How much does a SOC 2 audit cost for a startup in 2026?

A first-time SOC 2 Type II for an early-stage SaaS typically runs $20,000–$40,000 for the audit itself, with all-in first-year costs (including readiness tooling and internal time) landing between $50,000 and $80,000. Simpler Type I engagements start around $10,000–$20,000.

What's the difference in cost between SOC 2 Type I and Type II?

A SOC 2 Type I is a point-in-time attestation and usually costs $10,000–$20,000. A Type II tests control effectiveness over 3–12 months and costs $20,000–$50,000 in year one. Most buyers who need SOC 2 for procurement eventually need Type II, so many skip Type I entirely.

How do I know if a SOC 2 quote is competitive?

There is no reliable published benchmark, so the only way to know is to put the same explicit scope in front of more than one firm, including at least one you sourced independently, and compare itemized line items. On Nomona, half of our flat success fee is returned to you as a visible discount when the engagement is awarded, or 125% of it as credit toward your next audit.

How long does a SOC 2 audit take?

Readiness typically runs 2–4 months. A SOC 2 Type I audit itself is completed in 4–8 weeks after readiness. A Type II adds the observation period (3, 6, or 12 months) plus 4–8 weeks of fieldwork and report drafting, so total elapsed time is usually 6–14 months for a first Type II.

How much does SOC 2 cost each year after the first audit?

Year-two SOC 2 Type II fees are typically 60–80% of year-one fees because the auditor already knows your environment. Budget the same audit fee annually, plus ongoing tooling ($8,000–$25,000/year) and roughly 80–150 hours of internal time to keep evidence current.

Do I need a readiness assessment before my SOC 2 audit?

Not formally, but almost every first-time buyer benefits from one. Readiness work (documented policies, evidence collection, gap remediation) costs $15,000–$40,000 if outsourced to a virtual CISO, or 200–400 hours of internal time with a compliance automation platform.

What drives the price difference between two SOC 2 quotes?

The four biggest drivers are: number of Trust Services Criteria included, systems and locations in scope, sampling depth (e.g. 5 vs 25 samples per control), and sourcing channel (independent vs platform-preferred). Always ask bidders to itemize each of these before comparing headline prices.

Can I do a SOC 2 audit without a compliance automation platform?

Yes. Compliance automation platforms speed up evidence collection but aren't required. Companies with strong internal engineering can achieve SOC 2 with spreadsheets, IaC, and scripting for $0 in tooling, trading roughly 100–200 additional hours of internal time for the software savings.

How much does a SOC 2 audit cost in 2026? A buyer's breakdown

The short answer

"How much does a SOC 2 audit cost?" is the first question every founder asks, and the hardest one to get a straight answer to. Published pricing is rare, quotes vary by two or three times for what looks like the same scope, and the compliance automation platforms have every incentive to keep the number opaque. Published market guides put the spread of SOC 2 audit quotes between $5,000 and $60,000 for comparable engagements (Secureframe, 2025), and Drata's own cost guide confirms fees vary significantly between large and boutique firms (Drata, 2025). This guide is the breakdown we wish every first-time buyer had: what actually drives SOC 2 audit cost in 2026, what a fair quote looks like, and where the margin is quietly baked in.

The short answer: a typical early-stage SaaS company should expect to spend between $20,000 and $60,000 on their first SOC 2 engagement, all-in. That range covers readiness work, the audit itself, and the tooling needed to sustain the controls. Companies with more complex scope, such as multi-region infrastructure, HIPAA overlap, or in-scope subservice organizations, land between $60,000 and $120,000. Enterprises with dozens of systems in scope can spend well into six figures. The variance isn't waste; it's a function of scope, sampling depth, and how much of the work the buyer absorbs internally versus outsourcing.

Readiness costs

The first cost bucket is readiness. Before an auditor will issue an opinion, your control environment has to actually exist: documented policies, evidence of enforcement, access reviews, vendor risk assessments, incident response drills. Most companies underestimate this phase. Doing it yourself with a compliance automation platform (Vanta, Drata, Secureframe, and peers) runs $8,000–$25,000 per year in software, plus roughly 200–400 hours of internal time in year one. Hiring a virtual CISO or readiness consultant to run the project adds $15,000–$40,000 on top. The trade-off is straightforward: the more you outsource, the faster you're ready, and the more you pay.

