Last data review: September 29, 2026. The CyberCostLab Small Business Cybersecurity Cost Model is a transparent planning framework for estimating security spending. It is not a market-average survey, vendor quote, or guarantee of what a specific business should spend.
Why this model exists
Cybersecurity budgets are often presented as a single annual range. That can hide an important fact: two companies with the same employee count can have very different costs depending on the productivity platform they already license, the number of devices they protect, whether security features are already bundled, and whether the company manages controls internally or pays a provider. CyberCostLab therefore models costs from individual components rather than starting with an arbitrary company-size multiplier.
Model rules
- Use publicly listed vendor prices when a comparable published price exists.
- Record the observation date and billing basis.
- Separate productivity-suite spending from incremental security spending so existing licenses are not counted twice.
- Separate per-user, per-device, fixed, and service costs.
- Exclude temporary promotional discounts from baseline scenarios.
- Do not treat a product price as proof that a product is necessary for every business.
- Show assumptions and exclusions so a reader can reproduce the arithmetic.
Published price inputs
| Component | Published price used | Billing basis | What the model uses it for |
|---|---|---|---|
| Microsoft Defender for Business | $3.00 | per user/month, annual subscription | Standalone endpoint protection reference |
| Microsoft 365 Business Standard | $14.00 | per user/month, annual subscription | Productivity baseline for Microsoft scenarios |
| Microsoft 365 Business Premium | $22.00 | per user/month, annual subscription | Bundled productivity + security scenario |
| 1Password Teams Starter Pack | $24.95 | per month for up to 10 members, paid annually | Password-management reference for very small teams |
| 1Password Business | $8.99 | per user/month, paid annually | Password-management business reference |
| Bitwarden Teams | $4.00 | per user/month, billed annually | Password-management alternative reference |
| Backblaze Business Backup | $99 | per computer/year | Endpoint backup reference |
| Google Workspace Business Standard | $14.00 | per user/month, standard listed price | Google productivity baseline |
| Google Workspace Business Plus | $22.00 | per user/month, standard listed price | Google scenario with additional retention and endpoint-management capabilities |
Prices above are public list prices observed on vendor websites on September 29, 2026. Taxes, regional pricing, negotiated discounts, promotions, minimum commitments, implementation labor and optional add-ons can change actual spending. Vendor features and prices can change after publication.
Avoiding double counting
The model distinguishes total technology subscription cost from incremental cybersecurity cost. For example, Microsoft 365 Business Premium already includes Defender for Business, Defender for Office 365 P1, Intune Plan 1 and Entra ID Plan 1. A company already paying for Business Premium should not automatically add the standalone list prices of those products again. The relevant decision is whether the included capabilities meet the company’s requirements and are actually configured and managed.
Reproducible example: 10-person Microsoft 365 office
Assume 10 users, one primary computer per user, annual billing, and no temporary discounts. Microsoft 365 Business Standard costs $14 × 10 × 12 = $1,680/year. Business Premium costs $22 × 10 × 12 = $2,640/year. The incremental subscription difference is therefore $960/year, or $8 per user per month. That difference buys a bundle that includes Defender for Business, Defender for Office 365 P1, Intune Plan 1 and Entra ID Plan 1 in addition to the Business Standard feature set. This does not mean the upgrade is automatically the correct choice; it makes the cost of that specific security path explicit.
If the same 10-person company instead retained Business Standard and added the published standalone Defender for Business price, the endpoint-protection subscription would add $3 × 10 × 12 = $360/year. Adding Bitwarden Teams at its published $4 per user/month would add another $480/year. These components can be compared with the Premium upgrade, but they are not feature-equivalent packages.
What is not yet included
Managed security provider fees, security-awareness training, cyber insurance premiums, hardware security keys, server protection, compliance consulting, incident-response retainers and internal staff time are not assigned a universal price in this version unless CyberCostLab can support the input with a sufficiently comparable public source. They should be added as explicit scenario inputs rather than hidden inside a multiplier.
Source register
- Microsoft 365 Security pricing for business — accessed September 29, 2026.
- Microsoft Defender for Business — accessed September 29, 2026.
- Google Workspace pricing — accessed September 29, 2026.
- 1Password business pricing — accessed September 29, 2026.
- Bitwarden business pricing — accessed September 29, 2026.
- Backblaze Cloud Backup pricing — accessed September 29, 2026.
Maintenance and corrections
This is a living data model. CyberCostLab will re-check source prices when materially updating the calculator or related cost guides and will record material methodology changes here. If a vendor changes a price between reviews, the vendor’s current page takes precedence over the historical observation recorded here.
Changelog
September 29, 2026 — Version 1.0: Replaced the earlier company-size planning-range approach with a component-based methodology using dated public price inputs and explicit assumptions.