A SOC 2 audit fee usually runs between $10,000 and $50,000. Once you add the work required to pass, the all-in cost of your first SOC 2 lands somewhere between $10,000 and $80,000 or more, depending on your company's size, the type of report you need, and how much of your business falls inside the audit.
The audit fee is the smallest and most predictable part of that number. The money that moves your total lives in readiness work, security tooling, and the hours your own team spends getting ready. This article breaks down every line item, shows you what changes with and without automation, and gives you a way to read an auditor's quote before you sign it.
What does a SOC 2 audit cost typically?
Here's the short version before we get into what shapes each number.
Two numbers are worth keeping separate. The audit fee is what you pay the auditor for the report. The all-in cost is everything you spend to get there, which takes in a readiness assessment, security tools, consultant help, and your team's time. Audits happen every year, so whatever you land on is a recurring cost, not a one-time bill.
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How much time and money a SOC 2 takes
Maybe a prospect has asked you to provide a SOC 2 as part of a deal, or you expect that ask is coming, and you're probably right. Either way, you're trying to figure out how much time and money to budget.
Earning a SOC 2 takes an investment of both, and what you spend varies a lot depending on your approach. Below we walk through the time and the cost of a SOC 2 both with and without automation, so you can plan the path that fits your team.
The time a SOC 2 takes without automation
A SOC 2 has two main phases, preparing for the audit and the audit itself.
You prepare by assessing your security gaps, putting controls and practices in place, and documenting them. This usually takes anywhere from one to five months, depending on your size and whether you hire a security consultant to help draft policies and define controls.
During prep, engineers spend real hours reviewing security practices, changing configurations, and gathering records for the audit, such as screenshotting dashboards or pulling log files. Some companies spread this work across other departments, but because SOC 2 centers on technical security, engineering involvement is unavoidable.
During the audit, an auditor either visits your office or joins your engineering leadership on a video call. These sessions can take full days, and for large companies even weeks, and they require dedicated time to walk through your security and engineering practices in detail. Your engineers may also be asked for extra evidence along the way.
The cost of a SOC 2 without automation
Audit fees move with the size of your company, the auditor's brand, and how complex the audit is. Most SOC 2 audit fees fall between $10,000 and $50,000, though large enterprises working with a Big Four firm can pay low six figures and up.
The audit fee is only part of the picture. A handful of prep costs sit alongside it.
You can run a readiness assessment in house, but many companies bring in a consultant. Between prep and the audit itself, the total cost of a SOC 2 commonly runs from $10,000 to $80,000 or more. Because audits happen every year, you'll take on these costs on a recurring basis.
Type 1 vs Type 2 and why the cheaper report can cost more
SOC 2 comes in two report types, and the choice affects both your price and whether your customers will accept the result.
A Type 1 report looks at whether your controls are designed correctly at a single point in time. A Type 2 report looks at how those controls operated across a period, usually three to twelve months. Because a Type 2 covers a window and involves more testing, it costs more than a Type 1.
Here's the trap worth avoiding. A growing number of buyers now ask for a Type 2 report specifically and won't accept a Type 1 on its own. If you buy a Type 1 to clear a deadline and your customer then wants a Type 2, you've paid for the work twice. A Type 1 still makes sense when you have a near-term deadline and a prospect who will take it now with a Type 2 to follow. Some auditors will also price a multi-year engagement so the two reports land at a more even total.
The seven factors that move your quote
A handful of specific factors explain most of the gap between a $10,000 audit and a six-figure one. Auditors price the work based on effort, so anything that adds effort adds cost. The seven that matter most are audit type, scope and systems, the Trust Services Criteria you include, your size and control maturity, the auditor you choose, your number of locations, and your reliance on outside vendors.
Audit type
A Type 2 costs more than a Type 1 because the auditor reviews your controls across months rather than checking them once. If you already know which report your customers need, this is the first lever on your fee.
Scope and systems
Every system you put in scope adds testing. Adding a second application raises the fee, though it shouldn't double it, since only some of the criteria are specific to a given technology while the rest apply to your whole company.
Trust Services Criteria in scope
SOC 2 has five Trust Services Criteria, and only Security is required. The other four are optional, and each one you add stacks onto the bill. Availability, Confidentiality, and Processing Integrity tend to add smaller increments, while Privacy is the expensive add-on. Most companies should include only Security unless a customer contract calls for more.
