7 mins

Managed SOC Pricing: What a 24/7 SOC Service Costs in 2026 and What Drives the Price

Ayush Sharma

Ayush is the Co-founder & CEO of CyberQuell. He has led large-scale Defender XDR and Sentinel deployments, built detection programs from the ground up, handled high-risk incident response across global enterprises, and built internal AI tooling to make security operations faster and sharper.

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Key Takeaways

Published list prices for 24/7 managed detection range from $8.99 per endpoint per month for endpoint-only coverage to $44,000 for 12 months for a package covering up to 100 users.
A UK government G-Cloud listing prices a Microsoft Sentinel managed SOC at £3.85 to £5.00 per monitored node per month, with a 500-node minimum.
Providers charge per endpoint, per user, per log source or data volume, or as a tiered package, and the model decides how your bill grows.
Onboarding, SIEM licences and data ingestion, incident response and longer log retention are the costs most often billed on top of the base fee.
Covering one analyst seat for all 168 hours of the week takes more than four full-time people before tools and training, so compare any quote against that staffing cost.
CyberQuell prices its UAE SOC service as a fixed monthly fee based on users and log sources, with no per-alert or per-incident fees.

Most managed SOC providers will not put a price on their website, which makes budgeting for 24/7 security monitoring harder than it should be. The price still follows a small set of rules: what you are charged per unit, how many units you have, and what sits outside the base fee. This guide shows the prices providers do publish, explains the four pricing models, and walks through what a mid-sized company should expect to pay.

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How Much Does a Managed SOC Cost?

Managed SOC and MDR services that publish their prices charge from $8.99 per endpoint per month for endpoint-only coverage to $44,000 for 12 months for an entry package covering up to 100 users. A UK government-listed managed SOC built on Microsoft Sentinel costs £3.85 to £5.00 per monitored node per month. Most providers, though, publish no price and quote each customer individually.

The published prices below are list prices, before volume discounts, and each one covers a different scope. Huntress prices each product separately, so endpoint, identity and log monitoring add up. Arctic Wolf sells a fixed package by user count. The G-Cloud listing counts every server, user, API and third-party log source, such as a firewall, as a billable node. That is why the cheapest headline price is rarely the cheapest service once your whole environment is counted.

Provider	Service	Published price	Unit	What it covers
Huntress	Managed EDR	$8.99 (MSRP)	Per endpoint per month	Endpoint detection and response, with 24/7 SOC included
Huntress	Managed ITDR	$4.80 (MSRP)	Per identity per month	Identity threat detection and response
Huntress	Managed SIEM	$4.00 (MSRP)	Per data source per month	Log collection and monitoring
Arctic Wolf	MDR Basic	$44,000	Per 12 months	Managed detection and response for up to 100 users
Cyber Security Associates (UK G-Cloud 14)	Managed SOC on Microsoft Sentinel	£5.00 / £4.50 / £3.85	Per node per month: up to 500 (500 minimum) / 501 to 3,000 / above 3,000	Servers, users, APIs and third-party log sources, each counted as a node
Microsoft	Defender Experts for XDR	Not published	"Contact Sales"	Managed detection and response for Microsoft Defender

Prices checked November 2026. List prices before volume discounts. Currencies as published.

If a provider will not show a price, ask for its pricing unit and its minimum before anything else. Those two figures tell you more about your final bill than any headline number.

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The Four Managed SOC Pricing Models

Managed SOC providers charge in one of four ways: per endpoint, per user, per log source or volume of data, or as a tiered package. The model matters more than the starting price, because it decides how your bill grows as the business does.

