SOC 1 audit firms: compare 87 auditors

When is SOC 1 the right report?

Choose SOC 1 when your service affects your customers’ financial statements: payroll, claims or loan processing, billing, payments, or hosting a finance system. Their auditors use the report to rely on your controls. If customers mainly ask how you protect their data, they want SOC 2, and many service organizations need both.

A SOC 1 examination covers the controls at your organization that are likely to matter to your customers’ internal control over financial reporting, organized around control objectives you agree with the auditor. Our SOC 1 vs SOC 2 comparison works through the choice. Every firm below also audits SOC 2, so you can ask one firm to quote both.

Source: AICPA, SOC 1 overview, retrieved 2026-10-16.

What does a SOC 1 audit cost?

Published SOC 1 fee ranges run from about $10,000 to more than $100,000, and a Type 2 report takes more work than a Type 1 for the same scope. None of those ranges says what it rests on, and we hold no SOC 1 quotes, so we don’t publish a range of our own. Send every firm the same scope and compare the fees side by side.

Report type, the number of control objectives, and the systems, providers, and locations in scope all move the fee. What moves a SOC 1 fee follows the firm list.

Published SOC 1 ranges: $10,000 to $60,000 for Type I and $20,000 to $120,000 for Type II (Thoropass, June 2025); $10,000 to $50,000 or more (Vanta, undated); $15,000 to $100,000 (Linford & Co, undated). Retrieved 2026-10-16.

How do you check that a SOC 1 firm can sign the report?

Confirm three things before you compare proposals. The legal entity that will sign holds a current CPA firm license. Its latest AICPA peer review was accepted, with a result you can read. And it will not also design or run the controls it tests. Public records answer the first two in a few minutes.

• License. Look up the signing firm on CPAverify or through its state board of accountancy. Use the legal name on the engagement letter, which can differ from the brand.
• Peer review. Search the AICPA Peer Review public file. AICPA peer review treats SOC 1 and SOC 2 examinations as must-select work, so the system review of a firm that performs them must include SOC work in its sample. Ask whether the latest review selected a SOC 1 engagement, and ask for the acceptance letter.
• Independence. If the same firm offers readiness help, ask how it keeps that work apart from the examination. Your customers’ auditors may ask the same question.
• Outside the US. A firm may report under ISAE 3402, the international standard for this kind of report, or CSAE 3416 in Canada. Ask your customers’ auditors which standard they accept before you sign.

Our SOC 1 report and auditor guide covers scoping, Type 1 or Type 2, and comparing proposals. For reading a peer-review result in detail, see how AICPA peer review reflects audit quality.

Sources: AICPA, peer review summary (must-select engagements); IAASB, ISAE 3402 staff overview. Retrieved 2026-10-16.

What moves the fee for a SOC 1 audit?

Several published guides agree that these factors move the fee:

• Type 1 or Type 2. Type 2 tests how controls operated across a period, so it takes more work than a Type 1 report on one date.
• Control objectives. More objectives, and more processes and systems behind them, mean more testing. Linford calls the number of business-process objectives the factor buyers underestimate, and says trimming unneeded process areas during scoping saves more than negotiating the fee.
• Subservice organizations. Including a provider’s controls in the report, rather than carving them out, widens the scope.
• Locations and business units. Each site or unit in scope adds walkthroughs and samples.
• Readiness. Undocumented or immature controls add readiness or remediation work before fieldwork can start.
• The firm. National and Big Four practices can price well above regional and specialist firms for the same scope.

If you also need SOC 2, ask for both in one proposal, with separate fees. One firm can reuse walkthroughs and some evidence across the two examinations.

Control-objective point: Linford & Co, What is a SOC 1 report, September 2026. Retrieved 2026-10-16.