How much does SOC 2 cost in Canada?

A first SOC 2 Type 2 in Canada lands between $35,000 and $90,000 CAD once you count everything, and the audit fee is rarely the biggest line.

Last reviewed 2026-08-16Written by Jacob Masse, TrazTech Inc.

For a Canadian software company under 100 staff, a first SOC 2 Type 2 report costs $35,000 to $90,000 CAD in year one. A very small company that does the preparation internally and skips a compliance platform can land near $25,000 CAD. A company with several products, multiple cloud accounts and three or four Trust Services Criteria in scope will pass $150,000 CAD.

The audit fee itself is usually only a third of the total. Below is the full picture in Canadian dollars, line by line, with what moves each number.

Total first-year cost, all in

Lean means the Security criteria only, one production environment, readiness done internally, and either no platform or the cheapest tier. Heavy means multiple criteria, more than one environment or product in scope, and a consultant running the program.

Line one: the audit fee

This is what the CPA firm charges to perform the engagement and sign the opinion. It is the only line you cannot avoid, and it is priced on the hours the engagement partner expects to spend, which tracks the number of controls, the number of systems, and how organized you are.

Two things push this number that companies do not expect. Each Trust Services Criteria beyond Security adds roughly 10 to 25 percent, because it adds controls and evidence. And a Type 1 followed by a Type 2 in the same year costs more in total than going straight to a Type 2, because you are paying for two engagements. Whether that is worth it depends entirely on whether the Type 1 unblocks revenue.

Line two: readiness support

Readiness is the work of getting from where you are to a control environment an auditor will pass. Writing policies that describe what you actually do, setting up access reviews, fixing logging, building a vendor register, and collecting the first round of evidence.

Doing readiness internally is genuinely viable and it is what we would suggest for most small engineering-led companies with no deadline pressure. The cost is elapsed time and the learning curve of knowing what an auditor accepts. If a signed contract is waiting on the report, paying for speed is rational. SOC2Prep covers the work in detail, and HireACISO covers the fractional model.

Line three: the compliance platform

Vanta, Drata, Sprinto and their competitors price per employee with a floor, and they discount hard on multi-year commitments. Published list prices are rare and the number you are quoted depends on headcount, framework count and how close it is to the end of their quarter.

Price this over three years, not one. The subscription renews, it rises with headcount, and the switching cost climbs as your evidence history accumulates inside it. A two or three year term usually buys a meaningful discount, and it is worth taking only if you are confident about the framework and the vendor. Our Vanta and Drata comparison covers where each one earns the money and where neither does.

Line four: the penetration test

SOC 2 does not name a penetration test as a requirement in the criteria, but in practice auditors expect one, and buyers reading your report look for it. Price tracks scope and days of tester time.

Book this early in the observation window rather than late. Findings need remediation, remediation needs a retest, and a critical finding discovered two weeks before fieldwork is a bad week for everyone. GetPentest covers scoping.

Line five: your own team, the one nobody quotes

A first SOC 2 consumes 200 to 500 hours of internal time for a company under 100 people. That is spread across an engineer or two, someone in operations, and a manager who chases people for evidence. At a loaded rate of $80 to $150 CAD an hour, that is $16,000 to $75,000 CAD of real cost that appears on no invoice.

Renewal years drop to perhaps a third of this if you kept the program running rather than restarting it each audit. Companies that let evidence collection lapse between windows pay the first-year number again.

What actually moves the price

• Criteria count. Security only is the cheapest report anyone issues. Each added category adds controls, evidence and fee.
• Systems in scope. One product on one cloud account is cheap. Two products, a legacy environment and an acquired team's infrastructure is not.
• Observation window length. A three month window costs less to audit than a twelve month one, because there is less evidence to sample.
• Headcount. Onboarding, offboarding, access review and training evidence all scale with people, and so does sample size.
• Subservice organizations. Carving out AWS is normal and free. Carving in a subprocessor you control adds work.
• Your starting state. A company with no logging, shared admin accounts and no ticketing system pays for remediation before it pays for an audit.
• Deadline. Compressed timelines cost more everywhere, from auditor scheduling premiums to consultant rush rates.

Where to save, and where not to

Worth doing: run the readiness internally if you have an engineer who will own it, take the Security criteria only unless a buyer named another, choose a three month first window, and get renewal-year pricing in writing before you sign year one.

Not worth doing: choosing the cheapest auditor you can find. The report carries the firm's name and your buyer's security team may or may not recognize it. A report from an unknown firm gets read more sceptically, and a firm that has never audited a company with your architecture will spend your hours learning it. Also not worth doing: skipping the penetration test to save $10,000 CAD, because a buyer who reads the report will ask about it.

What year two costs

Renewals run 60 to 80 percent of the first-year audit fee, the platform subscription repeats and usually rises with headcount, the penetration test repeats annually, and internal hours drop sharply if the program stayed alive. Budget $30,000 to $60,000 CAD a year ongoing for a company under 100 staff, excluding internal time. SOC 2 is a subscription, not a purchase, and companies that budget it as a one-time project are unpleasantly surprised in month thirteen.

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