SOC 2 Audit Cost in 2026: Auditor Fees, Pentest, Tooling and the Full Budget

The SOC 2 audit cost in 2026 is about $7,000 to $25,000 for a Type 1 and $12,000 to $45,000 for a startup or mid-market Type 2, counting only the CPA firm’s fee (BD Emerson). The audit fee is rarely the biggest line. Once readiness work, a compliance platform, a penetration test and your own staff time are added, you have the full SOC 2 compliance cost: published first-year totals run from about $25,000 for a small startup (Drata) to $90,000, the top of BD Emerson’s $30,000 to $90,000 year-one range for most first-time companies, and past $200,000 for a large enterprise (Drata).

Invadel is a penetration testing company, not a CPA firm, so we do not issue SOC 2 reports. We price one line, the SOC 2 penetration test, and we publish it: a web application penetration test starts at $5,200, fixed in writing, with a free retest of remediated findings. All of our prices are on the pricing page.

SOC 2 cost at a glance

The ranges below come from two current guides: Drata’s SOC 2 audit cost guide (March 2026) and BD Emerson’s SOC 2 cost breakdown (July 2026), written by a firm whose attest arm performs SOC 2 examinations. Where the two disagree, both are shown.

Budget line	Who provides it	Published range	Required?
Readiness or gap assessment	A consultant, a platform, or an audit firm’s advisory arm	$5,000 to $25,000 (Drata); $15,000 to $40,000 for full readiness support (BD Emerson)	Optional, common before a first audit
Remediation and new tools	Your team, plus whatever you buy to close gaps	Control implementation up to $30,000 or more; security tool upgrades $5,000 to $50,000+ (Drata)	Depends on your gaps
Compliance automation platform	Vanta, Drata, Secureframe and others	$8,000 to $30,000 a year (BD Emerson); list prices below	Optional
Penetration test	An independent testing firm	$5,000 to $15,000 (Drata); $8,000 to $25,000 (BD Emerson); Invadel from $5,200	Not named as mandatory; expected by most auditors and customers
Type 1 audit	A licensed CPA firm	$7,500 to $15,000 for small to midsize (Drata); $7,000 to $25,000 (BD Emerson)	Yes, if you want a Type 1 report
Type 2 audit	A licensed CPA firm	$12,000 to $45,000 at startup and mid-market scope; $50,000 to $100,000+ for enterprises (BD Emerson)	Yes, for a Type 2 report
Internal staff time	Engineering, IT, HR and leadership	100 to 300 hours, or $10,000 to $40,000 of loaded payroll (BD Emerson)	Always
Year two onward	Most of the above, recurring	$25,000 to $75,000 a year (BD Emerson); $15,000 to $40,000 maintenance (Drata)	Yes, for an annual report
First-year total	All of the above	About $25,000 for a small startup (Drata) to $90,000 at the top of BD Emerson’s first-time range; $200,000+ for a large enterprise (Drata)

The penetration test is the only row we sell; ours is broken down by scope in the web application testing cost guide.

SOC 2 compliance cost: a sample first-year budget for a 30-person SaaS company

SOC 2 compliance cost is the all-in budget, not the audit fee. Here it is for one sample company: 30 people, one product, Security category only, going straight to a short-period Type 2. Every figure is a published range or list price cited on this page. The two columns differ in what is bought and what is done in-house.

Budget line	Lean: no consultant, no platform	Supported: consultant and platform
Gap assessment	Done in-house	$5,000, the low end of Drata’s range
Compliance platform	None	$15,000, Secureframe’s AWS Marketplace list price with one framework
Penetration test	$5,200, Invadel web application Small	$16,000, Invadel web application Medium, API and external network
Type 2 audit	$12,000, the low end of both guides	$20,000, the top of Drata’s small to midsize range
Cash total	$17,200	$56,000 (Drata puts most startups at $25,000 to $50,000)
Staff time	$40,000, the top of BD Emerson’s 100 to 300 hours	$10,000, the low end
First-year total	$57,200	$66,000, both inside BD Emerson’s $30,000 to $90,000 first-time range

The staff-time split is our assumption: without a platform or a consultant, more of the evidence work lands on your own team. On that assumption the two builds finish close to each other, so skipping the platform and the consultant moves cost from invoices to payroll more than it removes it.

