hills Information Security, Bishop Fox
EU financial entity designated for threat-led testing	A test built to the DORA standards	NetSPI, or firms with a European practice
The board expects a global brand	An enterprise red team	Mandiant, Kroll, IBM X-Force Red, NetSPI

Questions to ask before you sign

Question	A good answer	A red flag
Who runs the operation, and are they employees?	Named roles, the same people plan, run and debrief	“We assign from our network”
Who owns the command and control infrastructure?	The vendor, dedicated to you, torn down at the end	Shared, or no clear answer
How do we stop it if something goes wrong?	A written emergency stop and deconfliction contact	Nothing in writing
What is left behind when it ends?	An inventory of every implant, account and file, removal confirmed	“Nothing persists,” no inventory
What will the report tell our SOC?	Detected, logged-only and invisible techniques on a timeline	A vulnerability list
Who authorizes testing of assets we do not own?	The vendor checks cloud and SaaS provider policies and gets written third-party consent where it is required	“Everything you use is in scope by default”
What happens after the report?	A retest of fixes included, and the price of a replay of missed techniques stated up front	The retest sold as a new engagement

Our guides on preparing for a red team engagement and getting the most from a red team exercise cover the before and after.

What a red team costs

None of the other companies on this list publishes red team prices on the pages we checked. Ours start at the figures below, from the red team assessment cost guide, and your exact price is fixed in writing before work starts:

Tier	Price	Typical shape
Small	From $12,500	One objective, one or two access vectors, one environment. Assumed-breach starts usually land here.
Medium	From $17,000	Several objectives, multiple vectors including phishing, external and internal phases. Full-scope starts usually land here.
Large	From $29,000	A long multi-scenario operation across a large or multi-site organization, with deep evasion and a purple-team debrief.

Every tier is one operation that can combine external, internal, phishing and adversary simulation, depending on the starting position, and includes the reports, the attestation letter, findings platform access and a free retest of remediated technical findings. Not ready for a full operation? A phishing campaign from $3,600 baselines the human layer, and a ransomware readiness assessment from $6,000 walks the ransomware kill chain from an assumed breach. The cost calculator adds up several.

Frequently asked questions

What does a red team company actually do? It plays a realistic attacker against your people, processes and technology to reach an agreed objective, such as customer data or a privileged identity, while your defenders work as normal. The output is an attack narrative and a measure of what your team detected and how fast.

How much do red team companies charge? Most quote after scoping and do not publish prices. Invadel publishes three starting prices (from $12,500, from $17,000, and from $29,000), and your exact price is fixed in writing after scoping, driven by the number of objectives, the starting position and how much stealth your detection demands, with a free retest of remediated technical findings included.

How long does a red team engagement take? It depends on the starting position and the objectives. Praetorian, for example, states two to six weeks on its red team page, while threat-led tests under DORA must spend at least 12 weeks in active testing alone (Delegated Regulation (EU) 2025/1190, Article 11(5)). Planning before the operation and reporting after it add time, because stealth and realistic pacing are part of what is measured. Continuous programs run all year.

Is red teaming required by any regulation? Not by most US frameworks, which call for penetration tests. Federal systems using NIST SP 800-53 can select control enhancement CA-8(2), red team exercises. In the EU, DORA requires threat-led testing of designated financial entities, and the ECB’s February 2025 TIBER-EU update made purple teaming mandatory in that framework.

Which companies offer AI red teaming? On this list, SpecterOps, CrowdStrike, NetSPI, Bishop Fox and Invadel describe an AI offering on their own sites. Check whether the firm means testing your AI application or emulating attackers who use AI, because the two are different engagements.

What is the difference between a red team company and a penetration testing company? A penetration test looks for as many vulnerabilities as possible in a defined scope. A red team pursues one objective quietly to measure whether your defenders detect and respond. Many firms sell both, and most organizations need the penetration test first.

Do red team companies test physical security? Some do. TrustedSec lists physical breach techniques in its initial access phase, and Bishop Fox lists physical as one of its seven formats. We sell physical penetration testing from $6,800 as its own engagement.

Should our red team provider also do incident response? It is a trade-off. Firms with response practices, such as Mandiant, CrowdStrike and Kroll, bring tradecraft from real breaches. An independent tester grades your detection without selling you the response. Either works if the operators are senior and the report measures detection honestly.

The short version

Pick the shape first: covert operation, purple team, coached exercise or year-long program. Then hold every red team company on your shortlist to the same questions about operators, infrastructure, clean-up and reporting. If a fixed-price operation from a senior in-house team fits, see our red teaming services and red team pricing, then scope your red team and get the number in writing the same day.