How much does a Microsoft 365 security audit cost?

The short version: Microsoft 365 security audit cost ranges from nothing (self-run scanners) to £750–2,000 per consultant day. Published fixed-price one-off audits sit between roughly US$450 and EUR 7,000, mostly driven by headcount, scope and depth. Brocent charges US$450–2,900 for a full CIS audit, priced by user count.

If you are searching for the Microsoft 365 security audit cost, you have probably noticed that the answers do not agree. One vendor says free, another says EUR 7,000, a third quotes a day rate and a range of days. They are not contradicting each other. They are selling four different things under one name.

This guide separates those four things, shows what each price actually buys, explains what moves a quote up or down, and then lays out our own price list in full, including what it does not cover. Prices from other providers were read on their public pages on 27 October 2026 and can change.

How much does a Microsoft 365 security audit cost?

The honest range is wide, so here it is in one place before the detail.

• Free: self-run scanners from Microsoft, CISA and CoreView. You pay with your own time and expertise.
• Per user or per seat, usually quote-based: monitoring platforms built for MSPs, usually sold to service providers rather than to end customers directly.
• Roughly US$450 to EUR 7,000 one-off: fixed-price audits where a person reviews your tenant and hands over a report. The spread is mostly scope and depth.
• £750 to £2,000 per day: consultancy day rates, where the audit is whatever you and the consultant scope.

For a small or mid-sized company with a single tenant, the realistic planning figure for a proper one-off audit is therefore in the hundreds to low thousands of US dollars, not tens of thousands. A large group with several tenants, or an audit that includes interviews and an on-premises Active Directory review, is a different project and is priced like one.

What kinds of Microsoft 365 security assessment exist, and what does each cost?

Free self-run scanners: what do you get?

Three tools are worth knowing about.

• Microsoft Secure Score is built into the Defender portal. It scores your tenant against Microsoft's own recommended actions. Microsoft states that it is not an absolute measurement of how likely you are to be breached.
• CISA ScubaGear is a free, open-source PowerShell tool that checks a tenant against CISA's Secure Cloud Business Applications baselines for Entra ID, Exchange Online, SharePoint, Teams, Power BI and Power Platform.
• CoreView's Microsoft 365 Tenant Security Scanner, announced in February 2026, runs via PowerShell and checks against the CIS Microsoft 365 v6.0.0 guidelines, producing an offline HTML report.

These are good tools and we use similar sources ourselves. What they do not do is interpret the output for your business, check controls that cannot be read by an API, or tell you what to fix first given your staff, licences and risk appetite. If you have an in-house engineer who enjoys PowerShell, they are a sensible first step.

Per-user monitoring platforms: what are they for?

Octiga, Syskit and Augmentt are examples of platforms that watch a tenant continuously and flag drift. They are priced per user or per seat, usually to an MSP that resells the monitoring. Augmentt, for example, states on its pricing page that final pricing depends on seats, tenants, modules and contract term, and asks you to request a quote. We could not verify a published list price for the others, so we do not quote one.

Monitoring answers "has anything changed since last month?" It is a different question from "is this tenant configured safely today?", although the two are often bought together.

Fixed-price one-off audits: what do the published prices look like?

Several firms publish a fixed price. These are the ones we could verify on their own pages:

• Creative Data Concepts (US): a Security Configuration Health Check at US$1,500, one day, remote, with a prioritised findings report within 48 hours. Read 27 October 2026.
• IT Partner (via o365hq): a Microsoft 365 Security Audit baseline at US$525 per project, three days, with a findings report, remediation plan and readout. Remediation is excluded. Read 27 October 2026.
• VidraSec (Europe): a Microsoft 365 Audit from EUR 7,000, three to five days including the report, with a live debrief and optional retest. Read 27 October 2026.

Three vendors, a spread of more than tenfold between the cheapest and the dearest. The difference is mostly time and depth: one to three days of configuration review at the low end, against a three-to-five-day white-box engagement at the high end that covers Exchange Online, Teams, SharePoint, Defender for Office 365, admin roles and Conditional Access, plus a live debrief and optional retest.

Consulting day rates: when do they apply?

When a quote is "time and materials", the day rate is the number to look at. On the UK government's G-Cloud framework, for instance, Transparity's Microsoft 365 Security Assessment listing shows UK day rates from £750 for a trainee architect up to £2,000 for the most senior roles, with security architects at £995 to £1,500 (read 27 October 2026). A day-rate audit can be excellent, but you only know the total once the days are agreed.

