How Much to Charge for SOC as a Service & MDR
Struggling to determine competitive and profitable pricing for your SOC-as-a-Service or Managed Detection and Response (MDR) offerings? You’re not alone. The complexity of cybersecurity services, evolving threat landscapes, and varied client needs make setting the right price a critical challenge.
This article dives into the key factors, common models, and strategic considerations for deciding how much to charge for MDR and SOC services in 2025. We’ll explore how to calculate your costs, define value, structure your offerings, and present pricing in a way that wins clients and ensures sustainable growth for your services business.
Understanding Your Costs and Value Proposition
Before you can decide how much to charge for MDR, you must have a clear grasp of your operational costs and the unique value you provide. Unlike simpler IT services, SOC/MDR requires significant investment.
Key Cost Components:
- Technology Stack: SIEM, EDR/XDR platforms, threat intelligence feeds, automation tools, ticketing systems.
- Personnel: Highly skilled security analysts, threat hunters, incident responders, engineers. This is often the largest cost.
- Infrastructure: Cloud hosting, data storage, network bandwidth.
- Compliance & Certification: Maintaining necessary certifications (e.g., ISO 27001, SOC 2) and adhering to industry regulations.
- Insurance: Cybersecurity insurance tailored for service providers.
- Overheads: Sales, marketing, administration, legal, etc.
Calculate your fully burdened cost per analyst hour, per endpoint, or per client to establish a baseline. Your price must cover these costs and provide a healthy profit margin.
Your value proposition extends beyond just cost. It includes your team’s expertise, your proven methodologies, your response times (SLAs), and the peace of mind you deliver by reducing client risk and improving their security posture.
Common SOC/MDR Pricing Models
Several models exist for pricing SOC-as-a-Service and MDR. The best approach often depends on your target client, service scope, and competitive landscape.
- Per Endpoint/Asset: Pricing based on the number of devices (workstations, servers), network assets, or cloud instances monitored. This is a common and relatively straightforward model. Example: $5 - $20 per endpoint per month.
- Per User: Suitable if your monitoring is heavily tied to user activity or identity. Example: $10 - $30 per user per month.
- Tiered Packaging: Offering predefined service levels (e.g., Basic, Standard, Premium) with varying levels of coverage, response times, features, and hours included. This allows clients to choose based on budget and need. Example: Basic Tier at $X/month for core monitoring, Premium Tier at $Y/month for advanced threat hunting and dedicated hours.
- Percentage of IT Budget: Less common for pure MDR but sometimes used in broader managed security service deals. Can be hard to implement consistently.
- Value-Based Pricing: Pricing based on the perceived value delivered to the client (e.g., cost of a breach avoided, reduced compliance risk, freeing up internal IT resources). This requires strong articulation of ROI and can command higher prices, but requires deep client understanding.
Many successful providers use a hybrid approach, often combining tiered packages with per-endpoint or per-user calculations within those tiers. Moving away from purely hourly billing is crucial for scalability and predictable revenue in this space.
Setting Your Pricing Tiers and Add-ons
Tiered pricing is popular because it caters to different client needs and budgets while standardizing your delivery. When defining tiers:
- Identify Core Services: What’s the absolute minimum monitoring and response you provide?
- Define Value Adds for Higher Tiers: What advanced services (proactive threat hunting, vulnerability management integration, specific compliance reporting, increased analyst hours, faster SLAs) justify a higher price point?
- Consider Client Maturity: Tiers can align with client security maturity levels.
- Structure Clearly: Make it obvious what’s included in each tier and the value difference.
Beyond tiers, offer optional add-ons for specific needs. This could include specialized reporting, tabletop exercises, dark web monitoring, or integration with specific client tools. Add-ons increase the average deal value and provide flexibility.
Structuring and presenting these tiered options and add-ons can be complex using traditional static documents. Tools designed for interactive configuration can greatly improve the client experience. A platform like PricingLink (https://pricinglink.com) allows you to build interactive pricing experiences where clients can select their tier and add-ons, seeing the total price update in real-time. This simplifies the decision process for the client and helps you upsell effectively.
Factors Influencing Your Final Price
While models and costs provide a framework, several factors will adjust the final price for a specific client:
- Complexity of Environment: Highly complex networks, diverse technologies, or multi-cloud environments require more effort and justify higher pricing.
- Scope of Coverage: What assets, networks, users, or applications are being monitored? Broader scope equals higher price.
- Required SLAs: More stringent uptime guarantees or faster incident response times increase operational pressure and cost.
- Compliance Requirements: Clients in heavily regulated industries (healthcare, finance) often require specialized reporting and processes, commanding a premium.
- Client Sophistication: Less mature clients may require more hand-holding and foundational work, while highly mature clients might need more advanced, tailored services.
- Contract Length: Longer-term contracts might warrant a slight discount compared to month-to-month or annual agreements.
- Competitive Landscape: Research what similar providers are charging in your market for comparable services.
Conducting a thorough discovery process is non-negotiable. Understand the client’s environment, threats, and needs before presenting final pricing.
Presenting Your SOC/MDR Pricing
How you present your pricing significantly impacts client perception and your win rate. Avoid simply listing numbers; instead, frame your pricing around the value delivered – risk reduction, peace of mind, freeing up their resources, meeting compliance.
- Focus on Value, Not Just Cost: Explain what you do and why it matters in their business context.
- Use Tiering: Make it easy for clients to compare options and understand the steps up in value.
- Offer Transparency: Clearly outline what’s included and what might be an extra cost.
- Modern Presentation: Move beyond static spreadsheets or generic PDFs. Consider interactive pricing tools. While comprehensive proposal tools like PandaDoc (https://www.pandadoc.com) or Proposify (https://www.proposify.com) handle the full sales document lifecycle including e-signatures, if your primary challenge is allowing clients to easily understand and select complex service configurations like different tiers and add-ons, PricingLink (https://pricinglink.com) offers a dedicated, modern, and affordable solution for that specific step of the process. It allows you to create interactive pricing links where clients can configure their service package live.
Clearly presenting your pricing options, especially with multiple tiers and add-ons typical of SOC/MDR, is crucial. A tool like PricingLink can streamline this and provide a professional, interactive experience.
Conclusion
- Calculate Your Costs: Know your operational expenses inside and out before setting prices.
- Define Your Value: Price based on the security outcomes and peace of mind you provide, not just hours or endpoints.
- Use Tiered Packages: Standardize offerings to cater to different client needs and budgets.
- Offer Add-ons: Increase average deal value through optional services.
- Present Pricing Clearly: Use modern, interactive methods to help clients understand and choose their options.
Determining how much to charge for MDR and SOC services is an ongoing process that requires balancing your costs, the value you deliver, and market competitiveness. By carefully calculating your expenses, structuring your services into clear tiers with valuable add-ons, and presenting your pricing transparently using modern tools, you can build a profitable and sustainable pricing model for your SOC-as-a-Service or MDR business. Regularly review and adjust your pricing as your costs, services, and the market evolve to ensure you remain competitive and continue to grow your revenue per client. Consider how an interactive pricing approach, like that offered by PricingLink (https://pricinglink.com), could streamline your sales process and enhance the client experience.