How Much Does Penetration Testing Cost?

Penetration testing, or pen testing, is one of the most effective ways to look for vulnerabilities in your network and IT infrastructure. However, penetration testing costs can vary depending on what you need from a cybersecurity action plan.

Generally, you can expect penetration testing pricing to cost between $5,000 and $30,000. However, depending on the breadth of vulnerability scanning and the types of penetration tests you require, you could see costs escalate to as high as $100,000.

It’s always wise to plan ahead for costing penetration testing service! In this guide, we’ll take you through what can affect the average pen test cost, and why it’s worth investing in high-quality support.

How Much Does Penetration Testing Cost?

Industry research – and our experience here at VikingCloud – suggests you can expect to pay between $5,000 and $30,000 for a penetration test.

Keep in mind that a penetration testing company may charge an hourly rate, an upfront fee, or a subscription fee, so clear communication with your chosen provider is essential for aligning expectations on information security assessments.

Before we go more in-depth regarding the cost factors involved with an internal or external penetration test, here’s a quick breakdown of overall cost based on each type:

• Network penetration testing: Typically up to $1,000 per device
• Web application penetration testing: Typically up to $50,000 per test
• Cloud penetration testing: Typically up to $50,000 per test
• API penetration testing: Typically up to $30,000 per test
• Mobile application penetration testing: Typically up to $40,000 per test

As you can see, for far-reaching internal network security testing and cloud assessments, the cost of your action plan can build up. That’s why it’s important to work with a security team that’s upfront with you about how it costs your testing methodology and remediation efforts.

What Impacts the Cost of a Penetration Test?

The following factors usually impact the cost of a pen test, regardless of type:

• Size and Complexity (Scope of the Test): Do you have specific testing needs that you’d like your pen testing team to address? The more devices you need to be tested, and the more tools and expertise you require from penetration testers, the more you can expect to pay.
• Depth of Testing and Retesting: You can also expect penetration testing costs to increase if you expect your testers to perform in-depth testing. For instance, a white box penetration testing plan which involves researching and understanding your complete setup might cost more than the average black box penetration testing.
• Duration: Penetration testers need to account for labor and timescales. It’s especially likely when you’re paying testers by the hour, for example, that costs will increase if you need your team to spend longer hacking your network.
• Functionality and Methodology: Think carefully about the how. What exactly do you need your test to achieve? For example, with an automated vulnerability scanning assessment will cost less than a deeper, manual dive. If a tester needs to use advanced tools, it’s likely you will pay more for the privilege.
• Experience: The more experienced the professional you hire, the more informed and reliable a testing service they can provide. That’s going to mean you investing more in their talent and expertise, but potentially less on timescales. Testers with certifications such as OSCP will command more money, too.
• External/Internal Testing: By this, we mean onsite or offsite checks – external and internal penetration testing are two different types of tests. If you require a security team to run tests in-house, you might expect to pay them more for labor and travel time.
• Remediation/Report: Not all penetration testing services offer remediation alongside reports. That means some might deliver a report of your potential vulnerabilities and how to fix them – and nothing else. You’ll pay more for companies that can fix said vulnerabilities, too.
• Regulatory and Compliance Needs: You will pay more for penetration testers who help you keep in line with compliance standards such as those set by PCI DSS, the GDPR, ISO 27001, SOC 2, and HIPAA.

The Importance of Penetration Testing

Penetration testing is a thorough, reliable, and cost-effective way to ensure the cybersecurity of your infrastructure, web application, or other IT setup is fighting fit. Penetration testers work as ethical hackers to explore ways your network can be breached and suggest how to fix any glaring vulnerabilities.

Penetration testing offers business owners and operators incredible insight into the techniques and mindsets of legitimate hackers. Ultimately, while you might have a robust cybersecurity strategy and protect your data with the best intent, there’s a chance your security posture is weaker than you think.