How do the four routes compare?

• Free scanners: cost nothing in cash, need your own engineer, give raw output and no prioritisation for your business. Best for a technical team that wants a quick look.
• Per-user monitoring: a recurring per-user or per-seat cost, usually via an MSP. Best for catching drift after you have a good baseline. It does not replace a full review with manual controls.
• Fixed-price one-off audit: a known amount, from about US$450 to EUR 7,000 depending on provider and depth. Best when you need a report and a roadmap by a known date.
• Day-rate consulting: £750 to £2,000 per day, open-ended. Best for complex tenants, multi-tenant groups or audits tied to a wider assurance project.

What drives the cost of a Microsoft 365 security assessment?

When two quotes differ by a factor of ten, the cause is almost always one or more of the following.

Number of users. More users means more accounts to review for MFA coverage, admin rights, guest access and stale sign-ins. Some providers price in headcount bands, others in days.

Licences. Business Premium, E3 and E5 expose different controls. Conditional Access, Defender for Endpoint, Purview and Entra ID Protection exist only in some plans. A tenant on E5 has more to check, and a tenant on a basic plan may have gaps that are really licensing gaps. Secure Score shows you recommendations for products regardless of your licence, so a licence-aware reviewer is useful.

Number of tenants. A group with several tenants usually needs a separate review of each, plus a view across them. Do not assume a single price covers all tenants.

Manual controls. The CIS Microsoft 365 Benchmark contains controls that no API reports on cleanly. Someone has to open the admin centres and look. Automated scanners skip these. An audit that includes them takes longer and costs more, but it is the only way to claim you reviewed the whole benchmark rather than the measurable part.

Intune and devices. Device compliance, encryption, enrolment and update policy add a second layer. Some audits include devices, others sell them separately. We offer a separate Intune device audit.

Evidence for insurers and Cyber Essentials. If you need to answer a cyber-insurance questionnaire or the Cyber Essentials questions with dated exports, the report has to be structured for that. This adds effort, so check whether it is included.

Remediation. Almost every fixed-price audit excludes fixing. Closing the gaps is a second project, priced separately. If a quote seems cheap, check whether it ends at the report.

How should you compare quotes for a Microsoft 365 audit?

A cheaper quote is not necessarily a worse one, but you need to compare like with like. Ask each provider the same questions.

1. Which benchmark, and which level? CIS Level 1 only, or Level 1 and 2? Or a vendor's own checklist?
2. Are manual controls included? If the answer is "we run a script", you are buying a scanner report.
3. Is it per tenant or per group? Confirm how many tenants the price covers.
4. What does the report contain? Look for severity, affected objects, remediation steps, a prioritised roadmap and effort estimates.
5. Is there a debrief? A written report with no call leaves you to interpret the findings alone.
6. What access do they need? Read-only access approved once by a Global Administrator is a better sign than being asked to share an admin password.
7. What is excluded? Remediation, re-testing, device audit and evidence for your insurer are the usual exclusions.
8. When is the report delivered? Compare turnaround as well as price.
9. Is the price stated with currency and tax? Avoid surprises.

A fixed price is easier to budget, but only when the scope is written down. A good fixed price Microsoft 365 audit quote reads like a short specification, not a headline number.

What does Brocent charge for a Microsoft 365 security audit?

We publish our prices. Our CIS Benchmark Audit is a one-time engagement priced by headcount, in US dollars and excluding tax.

What is the Brocent CIS Microsoft 365 benchmark audit price list?

• 1–10 users: US$450
• 11–25 users: US$990
• 26–75 users: US$1,800
• 76–150 users: US$2,900
• Over 150 users: quoted individually

The scope is the same in every band. Only the headcount changes the price.

What is included in every band?

• The full CIS Microsoft 365 Benchmark audit, Level 1 and Level 2, including the manual controls that automated tools cannot check.
• Evidence that is designed to be used when answering common cyber-insurance questionnaires and Cyber Essentials questions. We cannot promise any insurer will accept it, because each insurer decides for itself.
• A prioritised roadmap with effort estimates.
• A report delivered 5–7 business days after read-only access is granted.
• A debrief call.

