If you've tried to price security awareness training, you've probably hit the same wall everyone does: almost nobody publishes their rates. You fill out a form, a rep calls, and the number you get depends on how the conversation goes. This guide gives you the actual market picture — and since we publish our own pricing, we'll use real figures where most articles wave their hands.
The market in one table
Security awareness programs cluster into three bands. Prices below are per employee, per year, based on published rates and commonly reported quote ranges — treat the unpublished ones as ballparks, because that's all anyone outside those sales calls has.
| Program type | Typical cost / employee / yr | What you get |
|---|---|---|
| Content library (self-serve) | $10–$30 | Video modules, canned phishing templates, completion tracking. Your team runs everything. |
| Managed platform | $25–$45 | Platform plus help running campaigns, better simulations, reporting for auditors. |
| Human + AI program | $30–$60+ | Behavioral specialists, live workshops, AI-personalized simulations, individual risk scoring. |
What actually drives the price
Headcount. Nearly everyone prices per seat, with volume discounts at scale and annual minimums at the small end. A 15-person company usually pays the minimum, not seat-price × 15.
Simulation quality and frequency. Quarterly canned phishing templates are cheap. Monthly AI-generated campaigns that mirror current attacker tradecraft — including deepfake and voice-clone lures — cost more and change behavior faster, because employees can't pattern-match their way through them.
Live humans. Self-serve video is the cheapest thing in the industry and the least effective. Live workshops and executive briefings add real cost and are where behavior actually shifts.
Compliance reporting. If you answer to HIPAA, SOC 2, PCI or GDPR auditors, you need evidence: completion records, simulation results, improvement trends. Platforms charge for the packaging.
Worked examples (our published rates)
Archer Security publishes three tiers: $30 (Essentials), $45 (Professional) and $60 (Enterprise) per employee per year. Here's what that means in practice:
| Company size | Fitting tier | Annual cost | Why |
|---|---|---|---|
| 25 employees | Essentials | $1,500 | 25 × $30 = $750, below the $1,500 minimum — the minimum applies. |
| 100 employees | Professional | $6,000 | 100 × $45 = $4,500, below the $6,000 minimum — the minimum applies. |
| 250 employees | Professional | $11,250 | 250 × $45. Includes live workshops and the compliance pack. |
| 800 employees | Enterprise | $48,000 | 800 × $60. Adds deepfake simulations, exec briefings, predictive risk scoring. |
Full tier details are on our pricing page — no form, no call required.
The cost of not training
The comparison that matters isn't vendor vs. vendor — it's program vs. incident. Industry breach reports have put the human element behind the large majority of breaches for years running, and the median business email compromise loss reported to the FBI's IC3 runs well into five figures. One prevented wire-fraud incident pays for a decade of training for a small company. Insurers have noticed too: training cadence and phishing simulation questions now appear on most cyber insurance applications — see our guide to what underwriters look for.
Not sure what you need yet?
Take the free 2-minute Defense Score assessment. You'll see exactly where your organization is exposed — which is the honest way to decide how much program you actually need to buy.
FAQ
How much does security awareness training cost per employee?
Self-serve platforms typically run $10–$30 per employee per year; programs with live training, personalized simulations and compliance reporting run $30–$60+. Our published rates are $30/$45/$60 by tier.
Why don't most vendors publish pricing?
Per-deal quoting lets sales size the price to the buyer. It also makes comparison shopping hard, which is the point. We publish ours because SMB buyers shouldn't need three discovery calls to see a number.
Are there minimums?
Almost universally, yes. Ours are published: $1,500, $6,000 and $25,000 per year by tier. If a vendor won't state their minimum, ask early — it's the number that actually matters for small teams.
Does training reduce insurance premiums?
A documented program improves insurability with many carriers, and some price for it. More importantly, misrepresenting your training program on an application can jeopardize a claim.