Size and control maturity
A larger company takes more effort to audit, but maturity matters as much as headcount. If your controls aren't documented or have never been assessed, the auditor spends more hours finding and understanding them, and that time lands on your invoice.
Auditor selection
Fees vary widely by firm. A boutique auditor that specializes in companies your size often costs a fraction of a Big Four firm, where fees start in the low six figures and climb from there. Weigh the recognition a big-name report carries against the price.
Number of locations
If controls run across several locations with different processes, the auditor tests each one, and the fee rises accordingly. Where every site follows the same process, the auditor can usually test them together.
Reliance on outside vendors
Most companies lean on providers like AWS, Azure, or Google Cloud to run part of their service. Auditors account for those vendors through the vendors' own reports, and the more your service depends on outside parties, the more there is to map and document.
One time costs versus what you pay every year
SOC 2 is an annual commitment, so the honest way to budget is to separate the costs you pay once from the ones that come back every year. Your first year is the most expensive, because it carries the readiness work, tool setup, and first round of fixes on top of the audit. After that, your spending settles into a lighter, steadier pattern.
The costs you pay once are the setup costs. Your first readiness or gap assessment, the early remediation and policy writing that closes your gaps, and the initial tool purchases and configuration all land at the start and mostly stay there. The recurring side is smaller and more predictable. Every year you pay for a fresh audit, renew your compliance platform subscription, and cover the tool licenses and security training that keep the program current.
The takeaway is that the number for year one overstates your steady state. The audit itself never goes away, since each report covers a set window and customers expect a current one, so budget for it as a standing line every year.
How to read a SOC 2 quote like an auditor
You can judge whether a quote is honest using the same logic the firm used to build it.
The clearest tell is simple. A firm that hands you a price without asking about your systems and environment is one whose fee tends to climb once the work starts. Real quotes follow real questions.
A few other signs tend to travel together. A readiness assessment folded invisibly into the audit fee, a scope left loose enough to reinterpret later, and a first year priced suspiciously low all point to a bill that grows once the work is underway. A quote worth trusting reads differently. It prices readiness and the audit as separate lines you can compare, states plainly which criteria and systems are covered, and puts next year's number in writing so renewal brings no surprises.
Before you sign, get three things in writing. Ask which Trust Services Criteria and which systems sit inside the scope. Ask whether the readiness assessment, any penetration test, and remediation are inside the number or billed separately. And ask what next year's fee looks like. Those three questions turn a vague quote into one you can defend to finance.
How to bring your SOC 2 cost down
A few practical moves lower your total without cutting the corners customers will notice. Scope tightly, automate your evidence collection, match the auditor to your size, and invest in readiness early.
Scope tightly
Include only the systems and criteria you truly need. Sticking to the Security criteria and skipping the optional ones keeps your fee down, and you can always add criteria later when a customer requires them.
Automate your evidence collection
This is the biggest lever for most teams. A platform that pulls evidence on a schedule replaces the hundreds of manual hours that make internal time the largest hidden cost of a SOC 2. Vanta connects to more than 400 tools and runs over 1,400+ automated tests to collect that evidence for you and keep your controls monitored between audits. In a Vanta-commissioned IDC study, customers reported spending 82% less time on audits and seeing a 526% return over three years, with payback in about three months.
Match the auditor to your size
A boutique firm that audits companies like yours usually beats a Big Four firm on price, and for a younger company the report carries the same weight with most buyers. Save the marquee names for when a customer specifically asks for one.
Invest in readiness early
A readiness assessment finds your gaps before the formal audit, which keeps you from failing the real thing and paying to redo it. The money you spend here is almost always less than the cost of a delayed or repeated audit.
Get started with SOC 2 automation
The audit fee was never the real question. The real question is whether you can see your whole number and stand behind it, and now you can. Budget the all-in cost, plan for it to recur each year, scope deliberately, and read every quote the way the auditor who wrote it would.
When you're ready for a price, automation makes the whole path shorter. Vanta helps you prepare for your audit, collect your evidence, and connect with an auditor from one place. Request a demo of Vanta to see how much time and money you can take out of your next SOC 2.
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Preparing for a SOC 2 audit
How much does a SOC 2 audit cost?
Preparing for a SOC 2 audit
How much does a SOC 2 audit cost?