SOC 2 audit cost: what the CPA firm charges and what moves the fee

A SOC 2 report is an attestation by a CPA firm under the AICPA’s SOC standards, tested against the 2017 Trust Services Criteria (revised points of focus, 2022). The fee pays for the firm’s hours, and these factors set how many you need:

• Report type. A Type 2 samples evidence across months. Drata puts the premium at about 30 to 50 percent over a Type 1.
• Trust Services Categories. Security is in every SOC 2. Per BD Emerson, adding Availability or Confidentiality typically raises the fee 10 to 25 percent each, and Privacy can add 30 to 50 percent.
• Size of the system. Products, environments, offices and people inside your system description.
• Subservice organizations. Carving out your cloud provider, and relying on its own SOC report, costs less than the inclusive method, where the auditor covers the provider’s controls too.
• Control maturity. Exceptions mean follow-up requests, more samples and more hours.
• Firm size. Vanta’s audit cost guide puts a typical fee at $10,000 to $50,000, and a large enterprise with a Big Four firm in the low six figures and up.
• Contract length. BD Emerson says a two or three year commitment commonly takes 5 to 15 percent off the annual fee.

Check the firm before you compare the price

Only a licensed CPA firm can sign a SOC 2 report. Look each firm up in the AICPA’s Peer Review Public File, which lists firms’ enrollment status in the AICPA Peer Review Program and, for many firms, their latest accepted peer review documents. A quote far below the ranges above, from a firm you cannot find there, is not a cheaper version of the same thing. Our guide to SOC 2 audit firms compares CPA firms.

SOC 2 Type 2 cost: what the observation period adds

A Type 1 reports on the design of your controls as of one date. A Type 2 reports on design and operating effectiveness across a period. There is no required length for that period: a CPA writing for the Cloud Security Alliance notes that periods usually run three to twelve months, and that first-time reports are commonly followed by an annual 12-month report.

	Type 1	Type 2
Audit fee, small to midsize (Drata)	$7,500 to $15,000	$12,000 to $20,000
Audit fee, startup to mid-market (BD Emerson)	$7,000 to $25,000	$12,000 to $45,000
Calendar time	Controls assessed as of one date; fieldwork and reporting typically take 1 to 3 months (Drata)	Three to twelve months of operation, then fieldwork
Platform and evidence work	Until the as-of date	The whole period

Buying a Type 1 first gets a report sooner but means two audits in year one, so if no customer is waiting, many companies go straight to a short-period Type 2. Our comparison of SOC 2 Type 1 vs Type 2 covers that decision.

SOC 2 certification cost: what you are actually buying

What most people mean by SOC 2 certification cost is the cost of a clean SOC 2 report: about $25,000 to $90,000 in year one for a small or mid-sized company (Drata; BD Emerson), of which the CPA firm’s fee is $7,000 to $45,000. There is no SOC 2 certificate. You buy a CPA firm’s report with an opinion, shared under NDA with customers. Anyone selling a SOC 2 “certification” without a CPA firm signing the report is selling readiness work or a badge. If a buyer needs a certificate, that is usually ISO 27001: see ISO 27001 vs SOC 2 and the ISO 27001 certification cost guide. If the request comes from a customer’s financial auditors, check whether they want a SOC 1 instead: SOC 1 vs SOC 2 explains the difference.

Readiness, platforms and staff time

A readiness assessment is a dry run that maps your controls to the criteria and lists the gaps before the auditor does. It is optional, but for a first audit it usually cuts the exceptions that drive auditor hours up.