The audit fee itself

The second bucket is the audit itself. A SOC 2 Type I engagement, a point-in-time attestation that your controls are designed appropriately, costs $10,000 to $20,000 for a focused SaaS scope covering the Security Trust Services Criterion. A Type II, which tests that those controls operated effectively over a period (usually 3, 6, or 12 months), runs $20,000 to $50,000 in year one. Adding Availability, Confidentiality, or Processing Integrity criteria adds $3,000–$8,000 each; adding Privacy is more (often $10,000+) because the testing procedures are heavier. Year two and beyond are cheaper, 60–80% of year one, because the auditor already knows your environment and the walkthrough time compresses.

Ongoing annual costs

The third bucket is ongoing surveillance and remediation. SOC 2 isn't a one-and-done certification; a Type II report is only valid for the period it covers, so most buyers renew annually. Budget the same audit fee every year, plus continuing tooling costs, plus roughly 80–150 hours of internal time to keep evidence current. Companies that treat SOC 2 as a checkbox spend more here than companies that build the controls into how the team already works. That's a hidden cost worth surfacing when you compare your first-year quote to the three-year total.

Why quotes vary so much

Now the part nobody publishes: how narrow your view of the market usually is. Most buyers price a SOC 2 by working from whichever shortlist landed in front of them, and never learn what the wider market would quote for the same scope. That is not a claim about anyone's fee arrangements. It is a simple point about visibility: if you only ask two firms, you only know what two firms charge. Getting at least one quote from an independent firm you sourced yourself is the only reliable way to calibrate. We cover how to read a shortlist critically in independent vs platform-preferred auditors, and the structural independence question in the conflict of interest hiding in your compliance platform.

The second hidden variable is scope discipline. A generalist firm working from a template will propose a broader scope than you actually need, including extra Trust Services Criteria, extra systems, and extra sampling periods, because their pricing model rewards volume. A specialist firm that knows your stack (AI, health-tech, fintech, EU-resident SaaS) will scope more tightly and quote less. Getting three quotes from firms that have audited comparable companies is worth more than any published price benchmark; our guide to evaluating an audit bid walks through the exact line items to compare.

The third variable is sampling depth. SOC 2 Type II requires the auditor to test controls across a defined population, and the sample size drives a large portion of the labor. A quote that specifies "25 samples per control" and one that specifies "5 samples per control" are not describing the same engagement, even if the headline price looks similar. Ask every bidder to spell out sample sizes for high-frequency controls (access reviews, change management, backup restoration) before you compare numbers. This is where a cheap quote often becomes a shallow quote.

Company size, headcount, and infrastructure complexity are the last major drivers. A ten-person SaaS with a single AWS account and one production database will be quoted very differently from a fifty-person company with three regions, a data warehouse, and a subservice-organization dependency on a machine-learning vendor. Auditors price on hours of testing, and hours scale with the number of in-scope systems, not with revenue. A useful benchmark: for every additional in-scope production system beyond the first, add $2,000–$4,000 to a Type II fee. If you're still weighing which framework to pursue first, see SOC 2 vs ISO 27001: which one first?.

What a fair quote includes

What does a fair SOC 2 audit quote actually contain? At minimum: the Trust Services Criteria included, the systems and locations in scope, the audit period, the sample sizes for high-frequency controls, the deliverables (report, bridge letter, remediation guidance), and the timeline from kickoff to report issuance. Anything vaguer than that is leaving room for scope creep. A tight, itemized quote from a $22,000 firm is almost always a better buy than a one-page quote from a $28,000 firm, even before you factor in referral markup. For first-time buyers, preparing for your first SOC 2 Type II covers what to have in place before you request quotes.

