SOC 2 Penetration Testing Cost: The $5K-$20K Budget

Testing firms’ own pricing pages put a SOC 2-scoped penetration test for a SaaS product at $5,000-$20,000. One web app and its APIs, tested by a person rather than only a tool, starts at $5,250-$10,800 at the six firms that publish a price for that scope. We read every figure from the firm’s own site on October 5, 2026.

Most of those figures are starting prices, so a quote for your scope can land above them. The largest testing firms publish no prices at all, which means the top of the market is not visible here. The pentest is also one line in the SOC 2 budget: it does not include readiness help, remediation engineering, compliance software, or the CPA audit. Testing firms sit alongside vCISO and readiness providers in our directory of SOC 2 security service firms.

How much does a SOC 2 penetration test cost?

Testing firms’ published prices put a SOC 2-scoped penetration test for a SaaS product at $5,000-$20,000. Starting prices for one web app and its APIs, tested manually or with human validation, run $5,250-$10,800 (median about $6,400). Packages covering several apps or cloud start near $9,000 and reach $20,000 or more. Large testing firms publish no prices, so their quotes can land higher.

The middle row fits a single-product SaaS company. Six testing firms publish a starting price for one web app and its APIs with a human tester involved, and those prices run $5,250-$10,800. Introductory manual tests start at $3,000, which sets the low end of the limited-scope band.

What do testing firms publish?

Six SOC 2 testing firms publish pentest prices on their own sites. Their entry prices run from $1,000 for one asset to $10,800 for a manual web app and API test, with multi-app and subscription plans above that.

Two other testing firms publish $6,800 for one web app and its APIs with human validation, and from $9,500 for web, API, cloud, or AI scope, with multiple apps from $20,000. Prices were checked on October 5, 2026 and are listed as published, not as quotes or recommendations. Compare providers on the SOC 2 penetration testing firms page.

Read the published scope before comparing numbers. A $2,999 autonomous plan, a $5,000 web app test, and a $10,800 web and API test with retests included are three different products. Several firms that test for SOC 2 buyers publish no price and quote every engagement, so this table shows the visible part of the market, not all of it.

$5,000

Axipro

$1,000

Bright Defense

$2,750

Astra Security

$2,999

Practical Assurance

$3,000

Atlant Security

$4,000

Software Secured

$10,800

$0$5K$10K$15K

What is the cheapest penetration test that works for SOC 2?

A limited-scope manual test of one web app and its APIs runs about $3,000-$11,000 in published starting prices. Tests advertised from about $1,000-$3,500 cover a single asset or run autonomously without a human tester, and an auditor may not accept an autonomous-only test as penetration-test evidence. Confirm with your auditor before buying the cheapest option.

Half of the published offers under $3,500 are autonomous: an AI or scanner-driven tool probes the application and produces a report without a person validating findings or testing business logic. That can catch regressions between annual tests. As the only pentest in a SOC 2 audit period, it risks two problems. The auditor may treat it as a vulnerability scan rather than a penetration test, and an enterprise customer reviewing your report may ask for manual coverage of authorization and tenant isolation.

If budget is tight, narrow the scope rather than drop the human tester. One production app, its APIs, and its most privileged roles tested manually is usually a stronger answer than an automated sweep of everything.

What drives penetration testing cost?

Cost increases with more applications, APIs, roles, cloud accounts, network ranges, mobile clients, and complex authorization paths. White-box access, manual business-logic testing, senior specialists, expedited work, detailed reporting, and additional retests also affect the quote.

Ask each firm to list assumptions and exclusions. “Web application test” may exclude APIs, cloud configuration, mobile clients, source review, denial-of-service testing, and social engineering. A low price for the wrong boundary is not a saving because the auditor or customer may reject the resulting coverage. Ask how many tester-days the price buys, too: two quotes for the same scope that differ sharply in effort are not testing the same depth. Wi-Fi testing is a separate scope again; the wireless pen test playbook for SOC 2 readiness covers what that engagement should deliver.

Does SOC 2 require a penetration test?

The Trust Services Criteria do not prescribe a penetration test for every company. Auditors still expect risk-based vulnerability management and effective monitoring evidence, and a recent independent pentest is often the clearest evidence for an internet-facing SaaS product.

The correct answer depends on risk and commitments. A company should be able to show how it identifies technical vulnerabilities, evaluates them, remediates findings, and confirms that fixes work. For many SaaS environments, an independent penetration test is persuasive evidence because it exercises the application like a real attacker rather than only scanning for known issues.

Read the full SOC 2 penetration testing requirements guide before scoping. Ask the intended CPA auditor whether the planned test boundary, timing, methodology, and retest evidence will satisfy its examination approach. The pentest firm does security testing; the CPA firm decides how that evidence supports the audit.

Should your SOC 2 auditor run the penetration test?

Buy the test from a firm other than your CPA auditor. A pentest produces evidence about controls the auditor then evaluates, so having the same firm do both creates a self-review threat under the AICPA independence rules. It is permitted only with safeguards, and a customer reading your report may still question it.

Some audit firms offer penetration testing alongside the SOC 2 examination, and a bundled price can look cheaper. The saving is rarely worth the independence question it raises. Keep the two purchases separate: an independent testing firm finds and retests the issues, and the CPA firm evaluates how your controls handled them. Separate providers also let you change either one without disturbing the other.

What should pentest pricing include?

A comparable quote should include scoping, rules of engagement, manual testing, validation of automated findings, a technical report, an executive summary, a findings debrief, and at least one clearly defined retest or separate retest price.

Use a line-item comparison:

Confirm report ownership, distribution rights, secure delivery, data retention, tester qualifications, and whether the firm will join an auditor call. Also ask what happens when a production change invalidates part of the original scope before the retest. One published offer includes three retest rounds while others say nothing about retests, so price the retest explicitly rather than assume it.

How often should SOC 2 companies run penetration testing?

Annual independent testing is a common planning cadence for SaaS companies, with additional testing after material architecture or product changes. Your risk assessment, customer commitments, auditor expectations, and remediation timeline should determine the actual frequency.

For budgeting, an annual program means reserving the test price plus any out-of-scope retest or expansion. Several firms sell annual subscriptions rather than one-off tests, so compare a year of coverage against a single engagement plus a retest. Do not assume last year’s report remains useful after a major authentication redesign, acquisition, new mobile application, or substantial cloud migration. Conversely, a stable low-risk environment should not buy repeated testing without a risk-based reason.

Schedule backward from the audit and customer deadline. Leave time to remediate serious findings and obtain retest evidence. A report delivered on the final day of fieldwork may identify problems without giving management time to fix them.

How does pentest cost fit into a SOC 2 Type 2 budget?

Treat the pentest as a separate security-testing expense, not part of the CPA audit fee. The full budget also includes readiness, compliance tooling, internal remediation, and the independent Type 2 examination. One proposal rarely covers every line.

The audit cost tool estimates the examination side, while the penetration testing firms page helps compare providers for the security-testing line. Keep the scopes separate so a buyer can see exactly what is being tested, who issues each deliverable, and which costs recur annually. To shortlist testers, compare penetration testing firms. Who handles readiness work is a separate choice, and vCISO vs readiness firm vs auditor explains who owns each job.

How we sourced these prices

We read each price from the testing firm’s own website on October 5, 2026. The headline ranges count US dollar prices for tests relevant to a SOC 2 web application scope. Prices in other currencies, external-network-only services, and monthly retainers are left out of the ranges. Because most published figures are starting prices and the largest testing firms publish none, treat the ranges as the floor of what you will be quoted, not a ceiling. The same figures feed our SOC 2 audit cost guide.