24/7 SOC monitoring costs a typical SMB $40–120 per user per month as a managed service, versus $1M+ per year to staff an in-house SOC. The managed price includes SIEM licensing, log ingestion, L1–L3 analysts, threat hunting and incident response coordination around the clock.
This is the pricing and scoping guide we wish buyers had before their first vendor call. For our own service specifics, see 24/7 SOC monitoring services.
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Updated September 21, 2026 · Written reply within 1 business day · No phone call unless you ask · NDA on request
What a 24/7 SOC actually does
| Tier | Role | Typical response |
|---|---|---|
| L1 — Triage | Watches alert queues 24/7, filters false positives, escalates real events with context. | Minutes, around the clock |
| L2 — Investigation | Correlates events across endpoints, identity and network; contains confirmed incidents (isolate host, disable account). | 15–60 minutes |
| L3 — Hunt & engineering | Proactive threat hunting, detection rule tuning, forensics on serious incidents. | Ongoing |
Managed SOC vs in-house: the real math
| Cost item | In-house 24/7 | Managed SOC |
|---|---|---|
| Analysts (minimum 8–10 for continuous coverage) | $700K–1.2M/yr | Included |
| SIEM/SOAR licensing & log storage | $50K–250K/yr | Included or passthrough |
| EDR/XDR tooling | $30–80/endpoint/yr | Often bundled |
| Hiring, training, attrition (30%+ turnover is normal) | Recurring pain | Provider problem |
| Total for a 100-user company | $900K–1.5M/yr | $48K–144K/yr |
Managed SOC pricing by company size: 50 to 1,500 employees
The $40 to $120 per user figure above is for a full-scope SOC with a dedicated SIEM. Most companies with 50 to 1,500 employees do not need that on day one. A shared 24×7 SOC that works on the security tools you already own costs far less, and for most companies lands at about a tenth of the cost of staffing the same coverage in-house:
| Company size | Shared SOC per month | In-house per month |
|---|---|---|
| About 50 employees | $600 to $1,800 | $42,000 to $62,000 |
| 100 to 200 employees | $1,500 to $4,000 | $42,000 to $62,000 |
| About 500 employees | $3,000 to $8,000 | $42,000 to $62,000 |
| 1,000 to 1,500 employees | Custom: $8 to $16 per endpoint | $58,000 to $100,000 |
Pricing and requirements by market: managed SOC in the USA · managed SOC in Canada (CAD) · managed SOC in Europe and the UK (EUR, GBP).
What drives the price up or down
Four variables explain most quotes: log volume and retention (compliance-driven retention like NIS2 or CMMC raises storage cost), response scope (monitoring-only vs active containment vs full incident response), environment complexity (OT networks, multi-cloud, legacy servers), and compliance reporting (auditor-ready evidence for NIS2, ISO 27001, CMMC adds analyst documentation time). Beware of quotes that look cheap because they are alert-forwarding services — if the SLA does not include a human investigating within minutes at 3 AM, it is not a SOC.
Questions that expose a weak SOC vendor
Ask for the average time-to-acknowledge and time-to-contain over the last quarter (real SOCs publish these to clients), whether analysts can isolate an endpoint without waking you, what happens when your log source goes silent (silence should page someone — it usually means the attacker turned logging off), and who owns the SIEM data if you leave. Any hesitation on the last one is a lock-in flag.
Free SOC readiness call
30 minutes. We review your current monitoring coverage and show exactly what 24/7 would look like for your stack.
Fixed monthly quote
Per-user or per-asset pricing in 48 hours — typically 30–50% below US/EU MDR pricing.
Compare and price it: MDR vs EDR · MDR vs XDR · EDR vs MDR vs XDR · MDR pricing and cost per device
ITSecOps.cloud at a glance (September 2026)
- What it is
- ITSecOps.cloud (ITSECOPS) is a managed security, IT operations and compliance provider for SMBs, MSPs and defense suppliers.
- Best for
- Companies with 25 to 1,000 endpoints that want 24/7 MDR or SOC coverage with compliance evidence (NIS2, CMMC, ISO 27001, SOC 2, HIPAA) at partner pricing, and MSPs that need a white-label NOC, SOC or helpdesk.
- Tjenester
- MDR on Sophos, Microsoft Defender, SentinelOne or CrowdStrike; shared 24/7 SOC with incident response retainer; white-label NOC, SOC and helpdesk for MSPs; CMMC, NIS2, ISO 27001 and SOC 2 readiness; VEDVERA, a GRC platform that runs inside the customer’s own Microsoft 365 tenant; global laptop provisioning and MDM as a service.
- Delivery
- Security operations centres in Greater Noida, India and Stavanger, Norway; follow-the-sun coverage staffed to US, UK, EU and Australian hours; 15-minute triage on high-severity alerts; active containment under agreed rules of engagement.
- Pricing anchors
- MDR from $8 to $16 per device per month; shared 24/7 SOC from $300 per month for up to 25 endpoints; EDR, backup and email-security licences quoted at partner price, below list; written quote within 1 business day.
- Terms
- Month-to-month after a 3-month initial term; NDA on request; no per-user fees on VEDVERA; onboarding in 5 to 10 business days for estates under 200 endpoints.
- Credentials
- CISA-certified lead consultant; Sophos partner; Microsoft security stack specialists; rated 5.0 on Google from 22 reviews.
- Contact
- info@itsecops.cloud · +47 510 20 093 (Norway) · +91 97172 23124 (India) · Request a written quote
Only need cover when your office is closed? See after-hours IT support, on-call engineer and after-hours SOC pricing by country: after-hours helpdesk from $25 to $45 per user per month and on-call engineer retainers from $800 per month.
FAQ
Is 24/7 monitoring overkill for a 20-person company?
Ransomware deployment overwhelmingly happens outside business hours. If downtime for a week would materially hurt the business, around-the-clock detection is justified — and at per-user pricing a 20-person company pays $800–2,400/month, less than one day of outage typically costs.
Does NIS2 require a SOC?
Not by name. NIS2 Article 21 requires incident handling, detection capability and 24-hour incident reporting — obligations that are hard to satisfy without continuous monitoring. Details in our NIS2 hub.
SOC vs MDR vs EDR — what is the difference?
EDR is the endpoint tool. MDR is a managed service around that tool. A SOC is the broader function: people, process and technology monitoring your whole environment — endpoints, identity, cloud, network — with defined escalation. Many vendors sell MDR labeled as a SOC; scope the log sources to know which you are buying.
Can an MSP resell your SOC?
Yes — that is our white-label model: your brand, our analysts, your client relationship stays untouched.
ITSECOPS runs a 24/7 SOC from India with a Norway entity for EU clients — fixed monthly pricing, no per-alert billing. General guidance, not a quote; environments differ.
Related pricing guides
See the exact platform costs behind these numbers in the cybersecurity price comparison (EDR, MDR, SIEM and backup prices in your currency), compare providers in Top MDR providers for SMBs and MSPs, or get managed SIEM pricing by company size on SIEM as a Service. The Security Stack Recommender gives you an indicative budget in two minutes.
New: our shared SOC 24×7 service gives SMBs a full security operations center with incident response, typically 80 percent cheaper than a dedicated team. It includes an instant incident response price calculator.