Specialist CPA firms in our directory list SOC 2 Type 2 audits at $15,500 to $50,000. First-year cash runs about $10,000 to $30,500 for a prepared team of 1 to 10 and $53,500 to $182,000 for 201 to 500 people at low readiness.
Estimate your own scope How we built these numbers
Directory pricing snapshot August 21, 2026. Budget inputs checked May 13, 2026 to October 5, 2026.
Specialist Type 2 listed estimates currently run $15,500 to $50,000 in our directory; Type 1 listed estimates run $10,000 to $35,000. Full-service CPA firms’ listed Type 2 estimates run $30,000 to $80,000, and Big Four listed Type 2 estimates run $65,000 to $200,000. Each band is the median of directory-listed minimums through the median of directory-listed maximums for that firm group. It is not a median of fees clients paid. The figures exclude readiness, software, testing, and internal time. SOC 2 is an attestation: there is no extra certificate fee. A 1–10 person SaaS team with a simple system and controls ready can shop lower-cost specialists on a $7,000 to $10,000 Type 2 budget, which is a different statistic from the specialist median band.
The directory covers specialist CPA firms, full-service CPA firms, and Big Four offices. A small startup comparing on price often lands below these bands; that case is in the startup budget guide.
Directory figures by firm type · not quotes
| Firm type | SOC 2 Type 1 | SOC 2 Type 2 |
|---|---|---|
| Specialist CPA firm | $10,000–$35,000 | $15,500–$50,000 |
| Full-service CPA firm | $20,000–$60,000 | $30,000–$80,000 |
| Big Four | $40,000–$145,000 | $65,000–$200,000 |
Each band runs from the median listed minimum to the median listed maximum for that firm type. Most directory prices are estimates, not minimums or a record of what buyers paid. See the sources and calculation. Australian companies comparing local issuers should use the Australian SOC 2 auditors directory for AUD bands and who can sign the report; the table above stays USD-normalised.
For an enterprise engagement spanning multiple entities or frameworks, compare enterprise SOC 2 audit firms before requesting quotes on the same written scope.
First-person posts from 2024–2025 named these figures. They are individual reports, not an average.
Every reviewed mention, with method and date, is in the table further down.
Use the SOC 2 audit cost calculator to change company size, report type, and scope. The estimate uses a lower-cost specialist assumption and scales it for size and scope. Treat the result as a budget to test against quotes; the assumptions sit beside it.
First-year SOC 2 cash runs about $10,000 to $30,500 for a prepared team of 1 to 10 people, $31,000 to $105,000 for an 11 to 50 person SaaS company, and $53,500 to $182,000 for a 201 to 500 person company starting with low readiness.
| Budget line | Prepared small team 1–10 employees | Growing SaaS company 11–50 employees | Complex organization 201–500 employees |
|---|---|---|---|
| CPA audit fee (Type 2) | $7,000–$10,000 | $9,500–$13,000 | $26,500–$38,000 |
| Readiness help | $0 if controls are ready | $4,000–$8,000 | $8,000–$20,000 |
| Compliance platform (annual) | $0–$9,500 (optional) | $7,500–$14,000 | $9,000–$54,000 |
| Penetration test | $3,000–$11,000 | $5,000–$20,000 | $5,000–$20,000 |
| Control remediation | $0 if controls are ready | $5,000–$50,000 | $5,000–$50,000 |
| First-year cash total | $10,000–$30,500 | $31,000–$105,000 | $53,500–$182,000 |
| Year-two cash | $10,000–$30,500 | $22,000–$47,000 | $40,500–$112,000 |
| Staff time (separate, not in totals) | $25,000–$90,000 | $25,000–$90,000 | $25,000–$90,000 |
Readiness help uses the SOC 2 readiness-program prices that firms in our directory publish: 9 published prices from 7 firms, $4,000 to $20,000, median $8,000, checked October 5, 2026. Packages that may include the audit itself run $18,000 to $25,000; check whether the CPA firm's fee is inside before comparing one with this table. A gap assessment on its own runs $2,500 to $6,000 (3 published prices from 2 firms). These are entry prices for defined packages; larger scopes quote higher. Keep readiness and the audit with different firms: an auditor that built your controls would be examining its own work. Compare SOC 2 readiness firms, or start with a readiness assessment.