Download the checklist
Looking to automate SOC 2 audit prep?
A SOC 2 audit fee usually runs between $10,000 and $50,000. Once you add the work required to pass, the all-in cost of your first SOC 2 lands somewhere between $10,000 and $80,000 or more, depending on your company's size, the type of report you need, and how much of your business falls inside the audit.
The audit fee is the smallest and most predictable part of that number. The money that moves your total lives in readiness work, security tooling, and the hours your own team spends getting ready. This article breaks down every line item, shows you what changes with and without automation, and gives you a way to read an auditor's quote before you sign it.
What does a SOC 2 audit cost typically?
Here's the short version before we get into what shapes each number.
Two numbers are worth keeping separate. The audit fee is what you pay the auditor for the report. The all-in cost is everything you spend to get there, which takes in a readiness assessment, security tools, consultant help, and your team's time. Audits happen every year, so whatever you land on is a recurring cost, not a one-time bill.
{{cta_withimage1="/cta-blocks"}}
How much time and money a SOC 2 takes
Maybe a prospect has asked you to provide a SOC 2 as part of a deal, or you expect that ask is coming, and you're probably right. Either way, you're trying to figure out how much time and money to budget.
Earning a SOC 2 takes an investment of both, and what you spend varies a lot depending on your approach. Below we walk through the time and the cost of a SOC 2 both with and without automation, so you can plan the path that fits your team.
The time a SOC 2 takes without automation
A SOC 2 has two main phases, preparing for the audit and the audit itself.
You prepare by assessing your security gaps, putting controls and practices in place, and documenting them. This usually takes anywhere from one to five months, depending on your size and whether you hire a security consultant to help draft policies and define controls.
During prep, engineers spend real hours reviewing security practices, changing configurations, and gathering records for the audit, such as screenshotting dashboards or pulling log files. Some companies spread this work across other departments, but because SOC 2 centers on technical security, engineering involvement is unavoidable.
During the audit, an auditor either visits your office or joins your engineering leadership on a video call. These sessions can take full days, and for large companies even weeks, and they require dedicated time to walk through your security and engineering practices in detail. Your engineers may also be asked for extra evidence along the way.
The cost of a SOC 2 without automation
Audit fees move with the size of your company, the auditor's brand, and how complex the audit is. Most SOC 2 audit fees fall between $10,000 and $50,000, though large enterprises working with a Big Four firm can pay low six figures and up.
The audit fee is only part of the picture. A handful of prep costs sit alongside it.
You can run a readiness assessment in house, but many companies bring in a consultant. Between prep and the audit itself, the total cost of a SOC 2 commonly runs from $10,000 to $80,000 or more. Because audits happen every year, you'll take on these costs on a recurring basis.
Type 1 vs Type 2 and why the cheaper report can cost more
SOC 2 comes in two report types, and the choice affects both your price and whether your customers will accept the result.
A Type 1 report looks at whether your controls are designed correctly at a single point in time. A Type 2 report looks at how those controls operated across a period, usually three to twelve months. Because a Type 2 covers a window and involves more testing, it costs more than a Type 1.
Here's the trap worth avoiding. A growing number of buyers now ask for a Type 2 report specifically and won't accept a Type 1 on its own. If you buy a Type 1 to clear a deadline and your customer then wants a Type 2, you've paid for the work twice. A Type 1 still makes sense when you have a near-term deadline and a prospect who will take it now with a Type 2 to follow. Some auditors will also price a multi-year engagement so the two reports land at a more even total.
The seven factors that move your quote
A handful of specific factors explain most of the gap between a $10,000 audit and a six-figure one. Auditors price the work based on effort, so anything that adds effort adds cost. The seven that matter most are audit type, scope and systems, the Trust Services Criteria you include, your size and control maturity, the auditor you choose, your number of locations, and your reliance on outside vendors.
Audit type
A Type 2 costs more than a Type 1 because the auditor reviews your controls across months rather than checking them once. If you already know which report your customers need, this is the first lever on your fee.
Scope and systems
Every system you put in scope adds testing. Adding a second application raises the fee, though it shouldn't double it, since only some of the criteria are specific to a given technology while the rest apply to your whole company.
