How much does SOC 2 cost in 2026?

There is a lower cost route, and it does not produce a weaker report. You do the preparation yourself on software built for small teams, and you pay for the examination when you are ready for it. This page prices both routes line by line so you can choose. If the auditor half is the part you care about, what a SOC 2 auditor charges covers it on its own.

Route one: a platform, then an auditor

This is the path the large platforms sell. You sign a yearly software contract. A CPA firm is then engaged for the audit. Each has its own invoice, its own negotiation and its own renewal date, and neither number appears on a price page. For a two person startup that is a lot of procurement before a single control is fixed.

The software contract

The subscription is where the sales process lives. We opened each vendor’s pricing page and read it on the date shown. Not one prints a figure:

• Vanta lists four plans on its pricing page and no dollar figure. The call to action is to request personalized pricing. Source, checked 2026-07-30.
• Secureframe lists three plans on its pricing page and no dollar figure. Each one links to a quote request. Source, checked 2026-07-30.
• Drata has no public pricing page. The URL serves the homepage, where the calls to action are to contact sales or book a demo. Source, checked 2026-07-30.
• Suralink publishes no price, stating that every company and team has different needs and inviting prospects to reach out. Source, checked 2026-07-30.

That is why the Vendr medians at the top matter. They come from real purchases rather than list prices. Your own quote may land above or below them. Seats, frameworks and how hard you negotiate all move it.

The audit fee on top

The examination is priced by the firm, one engagement at a time. Here is what vendors and one CPA firm publish about that second bill:

• Drata estimates a SOC 2 Type 1 audit at $7,500 to $15,000 and a Type 2 at $12,000 to $20,000, and puts a small startup first-year total at $25,000 or more. Source, checked 2026-07-30.
• Vanta states that the fees for a SOC 2 audit range between $10K and $50K. Source, checked 2026-07-30.
• Linford and Company, a CPA firm performing SOC 2 examinations, puts the range at $20,000 to $150,000 with a median around $30,000. Source, checked 2026-07-30.
• LowerPlane publishes $4,995 a year for its platform and states that auditor fees are separate, paid directly to an auditor it introduces, at a rate it puts at $8,000 to $15,000 for SOC 2. Source, checked 2026-07-30.

Read the shape of each figure, not only the size. Some are an audit fee alone. One is a full first year. LowerPlane is one of the few platforms that prints its own price, and even there the auditor is paid on a separate invoice.

A consultant, if you hire one

Some teams add a consultant or a fractional CISO to write policies and prepare evidence. That is a third bill:

• Comp AI states that a vCISO or compliance consultant might charge $150 to $400 an hour, which can total $20,000 to $50,000 for a full SOC 2 prep engagement. Source, checked 2026-07-30.

It buys the hours of someone who knows the criteria. It does not buy the report. The auditor still comes after, and still sends an invoice.

What SOC 2 Type 1 cost depends on

A Type 1 is the smaller of the two reports. The auditor checks that your controls are designed properly as of one date. Nothing is sampled across months, and sampling is where Type 2 hours go. Fewer hours, smaller fee. In Drata’s published estimate above, the Type 1 range sits below the Type 2 range for exactly that reason.

Three things move a Type 1 fee more than headcount does. None of them is how good your security already is.

• Scope. Security is the only required criterion. Availability, Confidentiality, Processing Integrity and Privacy are optional,³ and each one you add is more testing to pay for.
• Evidence state. Evidence that is dated, named and mapped to a control tests in minutes. A folder of loose screenshots takes hours.
• Response speed. Every request the auditor has to send twice is time on the clock.

A team under twenty people, with one product and one cloud, can keep all three small. Our guide to what Type 1 requires of a small SaaS goes through the scoping choices one at a time.

Route two: do it yourself on cybersoftware

The other route puts the preparation in your hands. You answer the questionnaire, close the gaps, connect your tools and collect evidence on a full compliance platform. The work is the same work. The difference is the price, and the fact that it is printed:

The assessment costs nothing and takes about 15 minutes. It shows your score and every gap before you pay for anything. For the low-cost route end to end, see affordable SOC 2 compliance software.

Audits go through our preferred pricing program, and we negotiate the fee on your behalf. That covers every audit, Type 1 and Type 2. The software does most of the work, so the auditor only has to verify evidence that arrives prepared. We negotiate the fee on your behalf. Audits unlock after four paid months on monthly, or right away on yearly. The price is shown in your account before you book, so nothing lands on you later.

Your first year on each route

On route two, year one is the software a month or a year, plus the audit when you are ready for it. The software has a printed total:

Paying monthly for the same twelve months comes to $2,388, and you can cancel any time. The audit is priced through our preferred pricing program and shown in your account before you book. Route one has no matching total, because neither of its halves is published. The SOC 2 cost calculator runs the arithmetic for your plan and shows every line.

Why the lower price holds up

A careful reader stops here. If an audit through our program costs less than the published fees above, something must be missing. People who do this work make that case in public, and it is worth reading in their words:

• One published practitioner breakdown puts a Security-only Type 2 at 60 to 80 auditor hours, at partner rates of $250 to $350 per hour and staff rates of $100 to $175, giving a stated floor near $9,000. Source, checked 2026-07-30.
• Linford and Company warns buyers to be careful when a compliance tool has a partner audit firm with a set fee far below other bids, citing a case where one firm issued the same form report to every client with only the names changed. Source, checked 2026-07-30.

Both points deserve a straight answer. The hour count above describes a Type 2, which tests a period. A Type 1 tests design at a single date, so it starts with fewer hours. On a small engagement a large share of the rest can go to chasing evidence: a request, the wrong screenshot, a second request, a week of silence. Evidence that arrives mapped and dated cuts those round trips, and the hours billed fall with them.

The second point is the real risk. A report copied from a template with the names changed is worthless to your buyer at any price. So check the firm yourself. Ask for its name before you sign the engagement letter, then look it up in the state board register.⁴ Is a low-priced SOC 2 audit legitimate? has the full checklist.

What you can skip, and what you cannot

Keeping SOC 2 affordable is mostly about cutting spend that does not change the report. For a small team, four costs are optional. Each one can be added later if a buyer asks.

• A paid readiness engagement. Firms bill for a gap review. The free readiness assessment does the same first pass at no charge.
• A consultant. Optional if one person on the team can own the work for a few hours a week.
• Extra criteria. Scope Security alone unless a contract names more.
• A Type 2 before anyone asks for one. Start with a Type 1 and let the observation window run afterward.

The examination is the one thing you cannot skip. Software does not produce a SOC 2 report. A licensed CPA firm does, under the AICPA attestation standards,¹ and no platform may sign its own.² Plan for that part, and cut the rest.

Where to start

Start with the number no quote includes: how much work is left at your company. The free readiness assessment scores you and counts every gap in about fifteen minutes. Then compare the plans on the pricing page. If you want to know what the assessment looks at first, the readiness assessment guide walks through it. No card is needed to begin.