Model	You pay for	How predictable	Watch out for	Published example
Per endpoint	Each laptop, server or workstation monitored	High: the bill only moves when you add devices	A person with a laptop, a desktop and a server login counts more than once	Huntress Managed EDR, $8.99 per endpoint per month
Per user	Each person or identity covered	High: it follows headcount	Packages often stop at a fixed number of users, and the next step up is a custom quote	Arctic Wolf MDR Basic, up to 100 users for $44,000 for 12 months
Per log source or data volume	Each data source, such as a firewall, server or cloud app, or each gigabyte of logs collected	Low: it rises with every new system and with cloud growth	SIEM data ingestion is often billed separately by the SIEM vendor	UK G-Cloud listing, £3.85 to £5.00 per node per month
Tiered package	A bundle sized by endpoint count, with set features in each tier	Medium: you jump to the next tier as you grow	Longer log retention and threat hunting may only come with the higher tiers	eSentire, three MDR packages sized up to 500 or up to 5,000 endpoints

Per-endpoint and per-user pricing are the easiest to budget for, because the bill only changes when you add devices or people. Data-volume pricing is the hardest. Some SIEM-based services quote per gigabyte collected, and others per events per second (EPS), which measures the same thing in a different unit. In a Microsoft environment, the cost of storing that data is set by how Microsoft Sentinel charges per GB, on top of whatever the SOC provider charges for watching it.

Ask every provider which model it uses before you compare quotes. A price per endpoint and a price per gigabyte are not the same kind of number, and putting them side by side tells you nothing.

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What Drives the Price of a Managed SOC?

Six things move a managed SOC quote: the number of endpoints and users, your log sources and data volume, the hours covered, how far the provider goes in responding, compliance reporting, and the length of the contract. Two companies with the same headcount can get very different prices because of the last five.

Endpoints and users. This is the main billing unit for most providers. Under per-endpoint or per-user pricing, every extra laptop, server or account adds to the monthly fee.
Log sources and data volume. Each firewall, cloud app or server you connect adds data to collect and watch. Under per-source or per-gigabyte pricing, this is the line that grows fastest as more of the business moves to the cloud.
Coverage hours. Some services monitor around the clock but only respond quickly during business hours. Confirm that response, not just monitoring, runs 24/7.
Response scope. A provider that isolates infected devices and disables compromised accounts does more work than one that forwards alerts by email, and its price reflects that.
Compliance reporting. Monthly reports mapped to frameworks such as ISO 27001 or the UAE’s NESA standards add scope to the service, and usually to the fee.
Contract length. Longer terms can lower the price. Arctic Wolf’s marketplace listing offers 12, 24 and 36-month contracts, with savings of up to 6% on a 12-month term.

For a longer list of the variables that move a SOC as a service quote, including cloud workload coverage and add-on modules, see our comparison of SOC as a service providers.

Book a call with CyberQuell to get a scoped monthly quote for your environment.

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What’s Included in the Price, and What Costs Extra?

A managed SOC fee usually covers 24/7 monitoring, alert triage and regular reporting. Onboarding, SIEM licences and data ingestion, incident response, longer log retention and advanced threat hunting are the items most often billed separately, or included only in higher tiers.

Item	Usually in the base fee?	Published example
24/7 monitoring and alert triage	Yes	Huntress states "24/7 SOC Management included at no additional cost"
Onboarding and setup	Often extra	The UK G-Cloud listing charges £1,250 a day for Sentinel design and onboarding, with a 5-day minimum
SIEM and Microsoft licences	Usually extra	CyberQuell's partner rate card states "Not included: Microsoft licences"
Longer log retention	Depends on the tier	eSentire keeps logs for 90 days on its Enhanced package and 365 days on Elite
Incident response and forensics	Varies	Some providers include response, others bill per incident or through a separate retainer. See what incident response retainers cost
Threat hunting	Varies by tier	eSentire's packages set different levels of threat hunting, so check what managed threat hunting is included at your tier

Onboarding is the extra most often missed in a first budget, because it’s a one-off cost that never appears in the monthly figure. Microsoft licences are the next. Most managed SOC providers watch your Microsoft Sentinel and Defender data but don’t pay for it, so the licence and data costs stay with you.