Penetration testing is a separate purchase from the CPA audit, and the platform line is the annual price of a compliance tool, which a prepared small team can skip. Year two is a new examination at the same audit-fee estimate, with no renewal discount assumed. Staff time is hours your own people spend, valued as an opportunity cost, so it never enters the cash totals. These are planning ranges, not quotes. Change the inputs in the audit cost calculator; plan the year-two and renewal budget separately.
These figures cover different company sizes and scopes. They are useful for checking a proposal, not for adding up a startup budget.
| Budget row | Current planning range | How to use it |
|---|---|---|
| Compliance platform | $3,600–$78,125 | Full span of sourced annual USD prices across comparable directory records; it mixes confirmed figures and labeled estimates, omits unknowns, and is not a typical price. The table above uses the middle of this span. |
| Scope-change exposure | $10,000–$30,000 | Buyer-reported change-order range; prevent it by freezing the system boundary and criteria. Not in the totals above. |
Add one report path, not Type 1 plus Type 2, and only the add-ons you actually need. Audit bands regenerate from the directory; the other rows are dated planning inputs on the cost sources page. The software line has its own pricing comparison, and testing has a pentest cost guide.
These are ballpark SOC 2 Type 2 fees that audit firms sent buyers who requested quotes on soc2auditors.org in July–September 2026. They are ballparks, not final fees. A size band appears only when ballparks come from several firms, so no single firm's pricing can be read from it.
Type 2 ballparks by company size · Q3 2026
Small companies' median ballparks ($9,000 in both bands) sit within our lower-cost specialist Type 2 budget of $7,000 to $10,000 and below the specialist directory band of $15,500 to $50,000, which summarizes listed ranges across firms rather than offers sent to small teams.
SOC 2 is an attestation, not a certification. There is no extra certificate fee. Buyers using that phrase usually mean the CPA examination: $10,000 to $35,000 for Type 1 or $15,500 to $50,000 for Type 2 at a specialist firm, before readiness, software, testing, remediation, or labor.
Ask the requester which report they mean. Type 1 tests control design at a specified date. Type 2 also tests operating effectiveness over a specified period. Mix those in one comparison and the prices stop meaning the same thing.
Across the 192 firms in our directory that list both, the median listed Type 2 minimum is 1.53 times the Type 1 minimum. Most of those listings are our planning estimates, so treat that as a planning ratio rather than a measured market premium. The 7 firms that confirmed or published both prices range from 1.00 to 2.00 times.
Adding Trust Services Criteria raises the fee too. These are our calculator's planning factors on the audit fee:
Specialist Type 2 estimates are $15,500 to $50,000, full-service CPA firms $30,000 to $80,000, and Big Four firms $65,000 to $200,000. Type 2 usually costs more than Type 1 in a like-for-like proposal because it tests operating effectiveness over an agreed period. Specialist Type 1 currently runs $10,000 to $35,000; Big Four Type 1 runs $40,000 to $145,000.
How the observation period changes the bill is covered in Type 2 observation-period costs.
SOC 2 is expensive because a CPA firm bills experienced auditors' hours to test every control in the criteria you choose, and a Type 2 repeats that testing across a period of months. The specialist audit fee alone runs $15,500 to $50,000; first-year cash reaches $53,500 to $182,000 for a larger company once readiness, remediation, a platform, and a penetration test are added.
The audit is only one line. Teams without working controls pay for readiness help and for the tools and fixes it finds, and most also buy a compliance platform ($7,500 to $14,000 a year across the middle of our software directory) and a penetration test ($5,000 to $20,000). Each Trust Services Criterion added multiplies the audit work, and a larger company has more systems, vendors, and people for the auditor to sample.
Our guides price the lines around the audit: readiness assessment costs, continuous monitoring costs, penetration test pricing, and HIPAA audit costs when health data is in scope. To buy that work rather than build it, compare security service firms.
SOC 2 is an attestation, so there is no exam to pass: a CPA firm reports on whether your controls are designed, and for Type 2 operated, as you describe them. How hard it is depends on how many controls you must design, run, and keep evidence for across the period.