Compliance automation platforms: the list prices

Vanta, Drata and Secureframe show no prices on their own pricing pages. All three list prices on AWS Marketplace, as of November 2026:

Platform	Listed 12-month price	What the listing says it covers
Vanta Essentials	$14,000	Starting cost for 1 to 20 employees
Vanta Plus	$21,500	Starting cost for 1 to 20 employees
Vanta Professional	$23,000	Starting cost for 1 to 20 employees
Drata platform fee	$25,000	Platform capacity for a 100-employee organization
Drata SOC 2 framework	$7,500	The SOC 2 control set, added to the platform fee
Secureframe platform	$7,500	Platform access for up to 100 employees
Secureframe first framework	$7,500	Any one framework, such as SOC 2

All three listings invite private offers, so treat these as starting points. A platform is optional: it collects evidence and monitors controls, but the opinion still comes from the CPA firm, and a small company can work from the auditor’s request list at the cost of more staff hours. If you use one, its penetration testing control stays red until a report is attached; ours uploads into Vanta, Drata and Secureframe, and our list of SOC 2 penetration testing providers explains the platforms’ partner directories.

Staff time: the line nobody invoices

BD Emerson estimates 100 to 300 hours of internal effort in year one. To price your own, multiply each owner’s hours by their loaded hourly cost: engineering for access reviews, change management and pentest fixes; IT for devices and offboarding; HR for onboarding records and training; leadership for policies and the risk assessment.

The penetration test line: what it costs from us

SOC 2 does not name a penetration test as mandatory. A CC4.1 point of focus in the Trust Services Criteria lists penetration testing, with independent certification and internal audit, among the ongoing and separate evaluations management can use, and in practice most auditors and enterprise customers expect one. Our guide to SOC 2 pentest requirements covers the criteria and the timing. Here is what each component costs from us, fixed in writing before work starts, with the retest included:

Test	What it covers	Security criteria it supports	Invadel fixed price, from
Web application penetration test, Small	The product with one or two roles, plus the API endpoints the application consumes	CC4.1, CC4.2, CC6.1, CC6.3, CC6.7, CC7.1	$5,200
Web application penetration test, Medium	Several roles, an admin panel, integrations and more workflows	CC4.1, CC4.2, CC6.1, CC6.3, CC6.7, CC7.1	$7,800
API penetration test	A public or customer-facing API beyond what the app itself calls	CC4.1, CC4.2, CC6.1, CC6.3, CC6.7, CC7.1	$4,000
External network penetration test	The internet-facing perimeter of the in-scope environment	CC4.1, CC4.2, CC6.6, CC7.1	$4,200
Cloud penetration test	The AWS, Azure or GCP account that hosts the product	CC4.1, CC4.2, CC6.1, CC6.3, CC6.6, CC7.1	$6,800
Validated vulnerability scanning	Scans between annual tests, up to 250 devices	CC7.1	$1,500 per scan

Our SOC 2 controls list explains each mapping, criterion by criterion.

Three typical SOC 2 scopes, priced from those starting points:

Company	Scope	Invadel price, from
Seed-stage SaaS, one app, one or two roles	Web application Small, including the API the app consumes	$5,200
Series A or B SaaS with a public API	Web application Medium, API, external network	$16,000
Multi-role platform on its own cloud account	Web application Medium, API, external network, cloud, plus optional quarterly scans as CC7.1 evidence	$22,800, plus $6,000 a year if you add quarterly scans (four at $1,500)

The penetration testing cost calculator adds up published starting prices with no bundle discount; bundled engagements are priced more favorably once scoped. Every test includes an executive summary, a technical report mapped to the criteria, a customer-shareable attestation letter and the free retest; the sample report shows the format. Senior in-house testers do the work, never subcontractors, and onboarding starts within 24 hours of a signed proposal. For your own fixed price, send your system description through the scoping questionnaire.

What a cheap SOC 2 pentest costs you later

• A scan sold as a test. Scans are good CC7.1 evidence but cannot show that access controls hold; see penetration testing vs vulnerability scanning.
• No retest. The auditor wants findings closed, not just listed. A retest bought later is a second invoice.
• Scope that misses the system description. A tested marketing site and an untested product give the auditor nothing.
• A test dated outside the window. For a Type 2, that can mean buying a second test.
• No attestation letter. You either share the full findings with every prospect or share nothing.

Vanta’s guide advises asking whether readiness, any penetration test and remediation sit inside the auditor’s number. They usually do not. The SOC 2 penetration testing evidence checklist lists what the auditor will ask for.