Ask for a written list of what is included and what is optional before you compare two quotes. A quote that looks cheaper often is cheaper only because more of these items sit outside it.

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Worked Example: What a 100-Person Company Would Pay

For a company with 100 users and 100 laptops, published list prices work out at about $1,379 a month for endpoint and identity monitoring from Huntress, about $3,667 a month for Arctic Wolf MDR Basic, and at least £2,500 a month on the UK G-Cloud Sentinel listing because of its 500-node minimum. The three figures cover different things, and that’s the point of the example.

Provider	What's counted	Calculation	Monthly cost at list price	What it leaves out
Huntress	100 endpoints and 100 identities	100 × $8.99 + 100 × $4.80	$1,379.00	Firewall and server log monitoring (Managed SIEM, $4.00 per source, extra), plus the deployment and portal management Huntress says its price "does not include"
Arctic Wolf MDR Basic	Up to 100 users	$44,000 ÷ 12	$3,666.67	Any user above 100, which moves the company to a custom private offer. Price based on a 12-month contract
UK G-Cloud: Cyber Security Associates	The 500-node minimum, even though the company has fewer nodes	500 × £5.00	£2,500.00, plus at least £6,250 one-off onboarding	Defender for Endpoint Plan 2, listed separately at £1.00 per node, and the Microsoft licences themselves

Huntress’s figure is the lowest because it covers endpoints and identities only, and log monitoring is priced on top. Arctic Wolf bundles a broader managed detection service but stops at 100 users. The G-Cloud listing is built for larger estates, so a small company pays for 500 nodes whether it uses them or not.

So the real 24/7 SOC cost depends less on the headline rate than on three things: what is counted, what is left out and what minimum applies. All three examples are list prices, and volume discounts or negotiated offers will change them.

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Managed SOC vs In-House SOC: Which Costs Less?

For most companies under 500 people, a managed SOC costs less than building one. Covering a single analyst seat for all 168 hours of the week takes more than four full-time people working 40-hour weeks, and that’s before holidays, sickness, turnover, tooling and training.

And that covers only one seat. An incident at 3am needs more than one person on it. An in-house team also needs a SIEM, endpoint tools, detection rules that someone keeps up to date, and a manager to run the shift pattern. Hiring is the other problem: 29% of organizations cannot afford to hire staff with the skills they need, according to ISC2’s 2025 Cybersecurity Workforce Study.

A managed SOC spreads those analysts, tools and shifts across many customers. That’s why the monthly fees in the worked example above sit well below the yearly cost of even one in-house hire.

Building your own still makes sense in some cases: at larger scale, when regulators require direct control over security operations, or when you already employ security staff you want to extend. For the full breakdown of staffing, tooling and hidden costs, see the true cost of running an internal SOC. For how the two models differ beyond price, read MDR vs SOC.

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How CyberQuell Prices Its Managed SOC

CyberQuell doesn’t publish a fixed price list, because scope varies by environment size, existing tool coverage and compliance requirements. For its SOC as a Service in the UAE, it charges a fixed monthly fee based on the number of users and the volume of log sources ingested into Microsoft Sentinel, with no per-alert or per-incident fees, so the cost is known at the start of each month.

CyberQuell offers a 30-day paid pilot to test coverage and cost before committing, and standard engagements run on 12-month terms. CyberQuell’s managed SOC runs on Microsoft Sentinel and Defender XDR. It includes 24/7 monitoring, proactive threat hunting and containment, backed by a 15-minute response SLA.

For MSPs that resell security to their own clients, CyberQuell publishes its partner rate card. Watch starts from $1,488 a month and Defend from $2,400 a month, with a 200-endpoint or 50-server minimum, no setup fees and a one-year term.

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How to Compare Managed SOC Quotes: 5 Questions to Ask

Before you compare two managed SOC quotes, ask each provider the same five questions. That way you’re comparing the same service, not just two numbers.