Access is read-only. A Global Administrator approves our audit application once, which takes about 15 minutes. No admin password is shared, and you can remove the application in Entra ID afterwards. The checks read configuration. They do not open or copy documents in SharePoint or OneDrive. The audit is produced with our FINOS IT security auditor, with an engineer completing the manual controls.

You can see what the output looks like in our sample report. It is a fictitious client, Acme Capital, with 14 staff, a grade C score of 58/100 and 24 findings. The structure is what matters: findings by area, severity, affected objects and fix steps.

What is not included?

• Remediation and hardening. We quote this separately after the audit. Each change is approved in writing, tested and reversible.
• Intune rollout, data protection and backup. Also quoted after the audit.
• Any promise of compliance. An audit finds gaps. It does not make you compliant with any standard, and it does not guarantee an insurer's decision.

Current offers are shown on the pricing page. There is no free version of the audit.

Is there a managed option?

Yes. The managed option is US$6–10 per user per month and includes monitoring with a quarterly re-audit. It suits organisations that want drift caught between audits without contracting full managed IT. For wider support, see our managed IT security services.

One-off audit or managed monitoring: which one do you need?

A one-off audit is the right start for almost everyone. It gives you a baseline, a ranked list of fixes and a dated record. Monitoring only pays off once there is a baseline worth protecting.

Choose a one-off audit if you have never had a structured review, if a renewal or questionnaire is coming up, or if you need a budget for fixing things.

Choose managed monitoring if you already fixed the major gaps, change settings often, or have several admins who might make drift likely.

A common pattern is to do both in sequence: one audit, remediation, then a re-audit each quarter.

What happens between asking for a quote and receiving the report?

Knowing the steps helps you judge whether a timeline and price are realistic.

1. Scoping. You tell the provider your user count, licences and number of tenants. A good provider confirms the scope in writing before any work starts.
2. Consent. A Global Administrator approves a read-only application. This is a short task of about 15 minutes in our case.
3. Collection and review. Automated checks read your configuration. An engineer then works through the controls that need a human, such as settings only visible in the admin centres.
4. Report. You receive findings by area with severity, affected objects, fix steps and a ranked roadmap.
5. Debrief. A call to walk through the priorities and agree what to fix first.

If a quote skips the debrief or the manual review, the price may be lower for a reason.

FAQ

How much does a Microsoft 365 security audit cost?

It depends on what you buy. Self-run scanners are free. Published fixed-price audits range from about US$450 to EUR 7,000. Consultancies charge £750–2,000 per day. For a company of up to 150 users, the Brocent CIS audit costs US$450–2,900, excluding tax.

Is a Microsoft 365 security assessment cost based on users or on days?

Both models exist. Per-user pricing is common for monitoring and for headcount-banded audits. Day-rate pricing is common for consultancy. Whichever you choose, make sure the written scope states the benchmark, the number of tenants and what is excluded.

Is Secure Score enough, or do I need a CIS Microsoft 365 benchmark audit?

Secure Score is a useful measure, but it covers Microsoft's recommended actions, not the full CIS benchmark, and it cannot check the manual controls. A CIS Microsoft 365 benchmark audit goes further and adds judgement about your environment. Treat Secure Score as a starting point.

What is not included in a fixed-price Microsoft 365 audit?

Usually remediation, re-testing and sometimes device or data-protection reviews. Check the quote carefully. In our case, fixing is quoted separately after the audit.

Will the audit satisfy my cyber insurer or Cyber Essentials?

We cannot promise that. Each insurer and assessor decides for themselves. Our report is designed to be used as evidence for the common questions, with a dated export for each answer, but acceptance is theirs to give.

Do you need my admin password?

No. A Global Administrator approves a read-only application once. The permissions cannot change your tenant or read mail or document content, and you can remove the application at any time.

How long does the audit take?

The scan itself takes minutes. The report is delivered 5–7 business days after read-only access is granted, followed by a debrief call.

Why is the same audit cheaper from some providers?

Usually because of scope: fewer controls, no manual checks, one day instead of several, or no report depth. Use the comparison questions above to find out which.

Fix the obvious gaps first

Before you pay for an audit, close the controls you can fix yourself in an afternoon: enable MFA for every user, set the baseline Conditional Access policies and work through the Secure Score recommendations. The audit is then spent on what you cannot see from the portal.

Ready to get a price for your tenant?

Count your users, read the pricing page, and if you are over 150 users or have several tenants, contact us for a quote.