What penetration testing actually costs
There is no list price for a penetration test, and a provider who quotes one before scoping is selling something other than testing. The price is set by what is in scope, how deep the work goes, who performs it, whether retesting is included, and what evidence has to be produced. This page explains those drivers so that two quotes differing several times over stop being a mystery.
For whoever has to defend the number to finance
Security leaders holding three quotes with a wide spread and no defensible way to explain the difference to a CFO.
Teams budgeting testing for a full year rather than for one engagement, who need retests and change orders in the number from the start.
Buyers who already paid once for an inexpensive engagement that turned out to be an automated scan with a cover page.
Three ways to be charged, and what each one does to your budget
Before comparing numbers, compare structures. The same amount of testing costs very differently depending on whether you are buying days of someone's time, a per-asset fee, or a subscription. The structure decides how predictable your year is, what a mid-year change costs you, and whether the retest is a negotiation or a click.
Strike does not publish a price list, and neither should anyone else: a number quoted before scoping is either a placeholder or a different service wearing the same name. What we can do is tell you exactly which variables move it.
What actually moves the price
The costs that live outside the quote
Comparing two quotes apple to apple
Published penetration testing pricing: what other vendors put in writing
Nobody can quote your pentest cost without your scope, but several vendors do publish planning ranges. Below is what each one states in its own public material, with a link and the date it was consulted. Every figure here is that vendor's own published number, in their words, not Strike's. All pages accessed 2026-07-29.
Two things worth noticing before you use any of this in a budget. First, not one of these vendors quotes a single price, and the ones with the most commercial data publish the widest ranges. Second, the same asset type spans roughly six times from floor to ceiling across the guides, which is not vendor disagreement, it is the scope doing the work. A published range is a planning band. Only a scoped quote is a price.
Frequently asked questions
How much does a penetration test cost?
Honestly: it depends, and any single figure quoted without a scope is not information. What determines the price is the number and type of assets, the depth of the work, the seniority of the testers, whether retesting is part of the contract, and how well the evidence has to support an audit. A useful way to get a real answer quickly is to write your asset list down and ask three providers to quote against that same list.
Is a cheap penetration test worth it?
It depends on what you actually bought. If the low price comes from a tighter scope you agreed to, that is a rational trade. If it comes from replacing manual testing with a scan, you have paid for a control you already had, and you will find out during an audit or an incident. The diagnostic question is simple: ask what percentage of the effort is manual, and ask to see a sample report.
Does compliance force you into an expensive test?
It forces you into a defined one. Frameworks care that testing happened, that it covered the right scope, that it was performed by someone qualified, and that findings were remediated and re-verified. Those requirements raise the floor on evidence quality rather than on price. Testing evidence supports SOC 2, ISO/IEC 27001 and PCI DSS programs; nothing you buy certifies compliance on its own.
What does the retest cost?
Somewhere between nothing and a second engagement, depending entirely on the contract. Ask three things before signing: whether retesting is part of the contract, how many rounds and for how long, and does it produce a document you can hand to an auditor. A provider who cannot show you what their retest attestation looks like is probably not including one.
How do I budget penetration testing for a year?
Start from the calendar you cannot move — audits, certification cycles, major releases — and add the testing each one requires. Then add retests, a realistic allowance for assets that will appear during the year, and the internal hours triage will consume. Compare that total against a subscription covering the same estate. The comparison is only fair over twelve months, because that is the horizon where the gaps between engagements start to count.
What is the average pentest cost in 2026?
There is no industry average worth quoting, but there is published range data. The vendor guides listed above, all consulted on 2026-07-29, put a standard commercial engagement somewhere between US$5,000 and US$35,000, with enterprise programmes, IoT work and red team exercises running well above US$50,000. Every one of those figures belongs to the vendor that published it, and each link is in the section above. Treat them as planning bands, not averages: the same web application appears at US$5,000 in one guide and US$30,000 in another because the word covers two different amounts of work.
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