What is the billing unit? Endpoint, user, log source, gigabyte or package. You can only compare quotes that use the same unit.
What is the minimum? A 500-node or 200-endpoint minimum can push the real price well above the headline rate for a smaller company.
Is response included, or only alerting? Ask what the provider does at 3am: isolate the device and disable the account, or send you an email.
What is billed on top? Onboarding, SIEM and Microsoft licences, incident response, longer log retention and higher threat hunting tiers.
What are the term and the exit terms? Contract length, notice period and any fee for leaving early.

The answers matter as much as the price. A provider that answers all five in writing, before you sign, is usually easier to work with afterwards. For what to check beyond price, see our guide to evaluating SOC providers beyond tool coverage.

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Final Thoughts

Managed SOC pricing looks opaque because most providers quote rather than publish, but every quote comes down to the same three things: the unit you’re billed on, the minimum you have to pay for, and what sits outside the base fee. The prices that are published, from about $9 per endpoint per month to $44,000 for 12 months for a 100-user package, show the range. They don’t tell you what you’ll pay. Before you ask for quotes, count your endpoints, users and log sources. Then use the five questions above to make the quotes comparable, and check what each one leaves out before you sign.

Book a call with CyberQuell to get a scoped monthly price for your Microsoft environment.

Last Updated:

November 1, 2026

FAQs

Find answers to commonly asked questions about our cybersecurity solutions and services.

How much does SOC as a service cost per month?

Published prices for managed SOC and MDR services range from $8.99 per endpoint per month for endpoint-only coverage to $44,000 for 12 months for a package covering up to 100 users. At those list prices, a company with about 100 users and 100 laptops would pay roughly $1,400 to $3,700 a month, depending on what the service covers. Most providers quote each customer individually, so treat published prices as a guide to the range.

How much does MDR cost per endpoint?

Huntress lists its Managed EDR at $8.99 per endpoint per month, with its 24/7 SOC included, and identity monitoring at $4.80 per identity on top. Most other MDR providers also price per endpoint but only share the rate in a quote. Volume discounts usually bring the per-endpoint price down as device numbers grow.

Is a managed SOC cheaper than building one in-house?

For most companies under 500 people, yes. Covering one analyst seat for all 168 hours of the week takes more than four full-time people before tooling, training and turnover, while a managed SOC spreads its analysts and tools across many customers. Larger organizations that need direct control for regulatory reasons may still choose to build. See the true cost of running an internal SOC.

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Why don’t most managed SOC providers publish prices?

The cost depends on each customer’s endpoints, log volume, coverage hours and how much response is included, so most providers price every environment on a quote. Microsoft’s own Defender Experts for XDR, for example, shows only a “Contact Sales” option. The prices that are public tend to appear on vendor pricing pages, cloud marketplaces and UK G-Cloud listings.

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Are Microsoft Sentinel costs included in a managed SOC price?

Often not. Microsoft bills Sentinel separately for the data you collect and keep (see how Microsoft Sentinel pricing works), and CyberQuell’s own partner rate card states “Not included: Microsoft licences”. Ask every provider whether its price includes Sentinel and Defender licences, data ingestion, both or neither.

How much does a managed SOC cost in the UAE?

Managed SOC pricing in the UAE is usually quoted rather than published, and depends on your users, log sources and compliance reporting needs. CyberQuell prices its UAE SOC as a Service as a fixed monthly fee based on the number of users and the volume of log sources ingested into Microsoft Sentinel, with no per-alert or per-incident fees. It offers a 30-day pilot, and standard terms are 12 months. Reporting mapped to NESA, ADHICS or Dubai ISR adds scope, so include it when you ask for a quote.

How long are managed SOC contracts?

Terms of 12 months are common, and longer terms can lower the price. Arctic Wolf’s marketplace listing offers 12, 24 and 36-month contracts, with savings of up to 6% on 12 months. CyberQuell’s standard engagements run on 12-month terms, with a 30-day paid pilot available first.

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