How Much Does Cybersecurity Cost for an Accounting Firm?

Cybersecurity pricing for accounting firms feels opaque because most providers won't put a number on it. The honest answer is that cost scales with two things: the size of your firm (number of people who touch client data) and how much of the work you outsource versus run yourself. The controls are largely the same whether you're a solo enrolled agent or a 30-person CPA practice — what changes is the operating burden.

Below are the four realistic tiers, what each covers, and where the gaps sit. Most firms land in the middle.

The Four Realistic Tiers

What You're Actually Paying For

The jump in price between “software” and “managed” confuses a lot of firm owners. You can buy EDR licences for a few dollars per device — so why does managed security cost more? Because the licence is the cheap part. The value is in someone operatingit: triaging the alert that fires at 11pm on April 14th, locking a compromised mailbox before it sends a fake invoice to your client list, running the phishing simulations, testing that your backups actually restore, and producing the documentation IRS Pub 4557 and the FTC Safeguards Rule expect you to keep. That's labour, and labour is what you're buying.

The same logic runs across every plan tier — we break down the general version of this in what cybersecurity actually costs for SMBs and MSSP cost per user.

The Compliance Floor You Can't Skip

Whatever you spend, there is a floor. Every paid tax preparer is required to maintain a written information security plan, and now affirms it at PTIN renewal. The IRS “Security Six” plus the nine FTC Safeguards elements are the baseline — multi-factor authentication, encryption, a designated coordinator, a documented risk assessment, and the rest. We cover exactly what the plan must contain in IRS Publication 4557 & the WISP every tax preparer needs.

The Honest Math

Industry estimates put the average cost of a small-business data breach well into six figures once you count recovery, client notification, lost billable hours during filing season, and reputational damage in a referral-driven business. Against that, a managed plan at roughly $5,000–$20,000 per year — depending on firm size — is a comparatively small, predictable, and tax-deductible operating expense. For a firm whose entire value is client trust and data, it is straightforward expected-value math.

The Bottom Line

Most accounting firms should expect to spend somewhere between $375 and $1,699 per monthfor credible managed security, scaling with headcount. Below that you're buying tools nobody operates; above it you're paying for scale or deep specialisation. The figure that matters isn't the monthly price — it's whether someone is actually watching when an attacker tries your firm during the busiest week of your year.

See our published plans and pricing for the exact tiers, or how we deliver them on the cybersecurity for accounting & tax firms page.

This article is general information, not legal, tax, or compliance advice. Pricing shown is indicative and subject to a written services agreement.