Year two and beyond: what SOC 2 costs every year

SOC 2 reports have no formal expiry date, but customers ask for one covering a recent period, so the work repeats. BD Emerson puts the ongoing program at $25,000 to $75,000 a year; Drata’s maintenance figure, covering re-audit fees and platform subscriptions, is $15,000 to $40,000. Readiness drops away and remediation shrinks to new gaps, while the platform, a 12-month Type 2 and the annual pentest recur; with us, the same in-house team tests your environment again each year. If approved, the AICPA’s October 2026 exposure drafts of revised criteria would apply to engagements beginning on or after December 31, 2027 (earlier only if you adopt early), so they change no 2026 budget; our SOC 2 controls list covers the proposed AI points of focus.

How to lower SOC 2 cost without weakening the report

1. Start with Security only. Add other categories when a customer contract asks for them.
2. Draw the system boundary tightly. It sets what the auditor examines and what the pentest covers.
3. Use the carve-out method for subservice organizations. Rely on your cloud and SaaS providers’ own SOC 2 reports and map the complementary user entity controls they assign to you, rather than asking the auditor to test their controls.
4. Ask auditors for a fixed fee across two or three years. It is a common discount and fixes next year’s budget.
5. Buy one penetration test for several reports. Scoped and reported for each, it can serve SOC 2, ISO 27001 and customer questionnaires.
6. Time the test so the retest lands inside the window. One test, fixed and verified, instead of two.
7. Compare pentest quotes that count the same scope. The pricing page lists six things to check.

If you also take card payments, the same component-by-component approach for PCI is in our PCI compliance cost guide and PCI penetration testing cost breakdown. For health data, see the HIPAA compliance cost guide.

Frequently asked questions

How much does a SOC 2 audit cost for a startup? Drata puts a small company’s audit fee at $7,500 to $15,000 for a Type 1 and $12,000 to $20,000 for a Type 2, and a startup’s all-in first year at $25,000 to $50,000. For the test line, see startup penetration testing.

How much does a SOC 2 Type 2 cost? The audit fee alone runs $12,000 to $45,000 at startup and mid-market scope and $50,000 to $100,000 or more for enterprises, per BD Emerson. Add the platform, a penetration test dated inside the period, and staff time.

Is the penetration test included in the SOC 2 audit fee? Usually not, so ask each audit firm. Ours is a separate fixed price, from $5,200 for a web application, with the retest and attestation letter included.

Do we need Vanta or Drata to get a SOC 2 report? No. A platform makes evidence collection easier, but the auditor accepts evidence in any organized form. AWS Marketplace lists Vanta Essentials from $14,000 a year, Drata at $25,000 plus $7,500 for the SOC 2 framework, and Secureframe at $7,500 plus $7,500 for a first framework.

Is there a SOC 2 certification fee? No. SOC 2 is an attestation report from a CPA firm, not a certificate. If a buyer needs a certificate, they are usually asking for ISO 27001. The closest thing to a certification cost is the first-year budget, about $25,000 to $90,000 for a small or mid-sized company.

Is a SOC 2 audit required by law? No. No US law requires SOC 2. Enterprise customers require it in vendor reviews and contracts, which is why the cost recurs every year.

How much does SOC 2 compliance cost per year after the first report? BD Emerson puts the ongoing program at $25,000 to $75,000 a year, and Drata’s maintenance figure is $15,000 to $40,000. Readiness drops away; the Type 2 audit, the platform and the annual penetration test recur.

Can one penetration test cover both SOC 2 and ISO 27001? Yes, if the scope covers both the SOC 2 system description and the ISO 27001 ISMS boundary and the report is written for each. That is one test and one retest instead of two.

The short version

Published estimates put a first SOC 2 at roughly $25,000 (Drata) to $90,000 (BD Emerson) in year one for a small or mid-sized company, and the CPA firm’s fee is only one line of it. Check the auditor in the AICPA peer review file, start with Security only, and keep the system boundary tight. The penetration test is the line we price, fixed in writing: from $5,200 for the web application, with the free retest your auditor wants to see. See the SOC 2 penetration testing scope and published prices, or scope your SOC 2 test for a fixed number the same day.