vCISO services for the strategic 20%.

Common questions

What buyers ask us

• Where can I get affordable vCISO services with audit preparation?

  Here — audit preparation is one of our expert services (Audit Prep Package, 1x $7,000 fixed fee). It's a one-time engagement that gets your controls, evidence, and policies audit-ready before your SOC 2, ISO 27001, HIPAA, or PCI DSS assessment. Priced for small and mid-sized businesses without an in-house CISO, and paired with the vCISO Lite platform so the evidence you produce during prep keeps updating continuously after the audit.

• How much does a vCISO cost?

  Our expert services range from one-time fixed-fee engagements — Compliance Kickstart ($5,000), Audit Prep Package ($7,000), Quantitative Cyber Diligence (from $12,500) — to retainer relationships like Quarterly vCISO Review ($5,500/quarter) and Fractional vCISO ($8,000/month). That's substantially below the typical enterprise vCISO market rate of $10,000–$25,000/month or a full-time CISO salary of $250,000+. Every price is on the page — no consulting-shop discovery calls before you can see numbers.

• What's the difference between vCISO, fractional CISO, and CISO-as-a-Service?

  The terms overlap and are often used interchangeably, but they mean different engagement models in practice — we walk through the distinctions in detail here. Short version: a vCISO typically works on-demand or per-project, a fractional CISO is a dedicated part-time hire (usually 1-2 days a week), and CISO-as-a-Service is a productized offering that pairs a human expert with a platform. Our Fractional vCISO ($8,000/month) is a dedicated part-time hire; our Quarterly vCISO Review ($5,500/quarter) is closer to the on-demand vCISO shape.

• When does my company need a vCISO?

  Three common triggers: (1) an enterprise prospect starts asking security-questionnaire questions your team can't answer; (2) a SOC 2, ISO 27001, HIPAA, PCI DSS, or similar audit is on the calendar and no one internal owns it; (3) you've had a security incident, near-miss, or vendor breach that surfaced a gap. If you're pre-Series A and haven't sold to any enterprise customers yet, you likely don't need one yet — we go through the specific stage-by-stage triggers here. Get in touch anyway and we'll tell you honestly if you're too early.

• What's included in vCISO Lite's expert services?

  Six productized engagements today: Third-Party Risk Questionnaires (respond to enterprise security questionnaires on your behalf), Compliance Kickstart ($5,000 one-time — gap analysis, policy library, 90-day roadmap), Audit Prep Package ($7,000 one-time — evidence, mock audit, auditor briefing), Quantitative Cyber Diligence (from $12,500 — the QCD five-pillar methodology as a service), Quarterly vCISO Review ($5,500/quarter — ongoing security posture reviews), and Fractional vCISO ($8,000/month — dedicated part-time strategic leadership). Every engagement is anchored on the vCISO Lite platform, so the artifacts we produce (policies, evidence, control mappings) continue working for you after the engagement ends.