Most organizations spend on tools and technology, people and expertise, and processes like managing vulnerabilities, incident response, and recovery.

The average cost of cybersecurity services varies greatly depending on the size of your business, industry, and risk profile. Still, most organizations have a budget and spend money on some combination of these three categories.

Here's the cycle most businesses fall into. Something security-related happens. It can be an incident that hits your business, another business, or you just read about some new hack in the news. Fear kicks in, and you buy a new tool. But here's the real problem. You don't just buy one tool that addresses the issue you're worried about. You buy a ton of tools that all overlap with each other.

Alerts, alerts, alerts. We wrote before about how alert fatigue is a real problem. But not only do those alerts create headaches for your security staff, but they also represent a hidden labor cost. How much time does your team spend poring over low-value alerts and false positives?

That's right. Building an internal security team that can monitor your systems around the clock is a huge strain on any budget. The alternative? Huntress SOC provides 24/7 monitoring and threat response without the overhead of building your own team.

Several elements factor into cybersecurity pricing:

• Size of business: More employees, more devices, and more data mean more expensive licenses and higher overall cybersecurity complexity.

• Industry: Healthcare and financial services have more regulatory compliance requirements.

• IT complexity: Your network security costs increase as your number of locations, remote workers, and integrations with third-party systems grow.

• Current security program maturity: Starting a cybersecurity program from scratch costs more than enhancing an existing program.

• Compliance needs: Speaking of compliance, if you need to meet certain cybersecurity standards, you'll also need to account for cybersecurity audit costs and possibly continuous monitoring expenses.

The cost of cybersecurity services varies wildly depending on the factors above. Small companies can spend anywhere from $5,000 to $50,000 per year or more. Large enterprises with more complex environments can spend millions each year.

However, just because you spend $100K or $10 million doesn't mean you're getting good value. What you need to ask yourself is “Did those tools actually provide good coverage?” or “Do we have someone who can monitor alerts and respond to threats?”

The direct costs of a cyber attack include:

• Incident response

• Forensic investigation

• Restoration costs

• Ransomware payments (if applicable)

But that's just the beginning of cyber attack costs. Your business will likely encounter downtime while you restore systems. Businesses often lose tens of thousands of dollars per day when they can't operate normally.

Beyond downtime, you’re facing regulator fines. Legal fees. Credit monitoring. Loss of customer trust. Business reputation harm. Churn. Increased cyber insurance premiums. You get the idea. 

The cost of a cyber attack extends far beyond the initial breach. It includes everything from immediate response expenses to long-term reputation damage that can take years to recover from. Research consistently shows the average cost of a data breach far outweighs the typical cybersecurity budget. For a small business, a successful cyber attack could destroy your company.

Let's talk about what you can do to stop throwing money away on cybersecurity. Spend intelligently so you can reduce your risk without going broke.

Are you addressing the most common attack vectors or wasting money on tools with limited or no response value?

It's time to stop reacting to the latest hype and start protecting your business against the actual threats that cause breaches. Verizon’s report shows phishing, stolen credentials, and ransomware as the top threats to businesses. 

If your security tool just throws alerts at you with no clear way to respond, it's probably wasting your money. Spend money on detecting and responding to threats instead of cleaning up after incidents.

Controls that can help you prevent and mitigate actual cyber attacks include:

• Endpoint detection and response (EDR): Stopping ransomware and other types of malware at the source.

• Identity monitoring:Limits the damage that stolen credentials cause. 

• Centralized logging: Makes it easier for your security tools to identify malicious behavior.

We get it. Many vendors ignore the reality that the cost of cybersecurity for small businesses needs to be both affordable and effective. You shouldn't have to choose between protection and staying profitable. 

We built Huntress from the ground up to help you consolidate. We cover endpoints, identities, and logs all in one platform. Native integrations mean less work on your part to maintain overly complex security toolchains.

Managed services save you money

Managed services don't require you to hire expensive, in-demand security professionals. Your managed services provider does that for you. 

Fewer alerts mean your team can spend more time working on your business. Less time dealing with alerts and hopping between tools means you spend less money. Huntress gives you effective security at a price you can afford. Coverage you can rely on without unnecessary complexity.

Try Huntress free today. We help businesses consolidate tooling, reduce staffing costs, and focus security spend on the risks attackers exploit most, all without cutting corners.