SOC 2 Compliance Cost Calculator
Most of a first-year SOC 2 budget is not the audit. Specialist firms list Type 2 audit fees of $15,500 to $50,000, though a small team with its controls already in place is often quoted $7,000 to $15,000. Preparation, software and testing can add as much again. Total first-year SOC 2 compliance cost for a Type 2 report usually lands between $30,000 and $80,000, and can reach $150,000 for larger companies.
SOC 2 compliance cost, line by line
| Item | Typical range |
|---|---|
| Audit fee, Type 2 | $12,000 to $45,000; smaller companies $12,000 to $20,000 |
| Readiness assessment | $4,000 to $25,000 |
| Compliance automation software, per year | $8,000 to $30,000 |
| Penetration test | $5,000 to $20,000 |
| Consultant or vCISO | $10,000 to $30,000 |
| Policy writing | $5,000 to $15,000 |
| Device management (MDM) | $5,000 to $10,000 |
| Security awareness training | $2,000 to $5,000 |
The first four lines are switched on in the calculator because nearly every company pays for them. Consultants, policy writing and tooling depend on what you already have in place.
One cost never shows up on an invoice: your own team’s time. Expect 100 to 300 hours in the first year, worth roughly $10,000 to $40,000, and some estimates put the opportunity cost as high as $90,000. We leave it out of the total, but it is real money.
A word on the data. Almost every published SOC 2 price comes from a company selling compliance software, audits or consulting, so read these numbers as the upper half of the market. Several of those price lists also repeat each other’s ranges word for word, so the true spread of independent data is narrower than it looks.
Choosing among SOC 2 audit firms
The firm you hire moves the soc 2 audit cost more than anything else. Typical Type 2 audit fees by firm type:
| Audit firm | Type 2 audit fee |
|---|---|
| Lower-cost specialist, small team | $7,000 to $15,000 |
| Specialist SOC 2 firm | $15,500 to $50,000 |
| Full-service CPA firm | $30,000 to $80,000 |
| Big Four | $65,000 to $200,000 |
Those firm-type ranges are listed fees, not quotes. In one directory’s quote data for mid-2026, companies with up to 50 employees received a median Type 2 quote near $9,000, rising to about $12,000 at 51 to 200 employees and $23,500 at 201 to 500. A single example tells the same story: one report could cost $15,000 from a boutique firm, $35,000 from a mid-tier firm and $90,000 from a Big Four firm. Estimates for the Big Four vary widely, from $50,000 and up to at least $150,000.
Vendors often call this fee the SOC 2 certification cost, though what you receive is an audit report rather than a certificate.
SOC 2 Type 1 or Type 2: paying for time
A Type 1 report checks that your controls are designed properly on a single date. A SOC 2 Type 2 report tests whether they actually worked over an observation window of 3 to 12 months.
That window is what you pay for. A Type 2 audit typically costs 30% to 50% more than a Type 1, a ratio of about 1.56 to 1 in the fee data, which is why the calculator charges 64% of the Type 2 fee when you pick Type 1. For smaller companies, a Type 1 audit runs $7,500 to $15,000.
Timelines follow the same pattern: one to three months for Type 1, and up to three to six months end to end, against six to twelve months for Type 2.
Neither report lasts forever. A report covers 12 months, so the audit comes back every year.
How many trust services criteria to include
The AICPA’s trust services criteria cover five categories: security, availability, processing integrity, confidentiality and privacy. In practice Security is treated as required and the other four as optional, and each one you add makes the audit bigger.
| Criteria in scope | Effect on audit fee |
|---|---|
| Security only | baseline |
| Security plus one | about 15% more |
| Security plus two | about 30% more |
| All five | about 60% more |
Estimates per criterion are close: availability or confidentiality add 10% to 25% each, and privacy adds 30% to 50%, making it the expensive add-on. Only add criteria that your customers actually ask about.
The bill in year two
Some first-year costs, like the readiness assessment, do not come back. The audit, the software and usually the penetration test do. Ongoing annual cost typically runs $15,000 to $40,000, and estimates range from $10,000 up to $75,000.
Signing a multi-year agreement with your auditor can help, with discounts of 5% to 30% reported. Software vendors claim automation cuts costs by 25% to 50%, but they are the ones selling it.