A realistic first-year budget

To bring the total picture together for an early-stage SaaS running its first SOC 2 Type II in 2026: readiness tooling around $12,000, internal time equivalent to $15,000–$25,000 of loaded engineering cost, and an audit fee between $22,000 and $40,000 depending on scope and sourcing channel. All-in, a realistic first-year budget is $50,000–$80,000. Budget for recurrence, not a one-off: 92% of organizations run two or more audits per year and 71% of enterprises spend over $100,000 annually on audits alone (A-LIGN Compliance Benchmark, 2025, n=1,000+). Sourcing the audit through firms you compared yourself, rather than the first shortlist you were handed, is how you find out whether a quote is competitive at all. The savings vary; the point is that you priced the engagement against the real market instead of a single channel. That is the entire reason independent marketplaces exist.

The practical takeaway for buyers: don't ask "how much does a SOC 2 audit cost?" in the abstract. Ask three firms to quote the same explicit scope, insist on itemized sample sizes and deliverables, and get at least one quote from an independent firm alongside any platform-preferred recommendation. The variance you'll see across those three quotes is the real price of SOC 2 transparency. The difference between the cheapest and most expensive is almost never explained by quality. It's explained by the line items, so compare itemized quotes before you decide.

Nomona exists to make that comparison possible without the marketing overlay. Auditors on the platform don't pay for placement, don't pay for ranking, and don't pay for visibility; buyers see every accredited firm that matches their scope with quotes side by side. If you're pricing a SOC 2 audit for the first time, the fastest path to an honest number is to post a bid request with your scope and let independent firms compete on price, fit, and timeline directly, or browse the auditor directory to see who's available.

Frequently asked questions

How much does a SOC 2 audit cost for a startup in 2026?: A first-time SOC 2 Type II for an early-stage SaaS typically runs $20,000–$40,000 for the audit itself, with all-in first-year costs (including readiness tooling and internal time) landing between $50,000 and $80,000. Simpler Type I engagements start around $10,000–$20,000.
What's the difference in cost between SOC 2 Type I and Type II?: A SOC 2 Type I is a point-in-time attestation and usually costs $10,000–$20,000. A Type II tests control effectiveness over 3–12 months and costs $20,000–$50,000 in year one. Most buyers who need SOC 2 for procurement eventually need Type II, so many skip Type I entirely.
How do I know if a SOC 2 quote is competitive?: There is no reliable published benchmark, so the only way to know is to put the same explicit scope in front of more than one firm, including at least one you sourced independently, and compare itemized line items. On Nomona, half of our flat success fee is returned to you as a visible discount when the engagement is awarded, or 125% of it as credit toward your next audit.
How long does a SOC 2 audit take?: Readiness typically runs 2–4 months. A SOC 2 Type I audit itself is completed in 4–8 weeks after readiness. A Type II adds the observation period (3, 6, or 12 months) plus 4–8 weeks of fieldwork and report drafting, so total elapsed time is usually 6–14 months for a first Type II.
How much does SOC 2 cost each year after the first audit?: Year-two SOC 2 Type II fees are typically 60–80% of year-one fees because the auditor already knows your environment. Budget the same audit fee annually, plus ongoing tooling ($8,000–$25,000/year) and roughly 80–150 hours of internal time to keep evidence current.
Do I need a readiness assessment before my SOC 2 audit?: Not formally, but almost every first-time buyer benefits from one. Readiness work (documented policies, evidence collection, gap remediation) costs $15,000–$40,000 if outsourced to a virtual CISO, or 200–400 hours of internal time with a compliance automation platform.
What drives the price difference between two SOC 2 quotes?: The four biggest drivers are: number of Trust Services Criteria included, systems and locations in scope, sampling depth (e.g. 5 vs 25 samples per control), and sourcing channel (independent vs platform-preferred). Always ask bidders to itemize each of these before comparing headline prices.
Can I do a SOC 2 audit without a compliance automation platform?: Yes. Compliance automation platforms speed up evidence collection but aren't required. Companies with strong internal engineering can achieve SOC 2 with spreadsheets, IaC, and scripting for $0 in tooling, trading roughly 100–200 additional hours of internal time for the software savings.