A team that already runs access reviews, change management, logging, and vendor checks mostly has to document and prove them. A first-time team with no written controls usually needs readiness help first; a readiness assessment shows how far you are from audit-ready.
End to end, plan about 3 to 6 months for a SOC 2 Type 1 and 6 to 12 months or more for a first Type 2. The Type 2 timeline includes an observation period of 3, 6, or 12 months.
Audit fieldwork takes about 2 to 3 months once scope, controls, and evidence are ready. Readiness work before that depends on how many controls you still have to build; the report follows fieldwork. Agree the observation period with your auditor and the customer asking for the report before you start. Our SOC 2 audit timeline by phase breaks the phases down, and the SOC 2 timeline calculator turns them into dates for your scope.
Give every CPA firm the same five inputs, then compare written inclusions and change triggers. Without a normalized brief, a lower quote may simply exclude work another firm included.
$7,000 to $10,000 is a reasonable budget-shopping scenario for a Type 2 audit when you have 1–10 people, one simple SaaS system, Security-only scope, and controls ready for testing. You are comparing lower-cost specialists and do not need a particular large-firm name on the report.
The starting range comes from our Zero Day CPA pricing estimate, checked against anonymized quote patterns. It is a planning estimate. Some small-scope offers cost less; extra systems, criteria, or a required auditor brand can cost more. The calculator methodology explains this reference and the adjustments.
Ask for the audit fee, Type 2 observation dates, and exclusions in writing. A short first report may not meet a customer's requirement for a longer period. Our note on Type 2 observation-period costs covers that choice and the year-two audit; the startup budget guide covers the wider first-year plan.
We match firms to your scope and bring their ballpark quotes back. Free and anonymized.
Third-party price points reviewed in June 2026 corroborate the organization-group ranges above: first-person buyer reports from public forums, and figures audit firms publish about their own market. Duplicate, ambiguous, and low-credibility sources were rejected. See our monthly-refreshed cost statistics for how these figures move each month.
| Figure | Covers | Source |
|---|---|---|
| $20,000 | Total / type not stated | First-person figure in an r/msp thread, Nov 2024 |
| $12,000 | Total / type not stated | First-person figure in an r/SaaS thread, Jan 2024 |
| $15,000 | Type 2 audit | First-person figure in an r/msp thread, Dec 2025 |
| $5,500 | Type 1 audit | First-person figure in an r/soc2 thread, Mar 2025 |
| $10,000 | Readiness phase | First-person figure in an r/cybersecurity thread, Nov 2023 |
| $13,500 | Readiness phase | The Pun Group (CPA firm in our directory), readiness guide, Nov 2025 |
| $27,500 | Total / type not stated | The Pun Group (CPA firm in our directory), cost guide, Dec 2025 |
| $85,000 | Total / type not stated | A-LIGN SOC 2 guide, Mar 2026 — an "up to" upper bound, not a typical fee |
| $50,000 | Type 2 audit | FRSecure SOC 2 Type 2 overview (undated) |
Compliance-automation platforms publish estimates too. Across the Drata, Sprinto, Secureframe, and Vanta guides, audit figures run $7,500 to $45,000. Those are marketing estimates, not recorded prices, so they are not in the table above. Every reviewed record, including the platform figures, is listed with method and retrieval date on the sources page. They are not inputs to the firm-type bands. A platform guide has a reason to keep the audit line small next to its own subscription fee.
Lock these three decisions before you send an RFP so the quotes describe the same job.
A Security-only scope is usually narrower than one with additional criteria. Add Availability, Confidentiality, Processing Integrity, or Privacy when the report's intended users need them, and have each firm price the same selection.
Our data shows large price differences by organization group. Ask whether a named customer, regulator, lender, or board actually requires a particular firm before paying for brand and scale you do not need.
Have every firm state whether readiness, system-description support, extra samples, re-testing, travel, add-on criteria, report revisions, and scope changes are included. A low fee with open-ended exclusions is not the low-cost quote.
Questions to settle before you issue an RFP.
Tell us your audit type, criteria, system count, and target date. We send the same scope to matching firms so the quotes describe the same job.
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