How Much Does A SOC2 Audit Cost In 2024?
Published on: January 27, 2024
Nivedita James Palatty
8 mins read
Today’s cybersecurity landscape comes with risks such as improper implementation of security and control measures. This can critically affect your company’s revenue and result in disastrous data breaches, theft, or manipulation.
SOC2 or Systems and Organization Control 2 is a security framework by AICPA that assesses your organization’s security posture. Thinking about getting a SOC2 audit but worried about the expense? Well, this article will give you a rundown of the SOC2 audit cost, and factors that affect the pricing and mention some tools to help you along your compliance journey!
How Much Does A SOC2 Audit Cost?
A SOC2 audit costs range from $5000 to $100,000 which varies based on company size, audit scope, and the security tools used. SOC2 Type 1 audit costs range from $5000 – $20,000 while SOC2 Type 2 audit costs around $100,000.
What Factors Affect The Cost Of SOC2 Audits?
1. Your Company Size
The size of your company is an important indicator of the complex systems used. Auditing these complex systems will have a huge impact on the pricing you can expect for your SOC2 preparation and SOC2 audit. Simply put, the cost of SOC2 compliance increases with your company’s size.
2. Type of Audit Chosen
The type of audit chosen is the second factor that influences the SOC2 audit pricing i.e. is it SOC2 Type 1 or SOC2 Type 2? SOC2 Type 1 audits are a snapshot of your company’s security posture at a moment in time. It is less resource-intensive and expensive. SOC2 Type 2 audits assess a company’s controls over a while over 3-12 months.
3. Scope of Your Audit
The cost of SOC2 audit for your company increases based on the number of trust services criteria opted within the scope. SOC2 compliance requirements are categorized into 5 TSCs which are security, availability, processing integrity, confidentiality, and privacy. Audit costs also increase if you have numerous customer applications added to the scope.
4. Cost of Security Tools Used for SOC2 Preparation
If you’re about to undergo a SOC2 audit, you will require the aid of a few tools and services. This includes antivirus software, password managers, data encryption software, vulnerability scanners, and vulnerability management tools.
5. Cost Of Penetration Testing
When facing a SOC2 audit, it is vital to carry out penetration tests to identify any security gaps or vulnerabilities in your company’s security posture. A thorough manual penetration test from an expert pentesting company such as Astra Security starts at $ 5,999 per year.
6. Cost of SOC2 Auditor Chosen
The auditor you choose will also cause a variation in your SOC2 audit pricing since most SOC2 auditors offer competitive pricing. Services include the SOC2 audit and assessing your company’s controls and their functioning.
SOC2 Audit Cost Based on Type
What is SOC2 Type 1 Audit Cost?
A SOC2 Type 1 audit cost starts from $5000 for SMBs or 3 TSCs (Trust Services Criteria) and can reach $20,000 for enterprises or having more than 3 TSCs in the scope. SOC2 Type 1 audits are a moment-in-time analysis of your company’s controls. The focus of SOC 2 Type 1 audit is the proper designing of controls.
What is SOC 2 Type 2 Audit Cost?
SOC 2 Type 2 audit cost starts from $12,000 and can range to $100,000 based on the number of TSCs chosen, period, and complexity of the company systems. Type 2 audits are more concerned with how well the implemented controls within your company function over some time.
Why Do Prices Vary for SOC Type 1 vs Type 2 Audits?
Reason 1: Variation in Depth of SOC2 Audit
One major reason for the variation between SOC Type 1 and Type 2 audits comes from the coverage of the audit itself. SOC Type 1 covers just the designing of controls. Whereas SOC2 Type 2 audits cover the assessment and evaluation of the effectiveness of controls in operation and the suitability of the controls design.
Reason 2: Competitive SOC2 Compliance Auditor Pricing
Typically the pricing for SOC2 compliance services offered vary based on the size of the company and the complexity of its systems. Based on the fee quoted by auditors will also vary despite discounts. Here, it is important to keep in mind that the cheapest might not always be the best option, look for the auditor’s credibility and experience too.
What Are Additional SOC2 Compliance Costs To Be Aware Of?