Trust Services Criteria in scope
SOC 2 has five Trust Services Criteria, and only Security is required. The other four are optional, and each one you add stacks onto the bill. Availability, Confidentiality, and Processing Integrity tend to add smaller increments, while Privacy is the expensive add-on. Most companies should include only Security unless a customer contract calls for more.
Size and control maturity
A larger company takes more effort to audit, but maturity matters as much as headcount. If your controls aren't documented or have never been assessed, the auditor spends more hours finding and understanding them, and that time lands on your invoice.
Auditor selection
Fees vary widely by firm. A boutique auditor that specializes in companies your size often costs a fraction of a Big Four firm, where fees start in the low six figures and climb from there. Weigh the recognition a big-name report carries against the price.
Number of locations
If controls run across several locations with different processes, the auditor tests each one, and the fee rises accordingly. Where every site follows the same process, the auditor can usually test them together.
Reliance on outside vendors
Most companies lean on providers like AWS, Azure, or Google Cloud to run part of their service. Auditors account for those vendors through the vendors' own reports, and the more your service depends on outside parties, the more there is to map and document.
One time costs versus what you pay every year
SOC 2 is an annual commitment, so the honest way to budget is to separate the costs you pay once from the ones that come back every year. Your first year is the most expensive, because it carries the readiness work, tool setup, and first round of fixes on top of the audit. After that, your spending settles into a lighter, steadier pattern.
The costs you pay once are the setup costs. Your first readiness or gap assessment, the early remediation and policy writing that closes your gaps, and the initial tool purchases and configuration all land at the start and mostly stay there. The recurring side is smaller and more predictable. Every year you pay for a fresh audit, renew your compliance platform subscription, and cover the tool licenses and security training that keep the program current.
The takeaway is that the number for year one overstates your steady state. The audit itself never goes away, since each report covers a set window and customers expect a current one, so budget for it as a standing line every year.
How to read a SOC 2 quote like an auditor
You can judge whether a quote is honest using the same logic the firm used to build it.
The clearest tell is simple. A firm that hands you a price without asking about your systems and environment is one whose fee tends to climb once the work starts. Real quotes follow real questions.
A few other signs tend to travel together. A readiness assessment folded invisibly into the audit fee, a scope left loose enough to reinterpret later, and a first year priced suspiciously low all point to a bill that grows once the work is underway. A quote worth trusting reads differently. It prices readiness and the audit as separate lines you can compare, states plainly which criteria and systems are covered, and puts next year's number in writing so renewal brings no surprises.
Before you sign, get three things in writing. Ask which Trust Services Criteria and which systems sit inside the scope. Ask whether the readiness assessment, any penetration test, and remediation are inside the number or billed separately. And ask what next year's fee looks like. Those three questions turn a vague quote into one you can defend to finance.
How to bring your SOC 2 cost down
A few practical moves lower your total without cutting the corners customers will notice. Scope tightly, automate your evidence collection, match the auditor to your size, and invest in readiness early.
Scope tightly
Include only the systems and criteria you truly need. Sticking to the Security criteria and skipping the optional ones keeps your fee down, and you can always add criteria later when a customer requires them.
Automate your evidence collection
This is the biggest lever for most teams. A platform that pulls evidence on a schedule replaces the hundreds of manual hours that make internal time the largest hidden cost of a SOC 2. Vanta connects to more than 400 tools and runs over 1,400+ automated tests to collect that evidence for you and keep your controls monitored between audits. In a Vanta-commissioned IDC study, customers reported spending 82% less time on audits and seeing a 526% return over three years, with payback in about three months.
Match the auditor to your size
A boutique firm that audits companies like yours usually beats a Big Four firm on price, and for a younger company the report carries the same weight with most buyers. Save the marquee names for when a customer specifically asks for one.
Invest in readiness early
A readiness assessment finds your gaps before the formal audit, which keeps you from failing the real thing and paying to redo it. The money you spend here is almost always less than the cost of a delayed or repeated audit.
Get started with SOC 2 automation
The audit fee was never the real question. The real question is whether you can see your whole number and stand behind it, and now you can. Budget the all-in cost, plan for it to recur each year, scope deliberately, and read every quote the way the auditor who wrote it would.
When you're ready for a price, automation makes the whole path shorter. Vanta helps you prepare for your audit, collect your evidence, and connect with an auditor from one place. Request a demo of Vanta to see how much time and money you can take out of your next SOC 2.
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