Business Expenses You Can Price Before the Quote
Some business expenses arrive with a price tag, and others arrive as a sales call. This section covers the second kind: compliance audits, insurance and business software, where the first number you hear usually comes from the company selling the service.
- Cyber Insurance Cost CalculatorEstimate cyber insurance cost for a small business by employees, industry and coverage limit, and compare premiums with what a claim costs.
- Small Business Health Insurance Cost CalculatorEstimate small business health insurance cost per employee by coverage tier and state, see who pays what, and check the small business tax credit.
Why these business expenses are hard to compare
Published prices in these markets are thin. Many cost guides for audits and software are written by vendors, so their figures tend to sit at the top of the market, and several repeat each other's ranges. Each calculator here says where its numbers come from and where they disagree, so you can tell a range built on independent data from one built on sales material.
Compliance
The audit fee is only part of a first SOC 2 report; readiness work, software and a penetration test are added to it in the first year. See compliance costs.
Insurance
Premiums depend on headcount, industry and limits, and for health coverage on the tier each employee chooses and the state. See business insurance costs.
Software
For ERP, the license is usually the smaller part: implementation services typically cost one to three times the first-year software fee. See ERP pricing.
Planning around business costs that recur
Most of these are annual. An audit report covers 12 months, insurance renews every year and cloud software bills per user every month, so budget the second year at the same time as the first.