1. Employee Training
Employee training is key to SOC2 compliance since it ensures that all employees have a security-first attitude to their daily operations. Employee training can be conducted annually or bi-annually by your company’s in-house security team or by third-party companies. These programs cost money and time needs to be allocated for employees for the training completion as well.
2. Company’s Time & Productivity
Companies often fail to assess the lack of time & productivity to work on other projects during an audit. Avoid this yourself by accounting for any sudden expenditures and keeping a budget for miscellaneous, but necessary expenses. It is hard to know when or how such costs will occur, but being prepared is key to not falling behind in your business operations.
3. Compliance Automation Tools
Compliance automated tools can help with evidence collection, documentation, and continuous monitoring. Therefore choosing the right compliance automation tool will determine the ease with which you can obtain your SOC2 compliance. It helps streamline your SOC2 audit process and can save cost and time.
4. Remediation
The gaps and vulnerabilities found during vulnerability scans, penetration tests, and continuous asset monitoring will require remediation. Even with an in-house DevOps team, costs will be incurred to fix these issues. Similarly hiring external aid will also come at a cost adding to the whole expense of SOC2 compliance.
Tools That Can Help Your SOC2 Compliance Journey
We’ve listed down a few of the best SOC2 compliance tools that can aid your SOC2 compliance journey.
1. Astra Security For SOC2 Penetration Tests
Astra Security is a comprehensive cybersecurity solution that provides penetration tests and vulnerability assessments. It also offers compliance scans mainly for SOC2, HIPAA, PCI-DSS, and GDPR.
SOC2 recommends penetration testing to detect any security gaps or vulnerabilities in your company’s posture. This is where Astra Security can help. Astra offers an ever-evolving vulnerability scanner with 8000+ test cases to detect vulnerabilities within your organization’s assets.
Astra’s expert pentester leverages AI-generated test cases to customize scenarios specific to your organization’s functions to detect business logic vulnerabilities, payment gateway manipulations, and other critical vulnerabilities. Astra Security’s penetration testing pricing starts at $5,999 per year offering the above-mentioned amenities and more.
2. Sprinto For SOC 2 Compliance Automation
Sprinto is a compliance automation platform that streamlines your SOC2 compliance process. The tool does this through meticulous evidence collection, documentation, reporting, and continuous monitoring. All these services together aid in covering your company’s assets thoroughly for its SOC2 audit.
Sprinto helps cloud-hosted companies to become audit-ready in a fast, error-free, and well-organized way. The SOC2 compliance tool automates controls and policies, reducing audit-ready time from months to weeks.
Sprinto offers 20+ editable security policy templates for easy adoption. Sprinto’s dashboard allows easy access to information and flags compliance lapses and vulnerabilities through continuous monitoring. Sprinto’s compliance automation bundle pricing starts at $4,900 per year.
Conclusion
SOC2 compliance showcases your company’s security-first nature to all existing and potential customers. The rigorous nature of SOC2 compliance and audit reaps its rewards in terms of ROI, customer satisfaction, and for your company, enhanced reliable cybersecurity.
The cost of a SOC 2 audit is likely to vary on various fronts such as type of audit, scope, and other factors mentioned throughout the article. Keep these major factors in mind when allocating a budget for your SOC2 audit for a seamless journey to achieving your compliance objectives.
Tools like Astra Security and Sprinto can help you achieve your SOC2 compliance requirements through thorough penetration tests, vulnerability scans, continuous asset monitoring, and evidence collection. Get SOC2 compliance ready today!
FAQs
Can negotiation or customization affect SOC 2 audit pricing?
Negotiation and customizing audit scopes or focusing on specific controls can influence SOC 2 audit costs. However, altering the scope can impact the audit’s thoroughness and effectiveness.
Do companies need third-party firms for SOC 2 audits?
While some aspects of SOC 2 compliance can be handled internally, engaging external auditors or specialized firms is common for automation of compliance steps such as evidence collection, documentation, and others. External SOC 2 compliance firms bring expertise, ensuring a comprehensive assessment.
What are the different types of SOC 2 reports, and do they affect audit costs?
SOC2 Type 1 and SOC2 Type 2 reports are the different SOC2 compliance reports that can be obtained. Type I and Type II SOC2 reports differ in scope and duration. Type II audits cover a longer period and usually incur higher costs due to increased assessment duration.
Nivedita James Palatty