Cybercrime is costing US companies an average of around $15.4 million every year. Hacking and data breaches not only affect reputation and customer safety, but also profit, revenue, and expense.

Therefore, more and more companies based in North America and abroad are using penetration testing to gain extra insight into how secure they really are. For many, pen testing services also help companies to navigate regulatory demands and practices.

Failure to meet regulatory requirements and compliance expectations, too, can be costly and damaging to even the most robust and successful brands.

Whether an external or internal penetration test, this type of cybersecurity assessment can ensure your infrastructure is extra protected against evolving threats.

Be they social engineering, code entry via forms and iOS / Android mobile apps, or traditional cyberattacks, penetration testing is an investment against the nastiest vectors.

Which Type of Penetration Test Should I Choose?

The type of penetration test you choose depends entirely on your individual cybersecurity needs. For example, if you’re concerned about external hackers breaching your web app or mobile apps, you might invest in external penetration testing.

Internal penetration testing, meanwhile, is recommended alongside. This type of pen testing assesses how secure your infrastructure is in-house – can you be sure that your team is doing enough to protect sensitive data? What if there are bad actors inside your organization?

Penetration tests can also split into the following categories, with brief use cases:

• Mobile application penetration testing: This type of test helps you find weaknesses in the security of apps developed for smartphones and tablets – specifically, those affecting APIs and their backends.
• Cloud penetration testing: Cloud testing involves digging deep into server functionality, data storage and applications used within an offsite cloud facility.
• SaaS / Web application penetration testing: This testing standard focuses specifically on SaaS apps and programs that face the public – and costs can differ depending on specific frameworks.
• IoT penetration testing: If you use any networked devices that communicate with each other through machine learning and automation, IoT testing can help you find firmware weaknesses.

Do also consider white box, black box, and gray box penetration testing. White box gives hackers full details on your infrastructure, while black box tests mimic a “blind” scenario. Gray box walks the line between the two.

Then, there are also red team and blue team exercises. These are creative scenarios where a red team of hackers actively attacks a client, while a blue team defends them.

All these types of penetration testing and methodologies can affect the average cost of your action plan and operation. However, you don’t have to know which option is right for you straight away.

The more effective penetration testing specialists out there communicate carefully with clients. With VikingCloud, for example, you can expect a thorough examination of your cybersecurity needs and careful guidance to a package that’s genuinely valuable to your operation.

How Frequently Should Penetration Testing Be Done?

You should undertake full penetration testing at least once a year, however, we recommend you arrange several tests across the year to ensure you’re protected against the latest threats.

Alternatively, it might be more appropriate for you to set up ongoing automated vulnerability scanning – through a service such as VikingCloud’s – and run manual tests less frequently.

Regardless of your needs, we will look carefully at whether regular, in-depth testing is more beneficial to you. Factors that could affect the frequency of penetration testing (that we recommend) include:

• Your data’s sensitivity
• Your team’s training needs
• The results of your initial penetration test(s) – were there any false positives, for example?
• Whether or not your hardware and software need regular patches
• Your company’s likelihood to grow, evolve, or change in any way in the short term
• Your compliance requirements
• How many devices and IP addresses you support
• Your current standing in the industry and with customers
• How and where you store, protect, and maintain your data

Crucially, just having a reputable firewall and all the right security integrations might not be enough to protect your service provider and your customers. We will never suggest you should ever run pen tests for the sake of it – but it is always better to be safe than sorry.

Conclusion

The overall cost of pen testing services will vary depending on what you need, who you hire, and the data you protect. Regardless, we advise our clients to avoid focusing on penetration testing cost – and instead on the potential loss they could incur if they don’t take action.

Penetration testing mimics hackers’ activities to help you understand how secure you look from the outside – and, in many cases, the inside. VikingCloud helps take the guesswork out of cybersecurity with a flexible, scalable, ethical hacking action plan.

Get in touch with our team now to learn more, and to start discussing your network’s security needs in an ever-evolving world of threats.